Hi, my name is mike and i recently moved here to costa mesa. I found your email through searching google for becoming a music producer and found your site. I had a couple of questions
I have cubase and Reason 3. I use reason to make beats. I like the production in Bone thugs n harmonys E. 1999 Eternal CD Its very clean and well rounded… Anyways, one of my problems is most of reasons sounds are not that clean or nice as most professionally done resords, like bone thugs or Dr. Dre. are thier sites that have good reason samples.A better program..??
Im serious about becomming a professional music producer / engineer for both movies and songs. I would really benefit from information on how to become a better producer from how to arrange songs to know which sounds sound best with other ones. Do you think I need to go to a school or classes or is thier any online information…I know like one trick which is when you have a slow song addind a bit of reverb to the snare to open the mix up a bit… but more tricks that help you achieve a certain sound is what im looking for. Any information is very much appreciated – mike
*********************************
Hi Mike,
Big question…….hope I can be a little help. I did production for an Aftermath artist last year, and my style is very similiar to Dr. Dre in some aspects (No, I am not saying I’m as good as Dr. Dre) – The other producer told me when Dre heard the track he said “This sounds just like what I produce, you need to bring me something I can’t already do. I’ve already got this sound.” Really bummed me out, because it was a great open door for me to get involved with Aftermath. (For the record, I think if I could have met with Dre personally I’d be working at Aftermath right now, but that’s another story. Yo Dre, you reading this? Call me) – Now if I was knee deep in Aftermath productions, I would focus on tweaking elements to distinguish my sound more, but since that’s not the case, I keep learning everything I can – and continue using my own judgement for my sound.
You mention you have one ear candy trick. You need more. How do you get them? I can tell you what I’ve done. I highly recommend the Mix Bookshelf series as a whole – great books on mic techniques for different instruments, mixing, mastering, etc. I have easily a thousand music books in different styles, study tools for mixing techniques, tutorials, videos etc on every aspect of mixing and mastering I can get. At one point I even spent six months working with the Golden Ear training method.
Any time I meet an engineer I try to learn something from them – most people are happy to share their knowledge in little bits and pieces. I don’t try to impress, I try to listen and pick up everything I can – to me that’s the secret. Walk away smarter.
I’ve also spent a lot of time listening to reference CD’s of similiar mixes to the styles I’m working on. If I’m producing a punk band, I’ll have a major commercial release of a similar punk band style to reference for my mix. This alone has been the biggest single help in my mixes. Need to listen to a MAJOR COMMERCIAL RELEASE and listen to it on the SAME SPEAKERS YOU ARE MIXING ON. This approach is helpful to learn the rules before you get your own foundation.
I’ve seen a lot of bad info online – like a mix by the numbers program. Like anything online, make sure you’re getting your info from a good solid source. MIX magazine is great, I suggest you subscribe to it. Anything MIX puts out in it’s book series or recommendations is usually rock solid. The more knowledge you have, the larger palette of ideas you have to pull from, the more flexibility and creativity you’ll have in the studio. Keep in mind you never arrive at a final destination in your understanding of music production – it’s a constant evolution. The day you think you’ve “arrived” – is the day to quit.
You mentioned the reverb on the snare for a ballad – it’s important to understand the reasoning behind that. A ballad typically has a lot more space in the audio spectrum – so it lends itself better to effects. There is a great book on the Art of Mixing that can show you how to visualize audio mixes as a three dimensional environment. Panning is left to right, audio frequency up to down, volume and effects is back to front and width. This concept is also very powerful in bringing a quick visualization to your mixes. When you can see the mix in you mind’s eye like this, let’s say for a ballad, then you would see there is more space to use if you want, like reverb on a snare drum. Want to kick it up a bit more? Time the reverb so the tail closes in time with the beat, and put a delay on the verb so it doesn’t wash out the snare attack.
Turn it around – see that there’s a lot of space open in your mix, and just leave it that way. Purposefully leave out effects, have the vocal bone dry. The idea to internalize is that you need to have control of where you want to go – so the snare reverb bit you brought up is something that might work on one song, but not another. Intuition and experience will dictate to you what to do.
