What Are The Absolute Essentials?

[skipscada]

By the way, and don't take this the wrong way, but have you considered EZMix or similar? I use it myself when I just want to get a more or less decent mix together without spending any time on it. Basically it's a collectoin of tweakable presets for more or less specific jobs. There are lots of preset packs available. Might be worth checking out.

[wagtunes]

By the way, and don't take this the wrong way, but have you considered EZMix or similar? I use it myself when I just want to get a more or less decent mix together without spending any time on it. Basically it's a collectoin of tweakable presets for more or less specific jobs. There are lots of preset packs available. Might be worth checking out.

Is that the product I saw when looking at EZDrummer? I considered it but then I thought that it's probably just a template for a "starting point" and that I'd still have to have super skills to get my mix to sound the way I want anyway. In that case, I already own tools that I have to "learn" to get a good mix so I didn't think this would be much help. And now that I have Neutron, definitely don't feel I need it.

[ghettosynth]

I gave you the solution to the snare in overhead question (you welcome). I could give you an exact solution not thanks to incredibly deep and detailed knowledge of all sorts of VSTs, but by applying the knowledge that you can isolate notes in a midi clip and that EZDrummer has an overhead mic channel. Very basic stuff. Others used their general knowledge to come up with other solutions that should work just as well. Again, no magic VSTs involved, just fundamental knowledge of basic tools + analysis of the problem.

Yeah, with all due respect wags, this is pretty obvious stuff. Really, what Skipscada is saying is just to solo the overhead snare in a kit. I assumed that you wanted the overhead character of an existing sample or I would have suggested the same thing. In fact, I told you to solo the overheads in EZDrummer to get a sense for the sound.

Products like EZMix may get you further than where you are in some cases, but they're not going to get you all the way there, or really, that close to it without a bit of understanding. As I see the product, and I might not be aware of all of the detail of it, it's a set of instrument/track presets. That's great, but there are intrinsically going to be limitations there with respect to getting your tracks to all work together. I'm not saying that it wouldn't help you, it very well might as their approach to selling packs that are related to a style jives with your apparent interest in trying styles that you're not that familiar with. But it's only going to get you part of the way there.

[wagtunes]

I gave you the solution to the snare in overhead question (you welcome). I could give you an exact solution not thanks to incredibly deep and detailed knowledge of all sorts of VSTs, but by applying the knowledge that you can isolate notes in a midi clip and that EZDrummer has an overhead mic channel. Very basic stuff. Others used their general knowledge to come up with other solutions that should work just as well. Again, no magic VSTs involved, just fundamental knowledge of basic tools + analysis of the problem.

Yeah, with all due respect wags, this is pretty obvious stuff. Really, what Skipscada is saying is just to solo the overhead snare in a kit. I assumed that you wanted the overhead character of an existing sample or I would have suggested the same thing. In fact, I told you to solo the overheads in EZDrummer to get a sense for the sound.

Products like EZMix may get you further than where you are in some cases, but they're not going to get you all the way there, or really, that close to it without a bit of understanding. As I see the product, and I might not be aware of all of the detail of it, it's a set of instrument/track presets. That's great, but there are intrinsically going to be limitations there with respect to getting your tracks to all work together. I'm not saying that it wouldn't help you, it very well might as their approach to selling packs that are related to a style jives with your apparent interest in trying styles that you're not that familiar with. But it's only going to get you part of the way there.

That's pretty much what I figured, which is why I passed on it.

[jancivil]

The book. I got it. I read it. Nowhere in this thread did I say it wasn't helpful. Stop putting words in my mouth. The book has nothing to do with the question posed forth in this thread as it doesn't answer the question. If it did, I wouldn't be asking it.

KVR. Love this place.

Maybe see if you can take this kind of approach to other forums and see if there's a different result. Here's the thing: wherever you go, there you are. People spending a fair amount of time on *your* problem, as per usual and you just hate the place.

[kbaccki]

Also, content. Radio ready mix requires radio ready content. Listen to it, it's dense, even the old stuff. Unless you're talking Norah Jones or Ed Sheeran or whatnot. Discuss!

[Michael L]

^^^ Norah Jones is also dense in her song styling-- the many tones in a single word, the creative counterpoint among the few instruments in her band, the use of reverb, vocal doubling, and other atmospherics. It has many hooks-per-minute, which is a good measure of 'density' for any song!

