On this thread, we like synthesisers.

[bmd]

In terms of levels that's not too bad. One thing you might want to think about is putting some reverb or pan on some of your parts to create a bit more space. Also you may want to use some EQ to highlight the main frequency range of each part, for example if you kill some of the treble on your bass part that might let you to bring the lead down a bit in the mix without it sounding any quieter.

Mixing is an endless rabbit hole though. The main thing is learning to stop, and accept that what you've got is pretty good.

Tyvm! Just those 2 paragraphs are really helpful. Panning, yes. I knew that, or at least, I was aware of it but I wasn't sure if it was as simple as directing different channels to the left and right. I tend to think myself past the solution half the time.

The ability to highlight some of the frequencies is mainly what I'm trying to do. I actually have the whole FabFilter suite but I'm exactly the same at mixing as I was before I bought it. Who knew! Seriously though, that's probably responsible for it not sounding like sonic soup. I was just reading about treble on the bass part and how it helps but it's just really good to actually talk to someone who can confirm it for my stuff. I literally do not know a single person irl who makes electronic music.

Lastly, right now I'm just fighting the volume. I sort something out but it just raises the overall volume, so I have to lower everything, reset the master and off I go again. Really appreciate your input..

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Cut EQ problem frequencies first, before you consider boosting others.

Learn to use compression.

Don’t go mad with reverb (unless that’s the specific effect you’re after) but used well it can really help glue a mix together.

Leave some headroom (5-10 dB) available for mastering once you’re happy with the overall mix.

Listen to lots of tracks you like/of a similar genre. Focus on why it sounds good, what tricks they’re using etc.

 

[shifting gears]

Tyvm! Just those 2 paragraphs are really helpful. Panning, yes. I knew that, or at least, I was aware of it but I wasn't sure if it was as simple as directing different channels to the left and right. I tend to think myself past the solution half the time.

The ability to highlight some of the frequencies is mainly what I'm trying to do. I actually have the whole FabFilter suite but I'm exactly the same at mixing as I was before I bought it. Who knew! Seriously though, that's probably responsible for it not sounding like sonic soup. I was just reading about treble on the bass part and how it helps but it's just really good to actually talk to someone who can confirm it for my stuff. I literally do not know a single person irl who makes electronic music.

Lastly, right now I'm just fighting the volume. I sort something out but it just raises the overall volume, so I have to lower everything, reset the master and off I go again. Really appreciate your input..

I haven’t checked the tune out as I’m at work right now but are you using compression?

A common use would be to send all your drum parts to the same “bus”, and then insert a compressor on that drum bus. You then can even out the overall level of the drums and play around with compression effects, this’ll often make your drums snappier and punchier. You can then just use the output level of the compressor to control the level of the drum mix

 

[SpookyFrank]

Lastly, right now I'm just fighting the volume. I sort something out but it just raises the overall volume, so I have to lower everything, reset the master and off I go again. Really appreciate your input..

Start with everything turned down, then you've got more headroom to move into.

 

[shifting gears]

Actually, I’ll ask some advice here too - all my gear is in storage but have just got Logic Pro and been messing around with some tunes using my Bluetooth speaker, all good fun but thinking it’s time to invest in some new studio headphones. I have a pair of Sony MDR-7506 in storage which I used to use for both DJing and studio work, but I’d probably go for something a bit higher end this time round.

Any tips? Must be good for bass-heavy electronic music. Budget prob up to £200

 

[danski]

Actually, I’ll ask some advice here too - all my gear is in storage but have just got Logic Pro and been messing around with some tunes using my Bluetooth speaker, all good fun but thinking it’s time to invest in some new studio headphones. I have a pair of Sony MDR-7506 in storage which I used to use for both DJing and studio work, but I’d probably go for something a bit higher end this time round.

Any tips? Must be good for bass-heavy electronic music. Budget prob up to £200

AKG K702 have a pretty flat response, comfy and don't seem to be tiring to listen to. I like mine.
Started using Reference 4 | Sonarworks with them and can hear exactly the places I always have trouble with (not that I've got round to going back and correcting suff yet )

General advice I've read is to keep production and dj headphones separate. They are for different things.

Some good info here Help with headphone choice - subsekt
It's a pretty good forum, if sometimes a little too focused on techno. The technical knowledge is excellent, however.

 

[danski]

So I accidentally bought a behringer td3.
It’s purple. Reminded me of Prince.


Jesus Christ, I bought a brand new 303 for 80 fucking quid!!!

It’s ace. Dunno if it sounds 100% lowdown although nothing a bit of eq/saturation/overdrive couldn’t sort but it certainly slips and slides nicely up top.

80 quid!!!

 

[bmd]

Just read back my first post on here.

