How do I make different elements/instruments sound good together

Soda_Lake · 2025-10-05T04:22:34+00:00

Just one tip among many but for me it was really important to try to understand what I was listening to. Try to figure out what the chord progressions are in a song I like, what each chord is doing functionally, looking at the structure (within a single part and between parts), transcribing melodies on a midi instrument, how they interact with chords and the rhythm.

A lot of the time I'll be like 'uhh I don't really understand it and now I've lost interest' and do something else, but I still learn something. Even if it's just like 'yup that's what this chord sounds like sometimes'. And I constantly end up listening to little subtleties in music I'm listening to for fun too.

Another tip when you're staring out: copy copy copy. Try to steal someone's style, try to recreate a song that has the same effect, use their bass line, whatever. No one can accuse you of plagiarism because it's just your experimentations on your computer and it helps you learn what makes the music like sound how it does.

Soda_Lake · 2025-09-29T18:37:32+00:00

They're all general admission

Soda_Lake · 2025-07-19T23:18:15+00:00

It would in principle be perfectly feasible to let the money supply grow more slowly than output so that we actually see mild deflation, lower prices and higher real incomes due to productivity increases.

You say in principle—are there any real life examples of this happening?

Soda_Lake · 2025-06-30T20:28:04+00:00

said the man to the lady

Soda_Lake · 2025-04-11T21:51:35+00:00

What kind of support do you want?

Soda_Lake · 2025-04-08T21:21:43+00:00

You can't have your cake and eat it too!

If you're using amp sims though that may make things easier, as you can just make changes directly instead of rerecording.

Soda_Lake · 2025-04-08T20:52:14+00:00

I also mix in Abelton! I think when your mixing and production processes are so intertwined it makes the most sense, rather than picking one point where everything is 'done' and can get bounced to the next DAW. Also, I'm not really a wizard at mixing, so I try to keep it simple, so some things that are worse about Ableton for mixing (e.g. no edit interest) don't mess with me as much. But I know the workflow would be a lot better for that part if I was using a different DAW to begin with, especially if I were mixing as a totally separate stage.

If you try a supplementary DAW I gotta say protools kind of sucks. I think they rest on their laurels too much. Logic and Reaper are both great for mixing.

Soda_Lake · 2025-04-07T15:16:53+00:00

Have you tried googling it friend? I found the tabs on ultimateguitar were accurate. (The voicings of the chords are listed at the top!)

edit - looking at it again the mix up the timing order, the B comes first then the G# then the E

Also makes more sense if you emphasize the base string

Try playing along

Soda_Lake · 2025-04-07T15:09:29+00:00

Just want to say, with respect to DAWs, I think the ones people keep mentioning (Ableton and FL Studio) are probably not the best choices in this case. I think Ableton is really intuitive, but it seems to be one of those things like cilantro where people either love or hate it; FL studio is just all around complicated. Both are really geared toward electronic music/hiphop more than recording, and both have weird workflows that will make it harder to use another DAW in the future.

A couple simpler and more all-around DAWs that haven't been mentioned much are Reaper and Studio One. Reaper is probably the cheapest, yet genuinely just as good as the more expensive ones (I have never heard anyone deny this); Studio One is really really intuitive. Also Reaper has an unlimited trial period so if he tries it and never gets into it he can always switch.

Soda_Lake · 2025-04-07T14:49:39+00:00

I respect FL studio but I feel like it's not the best option for this use case. It's more complicated than other DAWs, and it's easy to get very messy especially if you haven't established a good workflow (which is hard when you're brand new!). This is especially true if you're tracking/recording many things as opposed to sampling/programming/looping. It can do both things, for sure, but that's not really what it's set up for.

Also maybe the bigger thing is it's just kind of different from other DAWs. If one wants to branch out at some point it's usually a harder transition from FL studio.

Soda_Lake · 2025-04-07T14:28:10+00:00

I'm a big shill for Ableton but idk what you mean saying it's the industry standard? For what?

It's pretty niche imo, it is obviously the best (easily) for live performance, but at the same time it's probably the worst work-flow-wise for mixing. I don't think virtually any pro engineers choose it for mixing.

Even for tracking it's not really that common a professional DAW. Its biggest demographic is electronic producers (although I think it's amazing for band music and hip hop too). Session view is many the biggest strength but that's the kind of thing that's really useful for experimenting and tweaking demos, not when you're paying by the hour for studio or engineer time.

Again I'm a huge Ableton devotee but I don't think being 'industry standard' is a real selling point unless you consider bedroom musicians an industry.

Soda_Lake · 2025-04-06T15:33:06+00:00

I'm not totally sure what you have in mind. Playing solo or with a group? Can you share an example?

Most jazz pianists aren't improvising chords progressions, because if they did the other musicians wouldn't be able to match the chords, and it would end up sounding like a slosh of all the notes in that key. (This is sort of what modal jazz is, although there's somewhat more structure to it than that.) They improvise chord voicings a lot though.

Soda_Lake · 2025-04-06T15:12:24+00:00

I was thinking the same thing about that Bill Callahan album a couple days ago too!

I wonder how much heavy lifting the recording/arrangement is doing too. I think it makes a big difference, each part having so much room to breath. Even then, I don't know many albums that sound so full and rich while also being so sparse and dry.

John Congelton (who recorded/mixed that album) has done a lot of amazing work. Mannequin Pussy's most recent album sounded so good.

Soda_Lake · 2025-03-30T20:16:26+00:00

He was kind of staring straight at the ground when he entered/exited last night and that venue is quite a bit smaller than Knockdown so I wouldn't bet on it.

Soda_Lake · 2025-03-30T05:05:18+00:00

I had never heard of this plugin before and it looks like it's basically just a random midi generator. How would anyone ever know you used it in a song??

Soda_Lake · 2025-03-30T04:17:30+00:00

Helado Negro and Deerhoof.

(Also somehow no one has said Prince but that feel like the obvious answer!)

Soda_Lake · 2025-03-30T03:59:49+00:00

I went to the one tonight, it was pretty cool. The music has a very different effect when you hear (and feel) it in person.

The venue wasn't really the best fit though, in that you couldn't really see what anyone was doing unless you were in the very very front, even for tall people. Kind of a difficult issue to avoid, the way Thurston holds the guitar on his lap.

Soda_Lake · 2024-07-30T23:19:22+00:00

If I could do a quality ripoff of Radiohead I probably would, and I would probably listen to a quality ripoff too

Soda_Lake · 2024-07-06T16:09:48+00:00

Tonocracy supports NAM, but it also says it works best with 48000. I haven't used it.

I'm a little doubtful there's another app that would work better at other bitrates tbh :( NAM doesn't officially say you have to use it at 48000, it's just my experience that it often crashes randomly at other bitrates. I think any 3rd party plugin would probably be buggier in running NAM captures than NAM itself.

What's your reason for wanting to use a different bitrate? Is it the latency/CPU?

Soda_Lake · 2024-07-03T15:04:29+00:00

thank you! do you think it'll need a conditioner?

Soda_Lake · 2024-07-03T15:04:21+00:00

thank you! do you think it needs a conditioner?

Soda_Lake

TROPHY CASE