There are so many ways to make a track densely interesting! Just for fun, I compared two 'opposite' approaches from two eras: Crazy/Gnarls Barkley, and the 'Wall of Sound' classic, River Deep Mountain High/Ike and Tina Turner.

For me, Spotify and Audio Hijack are useful tools to learn different strategies and find reference tracks, along with Chapter 8 in Mike Senior's book.

[Steve Bolivar]

I saw you already have Neutron. Here's a really good TapeOp review of it that may give you some new insight on all it does.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/121/neut ... g-plug-in/

Since you're interested in mastering, Ozone 7, soon to be Ozone 8, is a great all in one mastering plugin. You might even qualify for a discount since you already have Neutron.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/112/ozon ... in-suites/

Since subscriptions to TapeOp are free they are always a good investment.

[ghettosynth]

I saw you already have Neutron. Here's a really good TapeOp review of it that may give you some new insight on all it does.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/121/neut ... g-plug-in/

Since you're interested in mastering, Ozone 7, soon to be Ozone 8, is a great all in one mastering plugin. You might even qualify for a discount since you already have Neutron.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/112/ozon ... in-suites/

Since subscriptions to TapeOp are free they are always a good investment.

That's a really good review. So often they come across as fluff as if the author did the bare minimum to attract readers to his site. You could tell the author really used the plugin and read the manual.

Also +1 on tapeop. Even the ads are drool-worthy!

[wagtunes]

I saw you already have Neutron. Here's a really good TapeOp review of it that may give you some new insight on all it does.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/121/neut ... g-plug-in/

Since you're interested in mastering, Ozone 7, soon to be Ozone 8, is a great all in one mastering plugin. You might even qualify for a discount since you already have Neutron.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/112/ozon ... in-suites/

Since subscriptions to TapeOp are free they are always a good investment.

That's a really good review. So often they come across as fluff as if the author did the bare minimum to attract readers to his site. You could tell the author really used the plugin and read the manual.

Also +1 on tapeop. Even the ads are drool-worthy!

Question: I know you have both. Is Ozone 7 and Neutron redundant? I watched a video today on Ozone 7 and while I was impressed with it for mastering, it seemed to have a lot of overlap with Neutron.

Your thoughts?

[ghettosynth]

I saw you already have Neutron. Here's a really good TapeOp review of it that may give you some new insight on all it does.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/121/neut ... g-plug-in/

Since you're interested in mastering, Ozone 7, soon to be Ozone 8, is a great all in one mastering plugin. You might even qualify for a discount since you already have Neutron.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/112/ozon ... in-suites/

Since subscriptions to TapeOp are free they are always a good investment.

That's a really good review. So often they come across as fluff as if the author did the bare minimum to attract readers to his site. You could tell the author really used the plugin and read the manual.

Also +1 on tapeop. Even the ads are drool-worthy!

Question: I know you have both. Is Ozone 7 and Neutron redundant? I watched a video today on Ozone 7 and while I was impressed with it for mastering, it seemed to have a lot of overlap with Neutron.

Your thoughts?

Nope, not at all. They have different strengths and even though you can make either work in place of the other to some extent, it won't work as well. Really, read that review of Neutron and start using as your default channel strip.

Ozone is a lot more CPU hungry and has some really cool features for mastering, or using it on a channel, but, it doesn't have many of the features that are in Neutron.

I also think that the Advanced versions are worth having because I do sometimes like to use the different components, especially Ozone's. I use the vintage EQ, which is modeled after a pultec, quite a bit.

For me, the Music Production Bundle was great value. I get a lot of use out of Vocal Synth, believe it or not, but it's not for everyone, I also think that Nectar is also useful and I regularly use Trash2.

I would wait for a sale though if you don't already have it.

[wagtunes]

I saw you already have Neutron. Here's a really good TapeOp review of it that may give you some new insight on all it does.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/121/neut ... g-plug-in/

Since you're interested in mastering, Ozone 7, soon to be Ozone 8, is a great all in one mastering plugin. You might even qualify for a discount since you already have Neutron.
http://tapeop.com/reviews/gear/112/ozon ... in-suites/

Since subscriptions to TapeOp are free they are always a good investment.

That's a really good review. So often they come across as fluff as if the author did the bare minimum to attract readers to his site. You could tell the author really used the plugin and read the manual.

Also +1 on tapeop. Even the ads are drool-worthy!