So, programming drum machines. I could use a sample or a loop or whatever but I kind of want to miss out that part of my evolution. I want to make my own music and I don't want to sample them or cut them up or whatever. How did you learn to program drums? I have noticed that most people keep it very simple. Almost at the direct opposite end of the scale to Fela Kuti era Ginger Baker.

 

[bmd]

So I accidentally bought a behringer td3.
It’s purple. Reminded me of Prince.


Jesus Christ, I bought a brand new 303 for 80 fucking quid!!!

It’s ace. Dunno if it sounds 100% lowdown although nothing a bit of eq/saturation/overdrive couldn’t sort but it certainly slips and slides nicely up top.

80 quid!!!

£80?

They are around £110 now but you could pay £150 for one on a bad day. I've got a silver one. I haven't actually done a single thing with it yet except make sure it was well in shot on all of my Instagram photos.

 

[danski]

£80?

They are around £110 now but you could pay £150 for one on a bad day. I've got a silver one. I haven't actually done a single thing with it yet except make sure it was well in shot on all of my Instagram photos.

I love it. It’s so compelling.
I know what good acid sounds like and just wanna keep digging until I’m there.
Without realising, I’ve been waiting since 1989 for this.

 

[bmd]

I love it. It’s so compelling.
I know what good acid sounds like and just wanna keep digging until I’m there.
Without realising, I’ve been waiting since 1989 for this.

It's almost like it hits something in your dna, that sound. It is soooo good. And, more importantly for me, really hard to make it sound shit.

 

[danski]

It's almost like it hits something in your dna, that sound. It is soooo good. And, more importantly for me, really hard to make it sound shit.

Dunno if you’ve come across this but you can waste hours just messing...

 

[bmd]

Is it a website?

 

[danski]

Is it a website?

It was from here Phuture - Acid Tracks 303 pattern. - Gearspace

 

[bmd]

It was from here Phuture - Acid Tracks 303 pattern. - Gearspace

Gearslutz! Just fucking Muff Wiggler to go now.

Cheers mate.

 

[danski]

 

[bmd]

I started off selling my old stuff, like my K-2. Sold it. That taught me to never do anything so stupid ever again. I could buy it again, like I have with the rest of the gear I sold.

 

[bmd]

My Eurorack Modular


View attachment 207800


I also have a Roland V Synth GT, Nord Modular G1, Korg Mono/Poly.

Just about to empty my pockets/start my Eurocrack addiction. Is that an Eloquencer in the bottom left? It was that or a Westlicht Per Former and I went with the Westlicht in the end. Well, 2 actually. I'm selling one though. I've had them both built from scratch. The first one should be here tomorrow and the other one in a couple of weeks. It's a shortish story about why 2 but very boring. The Westlicht kit was put together by the same bloke who built the René, I believe.

What's the Akemie's Taiko like? FM drums isn't it? I love the sounds from it. I am pretty much stuck on putting together a Behringer Modular 55 system. It's a huge bonus that it is so cheap but I'd be putting one together even if it wasn't.

 

[bmd]

I actually came here to ask about Sampling. Like, tell me what you cba to type. Please and thank you. I have just started getting into it. I'm using the iOS Koala Sampler app right now. £6 and it is banging. Really really good. Plus it is still being updated with major features. £6

 

[William of Walworth]

I've jumped into this thread (and my apologies for missing most of the posts above so far ) because this obituary of Malcolm Cecil** was, for me, an amazing read!!

RIP to

Musician whose championing of the synthesiser helped shape a new sound for Stevie Wonder in the early 1970s

**Part of the first paragraph :

A couple of weeks away from his 21st birthday, Wonder was looking for a way to establish his musical independence. Cecil invited him in, demonstrated the newly developed Moog synthesisers with which they were working, and began a relationship that would help transform Wonder, already a successful soul singer, into an international superstar.

Read the rest!
Mr Cecil never stopped working by the look of it :

[They] were thrust into prominence by their role in the sequence of albums with which Wonder freed himself from the artistic restrictions imposed by executives at Motown, his record label. Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness’ First Finale, released in the period 1972-74, yielded such hit singles as Superstition, You Are the Sunshine of My Life and Living for the City, all of them enriched by the use of synthesised sounds. As a result, other leading artists came to them for a sonic update. Cecil and Margouleff worked on the Isley Brothers’ hit single That Lady (1973), and on recordings by Gil Scott-Heron, Syreeta Wright, Quincy Jones, Bobby Womack, Minnie Riperton, Weather Report and many others.

Hope that the above is somehow relevant to this thread.

 

[bmd]

Yeah, William of Walworth, glad you liked it. That was what I was hoping because that was what I learnt too. I had never heard of him before that obit. Such an amazing person and that is a ridiculous synth.

