Discuss the various methods you use in music production, from compressor settings to equipment type.

By Agent725 Fri Jul 23, 2004 11:48 pm
kybeats wrote:
Science wrote:why every body giving me funny faces? im not really a kanye west fan but he samples his drums from dre, and his beats come out tight......... probally tighter than, you cats giving funny faces, get your mind right!! :idea: :!: :idea: :!: :lol:


:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: Wooooooooooo, slow down



:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
you guys are hilarious!!!!
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By binger0 Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:51 am
matt i think he meant run your samples through a preamp then into the mpc to sample. Thats some good info freedom.
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By MattMatiks PG Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:06 am
I was lookin at the Sansamp PSA-1... I was thinkin of coppin it off of eBay... Someone in one of the other forums said Rza uses it... I'm not coppin it because of that (although it is a great endorsement) but it caused me to look into it... It seems real nice... I mimics famous Guitar and Bass Amps... I warms them up... It's all tube so it should crisp up my samples... Any suggestions for a cheaper one caus ehtta would end up runnin me like 300 bucks which I could do, but not for a little while...
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By binger0 Sat Jul 24, 2004 2:13 am
tubes are the best. It adds this color to the sound. Its like a distortion but its mad warm and makes shit sound nice and rich. Good tubes new usally will start at 1000 then up from there. I would get it and throw it in your signal path. Like turn to it then a mixer then the mpc.
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By Freedom Sat Jul 24, 2004 3:55 am
The whole thing I was saying is not to compress or Put any of the samples through anything that messes with the signal ratio. when you sample into the mpc...


THink of it like this...You make a drum beat that is already compressed and has a pre-amp running and you sample that drum beat into the MPC...

Now as a producer you are really messed up....
B/c Your drums will just get worse when you record them into the Computer if you compress again and run them through a preamp...

YOu only want to compress once and run the drums through a preamp atleast twice but never anymore cause the threshold for the noise floor will raise almost everytime...

You want to be able to take away anything at a futher stage in the mix....


THink of buying beer.. Its already made you cannot take the hops out...
YOu only can add more flavor too it...
It will either taste better or worse...



What you wanna do is have the MPC like beer mix...
THe MPC is your own micro brewery
YOu can add flavors hops barley and make it taste anyway you want..
And you can change things before you finally mix your ingredints into a final pint of beer...

THink abou tit
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By deity13 Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:08 am
^^^^ umm, beer :lol: :lol: :lol:
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By cybernaga595 Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:27 am
I agree with freedom..its best to only apply effects once so as not to do things u wish u could reverse later on (as in during mastering). Here's a link to a few more tipshttp://djbb.dk/floops/index.php?cat=docs
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By bidi Tue Jul 27, 2004 2:57 pm
^ random tip from above:

Put on some weight. You can fatten up MIDI sounds by the simple trick of copying the required pattern to the next track, using the same sound but a new MIDI channel. Then use track delay so that the duplicated notes are played fractionally apart. Voilà, a much fatter sound.
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By MattMatiks PG Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:19 am
Your still spe4akin in riddles Freedom... Are you saying to compress and run through a pre-amp after the MPC or before... Cause I'm hearing things from both sides... Just answer that and I'll be happy
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By theassfathasescaped Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:29 am
Damn, I've been coming at sampled drums from a different angle. I mean, I rarely do anything to them (besides chopping them up and moving them around). The original producer already compressed the hell out of 'em. Why torture em?

There are no set rules and I know a lot of people do this differently, but at the most I'll add a deeper bass kick or another sharper snare over the orignial. Then I'll compress the final mix a tad just to get everything to gell together. But that is about it. Beats are like women's breats, don't overdue it! Don't rub too hard! :)

By elmacaco Wed Jul 28, 2004 3:14 am
The drums were originally compressed when they were recorded, by recording them again, you can get a different compression and may lose or gain some snap. Recompressing is fine, I'm tired of this drums already compressed nonsense. Overdrive your mpc input and see how compressed they are and how different from the recording, also any ambient noise from the TT could change the compressed recording.
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By Freedom Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:23 am
I said dont add anything to your drums but a pre-amp, but you really dont need a pre amp for sampling unless its tube for harmonic distortion,,

You wan your samples clean and recorded loud no compression...

A recording engineer can only do so much for drums or samples once youve messed the eq freqwncys or sqaushed the sound.....

When you produce on the mpc its usually what they call rough drafts of beats...
But when you do finish a nice beat on the mpc they always wanna track it out into a neve and use there warmth and then maybe fatten up the drums through a stereo box and samples they will pann them and do all this mixing...


Tons of artists have had rough beats on demo tapes for years until there album comes out then it gets polished by an engineer..

you want to be able to fix anything later

By deaf-mute Wed Jul 28, 2004 7:53 am
MattMatiks PG wrote:I was lookin at the Sansamp PSA-1... I was thinkin of coppin it off of eBay... Someone in one of the other forums said Rza uses it... I'm not coppin it because of that (although it is a great endorsement) but it caused me to look into it... It seems real nice... I mimics famous Guitar and Bass Amps... I warms them up... It's all tube so it should crisp up my samples... Any suggestions for a cheaper one caus ehtta would end up runnin me like 300 bucks which I could do, but not for a little while...


that one will definately do the trick, you will see your ample get a whole new life with a good preamp and compressor. I use the focusrite red3
and nothing goes into my mpc without going through it... you can't go
wrong with good tubes and compression....
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By theassfathasescaped Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:44 am
elmacaco wrote:The drums were originally compressed when they were recorded, by recording them again, you can get a different compression and may lose or gain some snap. Recompressing is fine, I'm tired of this drums already compressed nonsense. Overdrive your mpc input and see how compressed they are and how different from the recording, also any ambient noise from the TT could change the compressed recording.


I can't really agree with you, except the part where I already said there are no rules. If you find something that sounds good, then it sounds good. Great. Usually though heavily recompressing compressed sounds doesn't sound good to me. (Nor did it sound good to Dr Dre when he recorded it in ther first place. Otherwise he would have done it!)

I'm sure you're aware that compression changes the relative loudness of the attack and release etc relative to the loudest elements of the sample. And that any turntable noise picked up, the crackle, is going to be so quiet in comparison to the sample, that none of those characteristics (the ones affected by compression) are really changed. You're adding extra 'noise' to the sound ('warmth'). Maybe you changed the bitrate when you recorded. I don't know. But the effects of compression on the original sound are still there.

But whatever. None of this means anything if you are getting a better sound recompressing. So go to it, and try not to get too exasperated if people are going to have a different opinion. ;)