I have 15 years working at a public commercial studio with clients of all styles and walks of life – this was a great training ground for me. A producer is not a dictator to stomp on everyone’s ideas, with paying clients you need to accomplish what they want. When you’re in this environment, you HAVE to learn to do new things. So I’d suggest you get in that environment if you can.
For music schools, real and serious music schools – I recommend North Texas State, UCLA or Berklee. For a real deal education. There are a ton of recording schools out there, but I don’t personally know a lot of people working full time from those, might exist, I just don’t know about them. But I used to have like one person a WEEK come into the studio and want a job because they just graduated from a recording engineer school. But none of them understood music. To me, a music producer at a busy project studio is worthless without an understanding of music. So that’s my next piece of advice – learn music theory. It will keep you working when other people are looking for jobs.
For clean samples, you really should get them from the actual source if you can – otherwise there are lots of great libraries out there. Sony, Big Fish, ProSessions, ACID, to name a few. When I worked with the co-producer on the Aftermath project, all his samples were directly from an MPC. Another common trick is to run directly from the unit into a high end tube mic pre to fatten the sound, even if you’re dumping directly to a digital format.
Next piece of advice, think long term in your career if you’re really serious about it. For instance, I closed my studio in California last year – but I’m taking the down time to learn more about orchestras. I’m doing a lot of conducting with orchestral and choral groups. I could cry in my beer about the studio being closed, but once it’s open again, I’ll have a whole new set of skillz conducting orchestras – so when Dr. Dre calls me to produce a hip hop album with a real orchestra I won’t just be able to say I’m ready – I WILL be ready.
Hope that helps. Keep the faith.
Hi,
What type of preamp did they run the MPC through and what do you do if you are using mutiple outs.
P.S send me a link or somthing I would like to here some of your tracks
Hi Antwan,
The co-producer I worked with had his samples already processed, so I don’t know what preamp he ran them through. In most cases the rule of thumb would be to use the highest quality tube pre you can get your hands on. I use an Avalon which I consider “high end”, around $3,000. You want to push them pretty hard depending on the end result you want. Easily push to +4db or so for warmth. I did hear a whole set of samples that were distorted on purpose, a novel effect but one I would use sparingly and with intent.
Hi,
Does that mean that you run all of your drum sounds through the Avalon and that also means that you will have to get more than 1 Avalon. If thre are any other tips you have for getting that phat dre sound I would to no.
Yes, run all sounds through if possible, but most importantly the kicks and snares. You can run them one or two channels at a time on several passes. If you’re using computer based recording like ProTools, you could run a kick and snare through two channels on the tube pre and just let it run, then keep doing more passes for individual tracks. You should run this on as many individual instrument tracks as possible, not a whole mix.
What type of compression settings should I use as a starting point on the kicks and the snares and the bass. and are there any other tube pre that are less exspensive that can work , I’m on a bit of a buget and I trying to upgrade to an Pro Tools HD rig.
P.S Thanks for your info it nice for you to share this info I like to learn as much as I can.
Hi Antwan,
I posted some info for you here:
https://www.conradaskland.com/blog/2007/01/audio-compression-settings-for-kick-snare-and-bass/
Thanks alot that really helped me out alot I have been trying to find out for the longest time how Dr. Dre got his stuff to sound so good and warm. But I heard that he uses ratios like 10.1 on snares. I still learning as I go it is nice for someone to o talk to somone that knows his stuff. I have been trying to figure out how to sidechain my compressor but I have not grasp that concept yet. Are there any publications that you can refer me to so I can fine tune my audio skills.
I really want to get close as I can to that big warm Dr. Dre sound.
P.S I really really thank you for taking out the time to help.
Antwan, for digital samples you can hit them as hard as you like. Use your ears as a guide. I have worked on Pro Tools files for Aftermath artists that came in with some of the processing and I can tell you this: It is not possible to have too many overdubs, bgv’s on the rap may have 20 tracks overlayed just for one part. Another trick is to use an overall limiter on subgroups. Subgroup all the music and set it to -1.0 DB – This way you’re assured the lead vox will always be 1db on top of the tracks. I don’t think they’ll mind me letting people know about that.
