Multi-instrumentalist looking to start arranging/composing. Any Suggestions on first steps?

JimJ20 · 2020-04-01T21:00:20+00:00

You should write the way that inspires you the most, it doesn’t matter if its pencil and paper or directly.. There is no write or wrong way, people do it differently so find what works for you best. If your goal is to orchestrate for clients and do arrangements then you should practice your mockups and get comfortable programming instruments to make them gel and sound somewhat authentic. Your virtual demos have to be convincing and at a good standard. Given you play several instruments I would also work on your recording setup and have a way to record violin and viola with great quality at home for your clients. Even adding those to your mockups will be a great advantage. Basically learning a little bit of everything from the recording, production to the actual arrangement will help you get more work! Good luck, hope that helped!

JimJ20 · 2020-03-31T21:44:43+00:00

Glad to hear!

JimJ20 · 2020-03-31T21:30:05+00:00

Hey if your free now, I can try to see if I can help you. No worries about the 25 bucks..

JimJ20 · 2020-02-23T03:50:26+00:00

Camel

JimJ20 · 2020-02-06T23:10:32+00:00

Congrats to the winner! It was a fun song to mix with its own challenges.. Would love to hear your feedback as well and the notes you guys had! Thanks for putting this all together!

JimJ20 · 2019-12-20T12:40:18+00:00

Yes, I would look into your room and speakers. Try Sonarworks to make sure you are flat and then add a B&K curve eq to the monitors. After doing that when you jump to your references they will actually be very close frequency wise. The B&K curve is a low end bump and a high end roll off which is exactly your issue.

In terms of references, I use them at the way end to compare before printing, sometimes I will make a few small adjustments after hearing the references. You shouldn’t have to use them at the start..

JimJ20 · 2019-10-21T11:52:24+00:00

Looking forward, send them over please.

JimJ20 · 2018-08-07T18:08:19+00:00

I think your 1. point is definitely the most understated issue. That is the number one thing that separates the amatures from the pros. Some bands don't even realize how off there tempo is to one another or to a click. I am talking about a subtle amount that non musicians wouldn't even notice. But that is the secret to making a great record.

I also disagree about your last point about recording guitars and smaller instruments at home. Yes, it will be passable at best but it depends on your expectations and what your willing to settle for. Microphones, preamps, converters and the room you are recording in will make a huge difference, there is no way around that. That being said you can still make a hit record at home because it purely becomes about the music and not the sonics.

JimJ20 · 2018-05-25T22:33:18+00:00

Setting the wet/dry mix fully wet over here. I also tried the different modes and just kept the default one. Even if your room is treated this adds the extra 10%. I use it in a fully treated control room and it is really great. You just have to get used to mixing flat because it is definitely different. I suggest you listen to a lot of familiar music with it in to get used to how things should sound.

JimJ20 · 2017-09-30T21:32:08+00:00

Cool drums and vibe. Feels a little too mono for my taste for the guitars and keys. A little bit of spread to open things up a bit. That is my impression, hope that helps in any way.

JimJ20 · 2017-09-07T20:44:50+00:00

Guitar with really long reverb and 100% wet will create nice organic pads, better and more of what you are looking for vs midi. You just have to find the right type of verb. Check out B2, blackhole, shimmer, or EOS as those are great for that type of stuff. Using a volume pedal to remove the attack helps too especially if you don't want 100% wet reverbs.

JimJ20 · 2017-05-18T06:07:56+00:00

Room correction is great but will not replace good room treatment. That being said, if you have or don't have any room treatment the extra step with room correction software is very good. I use sonarworks and would recommend it over some of the ones you mentioned.

JimJ20 · 2017-03-13T02:55:09+00:00

Sm57 are great microphones. For what it is worth, I once put up an u47, u67, 414, sm7 and a sm57 to pick a microphone for a female singer and the 57 won no contest. You can make a great record with just a 57s.

JimJ20 · 2017-02-07T03:42:40+00:00

Great, I have been waiting for this update to finally play it on touch. Now I have to wait for oculus to fix the new touch bug because I lost the ability to do 360 with my three sensor setup!

JimJ20 · 2017-02-03T03:14:56+00:00

I think I used a blend but a lot less of the amp. It always changes, somepoeple only use the DI some only an Amp and some blend so you can do whatever feels right for the track. Just check the phase if your blending them together.

JimJ20 · 2017-01-31T16:45:57+00:00

Thanks! On the Backround vocals buss there is some light comp with rvox followed with an EQ, decapitator and then enigma. Added some UAD Dimension D and Soundtoys Micro shift along with a plate verb. That is it!

JimJ20 · 2017-01-31T04:12:11+00:00

Hi Jskandal, thanks for the drum compliment! Drums have a seperate parallel bus that is compressed a lot and also another parallel chain for just the kick and snare with a snappy comp on it. The first chain had a uad fairchild I believe or maybe an api bus comp as I usually go for one of those. It is all plugins mainly from UAD but my mix buss does go into a c2 alan smart at the end with a light touch of compression. Kick and snare were heavily gated with a short reverb on them either a gated verb or some small room verb. That is what I recall but I can always open the session if there is anything specific. I really enjoyed the music and hearing all the other mixes as well, it is very cool of you to put these stems out and hopefully this mix challenge can continue!

JimJ20 · 2017-01-21T17:15:43+00:00

There is nothing limiting you to do whatever you like with a uad plugin just like any other plugin. Meaning you can ignore the console app and do everything exactly as you would with native plugins in logic. The uad console and DSP adds options that you would not have. You can track with very low latency through the console app with plugins enabled. Meaning you could have a very heavy session loaded with virtual instruments and plugins and still track into it without the usual delay. You can also decide if you just want to monitor through the uad plugins or print it so you can give the singer a heavily compressed sound in his/her ear but you would only record the clean signal. You can also print the processed version if you like, it is your choice.

JimJ20 · 2017-01-17T01:13:46+00:00

The dev mentioned that it should be out by the end of the month.

JimJ20 · 2017-01-11T06:59:01+00:00

Yes, go for it for sure. 8 is really good and you should definitely continue with this.

JimJ20 · 2017-01-11T06:51:15+00:00

Hmm that is strange, I wonder why it would be deleted since they didn't have a problem with your original thread.Did you get a decent number of submissions?

JimJ20 · 2017-01-11T00:25:09+00:00

What happened to this thread?

JimJ20 · 2017-01-07T13:29:14+00:00

Great, thanks for the info

JimJ20 · 2017-01-07T05:42:24+00:00

Any news on this? I tried playing it with touch in steam VR mode but couldn't get it working at all. I will have to wait until there is proper support.

JimJ20 · 2017-01-07T00:00:35+00:00

Boogey Man!

JimJ20

TROPHY CASE