Question: I know you have both. Is Ozone 7 and Neutron redundant? I watched a video today on Ozone 7 and while I was impressed with it for mastering, it seemed to have a lot of overlap with Neutron.

Your thoughts?

Nope, not at all. They have different strengths and even though you can make either work in place of the other to some extent, it won't work as well. Really, read that review of Neutron and start using as your default channel strip.

Ozone is a lot more CPU hungry and has some really cool features for mastering, or using it on a channel, but, it doesn't have many of the features that are in Neutron.

I also think that the Advanced versions are worth having because I do sometimes like to use the different components, especially Ozone's. I use the vintage EQ, which is modeled after a pultec, quite a bit.

For me, the Music Production Bundle was great value. I get a lot of use out of Vocal Synth, believe it or not, but it's not for everyone, I also think that Nectar is also useful and I regularly use Trash2.

I would wait for a sale though if you don't already have it.

I actually am using Neutron as my default now. I love it.

In fact, I used it on one of my later tracks and got some nice comments on how clean the mix was now that I'm taking care of so many of the masking problems I used to have.

Ignore the Japanese vocals.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... -on-backup

[Reefius]

That is actually a pretty decent mix, only the drums could use some more punch. Maybe some transient shaping and/or saturation would do the trick.
How do you process drums? Does each drum sound has its own volume fader in Cubase? And do you use a drum buss? For punchy drums it's important to process each drum sound separately and then route them all to a drum buss for some extra EQ and 'glue' them together with a buss compressor.

[wagtunes]

That is actually a pretty decent mix, only the drums could use some more punch. Maybe some transient shaping and/or saturation would do the trick.
How do you process drums? Does each drum sound has its own volume fader in Cubase? And do you use a drum buss? For punchy drums it's important to process each drum sound separately and then route them all to a drum buss for some extra EQ and 'glue' them together with a buss compressor.

Thanks for the comments and I think I owe you a response. I will try to keep this as brief as I can. I'll address the drums at the end.

When I first started writing music 40 years ago, I knew nothing about mixing. For the first 39 years I knew just as little. Finally, this past year, I started to seriously study the art and feel I've made significant improvements. If you heard my early stuff, when I didn't even own a compressor or limiter or EQ, let alone know what they did, you'd agree.

This past week especially, I have watched a lot of videos by industry professionals. Not the hacks on YouTube who don't really know more than I do. But guys who have mixed albums for people like Michael Jackson.

Here is what I've learned and I'll summarize it with an example.

One lead vocal on this one particular song was copied to 4 different tracks.

Track 1 - Clean
Track 2 - Distortion
Track 3 - Pitch shifted down
Track 4 - High pass filter

Outside of the clean track, played separately, these tracks sounded awful. Yet, when put together, the vocal sounded unreal. It was like a whole different animal.

The attention to detail that these guys pay to each second of every track is mind boggling. I'm not sure if I will ever have that kind of patience but I'm working my way to that point.

Now, the drums. Yes, I am a lazy drum processor. I put them all on one track. That's about to end. Starting with my next project, I am going to take everything I've learned from these professionals and put them into every song I do, including separate drum processing for kick, snare, hi hat, cymbals, toms and whatever other percussion I put into a track. I don't care how long it takes me to finish a track. The lazy days are over.

That is why I want to make sure I have all the tools that I need. I don't want to put all this work into my songs only to find out that I'm missing things that I need to get a professional sound.

And the reason I even suspect this is that in watching these videos, these mixing engineers show every plugin that they use to mix a track. And I am finding quite a few "types" of plugins that they use that I don't own or at least don't own anything other than the stock ones that come with Cubase. My question is simple. If they could have done the same task with just EQ and compressor, why did they reach for a maximizer, widener, saturation, 2 different EQs and 3 different compressors for ONE track? There has to be a reason. And the end result was the tracks, when finished, sounded like right off the radio.

Thus my confusion and my inquiry here.

Hope this makes things more clear.

[Reefius]

Yep, a compressor is not simply a compressor. Some are better on vocals, others on separate drum sounds, and there are also buss compressors and mastering compressors. If you own Fabfilter Pro C2 or U-He Presswerk you should be good, as these contain all the most common types of compressors.
But if you really want to get into the details, there's also the emulations of analog compressors. They all have their own unique sound and charasterictics.

Neutron should already cover most of your needs, as it contains EQ, compression, transient shaping and saturation. Just experiment with different settings.