Thank you very much you have been a great help.
Are there any publications that you can refer me to so I can fine tune my audio skills.
what program do you recomend i buy next? i have fl 6 right now but want something better.
i have been reading some of your stuff. very interesting. my experience of producing is very limited. i have only produced a few tracks of mates of mine. i have however produced about an hour of my own material. i use fl8 to make the beats then i put my own guitar overdubs over that with my shure sm57 and my trusty les paul and marshall tube amp combination using audacity. however the quality isnt that great. i am aware that my equipment isnt the best but i was wondering what your opinion is on mixing live guitar tracks with programmed beats and which programs are better suited to acheiving a smooth mix of the two contrasting sounds. your definitely right about learning theory. ihave been playing for 10 years and have recently found out im only confident playing in blues, major and minor. lots to learn. look forward to hearing from you.
Hi kommissionierer,
My experience may be a little old school when it comes to guitar overdubs. I don’t play guitar, I am a keyboard player, so when laying down guitar tracks I would always use a studio player. General rule I used was to get the sound I wanted for the track before recording it. I would use the actual amp for the sound. I don’t have a lot of experience recording dry guitar parts and adding effects later – which is a valid option, just not one I’ve used.
The SM57 is a good starting point for electric guitar. Microphones I would use on guitars would vary between the SM57, the Sennheiser 421 and occasionally an AKG 414 if the guitar was not real loud. For crunchy metal tracks I might use stereo 421 – one just off center of the speaker cone, then another maybe 3 or 4 feet back. Listen to make sure you’re not getting any phase cancellation. A stereo mic pair will give you a LOT more flexibility in the mix – and the slight shift in delay between the mic spacing will open up the sound a lot. Then you can experiment with panning your guitar so it fits in the mix better.
When you have your beat tracks split up individually there is a lot more flexibility to get the mix to sound as one. It’s very difficult to just overdub to a premixed stereo track. For me it wouldn’t provide the flexibility I need to get the mix together.
Another trick for recording guitars – stick a condenser mic way up in the corner of the room to pick up the ambient sound of the amp. You can even use an SM81 in the corner. Sometimes this can be added to the mix for a great effect, but in practicality I’ve never used it a lot in my mixes – but I would always put that extra mic up so I had the option.
You can also put a condenser mic close to the strings of your electric guitar, so you can hear the pick sound. This can be added for a little flavor and attack.
So there’s options using four microphones to give you a little palette of sounds to work from.
Quick Read: Getting the best sound on the guitar? Start with the tone out of the amp, and try to capture it with a stereo pair of microphones. One mic off center cone, one a few feet behind it. Work with panning. Try rolling off the low end and experiment boosting around 250 for a beefier sound, and boosting around 3.5-5 for a crunchier sound depending on the mix you’re working with.
Hope that helps.
Oh – Wanted to add that since I first posted this article, I’ve now scored for and recorded members of the Hong Kong Symphony for Cirque Du Soleil – so I’m slowly getting some nice credits finally. 🙂
Hi,
Let me start by saying that this is some of the most useful information that I have acquired in my search for answers.
I really want to be a well rounded producer, but the only problem is that I have never produced anything. I have tried to work with several people to learn the ropes, but no one has EVER shown me anything useful, so I decided to go to school.
Here is my next problem, every school that I have looked into really seemed like a crock of bologna and they all have bad reviews. I am looking for a program that will teach me music theory, songwriting, the business aspect, as well as maybe introduce me to some good connections. I know that the music industry is tough, but Im not willing to let go so easy, even though Im being discouraged left and right. So can you please point me in the right direction as to which program I should major in or if i need to travel some other avenue.
i really appreciate your time.
My suggestion is to enroll into an accredited 4 year university. Many universities now have audio and music programs that are top notch. I’m sure there are MANY good ones – but check out UCLA, Berklee and North Texas State.