It mentions Serge in the YT vid that describes the modules in that synth. I had never heard of them before. I think similar gear is the Buchla range, which I have heard of. Like a lot of US stuff, synths were split into West Coast and East Coast. Buchla was west and wacky as hell. Mad that he had Moog and Serge together. They both still make synths today.

 

[bmd]

Suzanne Ciani is the most famous Buchla nerd. She is incredible. Just mind-blown every time I listen to her stuff. She also loves Moog and the first time I saw the Animoog was in one of her sets. Just mind how you go with her stuff. There's the piano-y musical version of Mills and Boon that she does, which is her most popular stuff by a mile. Then there's the good stuff, like LIVE Quadrophonic.

The Animoog is an iPad app that is £20 but I got it for a tenner on sale. £10 for a proper Moog synth! And it really is a proper synth. I love that app.

 

[bmd]

Animoog 1 Animoog 2

Here's a couple of ideas that I'm faffing with at the moment from the Animoog.

 

[bmd]

And here is the first module I ever bought in my Eurorack journey. Arrived yesterday and will be plugged in later today.

 

[xenon]

So I was able to get my dream synth recently, (inherited some money.) Well the thing I've been lusting after since it came out. Novation Summit.

An expensive battle ship of a thing but it's fucking incredible. Really fun to use. Difficult to not just sit tweeking and getting lost in the ambience playing through headphones. Even simple classic sawtooth pad patches are a joy.

Some quick ambient ideas I've been recording with it. No processing, just the synth and it's built in fx and modulation.

Yes I know, cheesy synth titles too...

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

 

[SpookyFrank]

And here is the first module I ever bought in my Eurorack journey. Arrived yesterday and will be plugged in later today.

View attachment 262221

Pretend I'm an idiot...what does this thing do?

 

[killer b]

So I was able to get my dream synth recently, (inherited some money.) Well the thing I've been lusting after since it came out. Novation Summit.

An expensive battle ship of a thing but it's fucking incredible. Really fun to use. Difficult to not just sit tweeking and getting lost in the ambience playing through headphones. Even simple classic sawtooth pad patches are a joy.

Some quick ambient ideas I've been recording with it. No processing, just the synth and it's built in fx and modulation.

Yes I know, cheesy synth titles too...

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

Yes! Jams!!

 

[bmd]

Pretend I'm an idiot...what does this thing do?

 

[bmd]

So I was able to get my dream synth recently, (inherited some money.) Well the thing I've been lusting after since it came out. Novation Summit.

An expensive battle ship of a thing but it's fucking incredible. Really fun to use. Difficult to not just sit tweeking and getting lost in the ambience playing through headphones. Even simple classic sawtooth pad patches are a joy.

Some quick ambient ideas I've been recording with it. No processing, just the synth and it's built in fx and modulation.

Yes I know, cheesy synth titles too...

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

You bastard!

I want one of those. They sound so amazing and what my tiny knowledge of synthesisers encompasses now is the understanding that the more money you spend the greater the width of sounds it encompasses. For example, I was looking at a Behringer Pro 1 last night. £215 new. Not bad at all but really, you get a synth that focuses on strings and a few woodwind instruments. Yes it can make parpy farty noises but it is best employed in those areas. The Summit, otoh, is just a massive rabbit hole of noises and is so worth the money.

 

[xenon]

You bastard!

I want one of those. They sound so amazing and what my tiny knowledge of synthesisers encompasses now is the understanding that the more money you spend the greater the width of sounds it encompasses. For example, I was looking at a Behringer Pro 1 last night. £215 new. Not bad at all but really, you get a synth that focuses on strings and a few woodwind instruments. Yes it can make parpy farty noises but it is best employed in those areas. The Summit, otoh, is just a massive rabbit hole of noises and is so worth the money.

It has so many possibilities for sound design. You can have the LFO's running at extremely slow rates, I think someone said minutes, so have evolving organic sounding patches. There's 16 mod slots and 4 fx mod slots. I had the LFO rate of one affecting the rate of another but with a slew setting so it doesn't effect it straight off. (copied that trick off a Youtuber TBH.)

The analogue purists might turn their nose up cos the actual oscilators are digitally generated by a field programable gate array. But that gives it more flexability. The amp and filter is analogue though...

I was nearly tempted to go for the UDO Super 6. The binaural sounds amazing. The guy who designed it, is just down the road. But it was too short for what I wanted, is only 49 keys, a few hundred quid more and the summit is 2 part multi timbral.

But all that said, more affordable instruments might not have the range of possibilities but still sound great in their own right. I'm still using my Volca Keys for example.