Things I Wish I Knew When Getting Started

[zerocrossing]

Plugins, but in a year or two.
it's already happening, that's why i'm shrinking my shit down to as much as i'm comfy with.
i might waste 15 minutes here and there trying to replicate some stuff with existing stuff (i.e. like 30mins today to replicate Softube's Amp Room marshall sound in Voxengo Boogex+Kelvin).
Unrelated note, Softube's Amp Room has a 50hz "mains" hum that modulates the drive. talk about authenticity

If there’s one place I’ve found that hardware helps, it’s with amp simulation. The Kemper or AxeFX really are worth having.

[Ploki]

I guess, but i got accostumed to plugins.

Been toying with running a hybrid setup - plugin preamp into a tube poweramp and box, but havent gotten around to it yet

[shockenkleid]

Try microtonic tho - it does a f**king great 808 + tons more.

microtonic is cool but I normally don't use 808's. plus everyone expects to hear a 909 in a dance record so there is that expectation. whats great with Drumazon is that you can go well beyond a 909 since it offers additional controls which are very useful especially on the kick & snare

[Ploki]

Try microtonic tho - it does a f**king great 808 + tons more.

microtonic is cool but I normally don't use 808's. plus everyone expects to hear a 909 in a dance record so there is that expectation. whats great with Drumazon is that you can go well beyond a 909 since it offers additional controls which are very useful especially on the kick & snare

Riiight nepheton is 808!
Microtonic also does mean 909 (check the vintage tonic preset pack) - and also goes beyond it

Since discovering vintage tonic I dont bother with other drum machines anymore haha

[Hink]

me, I did learn my lesson fifty years ago when I started playing, sat down with my dad and turned an old tube ham radio amplifier into a guitar amp. I had a cheap acoustic guitar and for a pickup dad taught me to take a dynamic speaker, tape it to the face of the guitar and it was a pickup...sure none of those things were great sounding or really very good at all, never taped a speaker to a guitar again, but I did use one as a mic hear and there for s&g...fifty years later though the lessons still remain, the understanding is still there and now I got a few more tube amps...not throwing away expensive, prematurely obsolete technology and defunct pretending to be what I already have and will clearly last me a lifetime

[shockenkleid]

I find it interesting that you say for "trance/house/techno/EDM", D16 Drumazon as a drum solution is enough. I always felt kind of limited with just a 909 emulation. And, I always thought that pretty much everyone in the business would rather rely on sample packs.

But, what do I know.

Saturation & EQ can drasstically alter the sound of a 909. just about every dance music drum sample pack is filled with 909 samples. A lot of people use Drumazon and are not impressed with its sound and end up deleting it. but a 909 will only come to life with saturation. You have to "Drive" a plugin like Drumazon to really experience its sound. If you have the plugin, try throwing a distortion/saturation plugin after it and just browse through the presets and patterns. you'll be amazed at the range of tones you can get out of it

[BONES]

After 10 years of being an aspiring producer I have come to the conclusion that,

All I needed to produce trance/house/techno/EDM was:
- Any D.A.W it doesn't matter (but preferably Logic-Pro)
- Lennar Digital Sylenth1
- Modartt Pianoteq
- D16Group Drumazon (sounds amazing when driven with FabFilter Saturn)
- FabFilter Total Bundle
_________________________________

- Focusrite Scarlett Solo
- Kali Audio LP-6
- Audio-Technica ATH-M20x * with better earpads like Dekoni Audio Earpads
- Arturia KeyLab Essential 49
- Sonarworks Reference 4 (software & Mic)

That's a very specific list, it seems a strange way to look at the topic you started. Do you really think you'd do worse with a Novation controller or a pair of Genelecs or good AKG headphones? I don't think that shit matters at all.

I should have spent 50% of my time:
- learning music theory
- learning composition theory
- paying for a piano tutor
- enrolling in an online mixing/mastering course

I couldn't see the point of that 40 years ago when I started and I still can't now.

Thats it. Every EDM hit song could have been made with just these

Only if you have a) the talent, and b) the drive to make it happen. And of those two things, it's the drive that really matters. In order to have a hit you have to really want to have a hit like you never wanted anything before in your life. Of course in interviews you can never admit that you want a hit but that drive has to be there. Personally, I don't give a shit about any of that, I just want to be happy with the work I do.

I can't really think of anything I wish I knew when I started. It's been an amazing journey from go to woah and I'm not sure I'd have changed any of it, except maybe to have made an effort to find a manager to do all the shit I hate doing.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

I wish I knew that the perfect studio ain’t happening ever, only the perfect use of what you already got.

[Aloysius]

I Wish I Knew How Full I Was Going To Be After The Starter