Musical Discussions

This is the place to discuss music! Discuss music theory, genres, tips, and tricks or whatever you want here. Try to keep it civil and only post educational tracks here that show your ideas or that teach us something. Ask questions too! I’m mostly a sound set expert, so I can help with making those sound better, but there’s plenty of midi experts around too. Yeau… yup, yup, yup… that’s all folks. Have fun!

ON SOUND SET DESIGN AND BASIC MIXING AND MASTERING:

Tip 1: Compose your work. Drop in fx to every channel you have sound sets on. Use filters on each channel and EQ every channel you use. Of course you also should be adjusting the volumes of each channel to have all of the sounds sit “evenly” in your mix (around the same decibel levels so particular sounds don’t stick out too much). The main thing with EQing (using the equalizer fx) is that you usually want to cut the mids and the highs in each channel by ear (usually around 15-25%, but season to taste). Occasionally depending on the sound type you also may need to cut (lower) your lows too.

Tip 2: You can also add multiple layers of fx to make your sounds more original. With sound sets, there’s an array of techniques you can use to create original sounds. You can stack the same sounds on top of each other, then use a stereo like effect (add fx (s) to one or the other or simply offset the lower or upper sound to make a new sound constructively), you can cut and rearrange each sound set sound and rebuild your own sound, or you can add layers of fx. The best results typically come when you use all three above techniques. With sound set design, it’s simply more of a trial and error process to develop cool original sounds… Keep in mind that the better sound sets you start off with the better your end results will likely be with sound set design (I strongly recommend buying sound sets or buying a premium account to make your life easier).

Tip 3: Mastering. Mastering is what you do after you have mixed your track and composed an original piece (hopefully with relatively original sounds as well). Again, add the EQ fx on the master channel (you may also want to lower or raise the volume of your entire track here as well). I recommend cutting your mids again here and possibly cutting your highs again (do it by ear to find the optimal settings for your piece). Most tracks should be compressed as well. Settings for the compressor should be roughly: Attack: 40%-60%, Release: 65%-75%, Ratio: 50%. All other settings should be adjusted by ear to your track for best quality. Other fx is also a judgement call. And there you have it, basic sound set design, mixing, and mastering.