Recommendations for audio fundamental learning resources

[dalalphabet]

I've been messing around for a few months in Ableton Live making music, but inevitably it sounds terrible and muddy with lower quality speakers. I have practically no knowledge when it comes to any of the tools for tweaking the music to sound better - I come from a classical, piano and orchestra musician's training background and doing things digitally is very new to me - and I feel like I don't even know what tools or settings to reach for because I don't even understand fundamentally what they are doing.

I found a book recommended in another thread (years ago, so I don't want to necro it) that looks promising for learning Mastering, but it's yet too advanced for what I know. It says you should already know:
"The fundamental physics, measurement, and perception of sound: amplitude, decibels, and loudness; frequency, Hertz, and pitch; sine waves and the harmonic series; frequency response measurements

Studio setup and session workflow: transmission/storage methods for sound (electrical, magnetic, digital); the basic principles of mics, DIs, audio cables, multitrack recorders, and mixers; routing for insert and loop effects; the stages of a typical production (preproduction, tracking, overdubbing, mixing, mastering); gain, headroom, noise, and signal metering"

I could probably wikipedia/YouTube resources for learning the fundamental physics and such of sound, but I don't know where to even begin with all the studio equipment knowledge. Does anyone know of another book that covers these topics, or have a few different resources they could recommend? Even just a general term for what they're talking about to get me off on a more in-depth search would be useful!

[Winstontaneous]

Welcome to KVR!

The best resources I've found for learning modern audio recording/mixing basics are Mike Senior's "Mixing Secrets" and "Recording Secrets" books. I'd start with the Mixing one as it covers speaker selection & placement, basic room acoustics, and reference recordings before moving on to session setup, EQ, compression, reverb, delays, etc. Though I've been an avid home recordist since 2006 there are pearls of wisdom in these books I've found nowhere else - and wish I knew a decade ago!

I'd suggest a subscription to Tape Op magazine (free in the US) and checking out the Sound on Sound Tutorial links. Once you get your bearings, videos by the likes of Dave Pensado and Dan Worrall can help.

Be thankful you understand music already, that is harder to learn than the technical side, but both take experience and dedication to master.

[dalalphabet]

Thanks so much for all the recommendations! I will definitely give them all a look. Funnily enough, it was the "Mixing Secrets" book that I quoted as having all of these requirements. Hopefully all of these other resources will get me up to speed enough to follow along, as the book does come well recommended and I will definitely be giving it a read. Thanks again! I really appreciate it.

[rod_zero]

Start with mixing, leave mastering for later.

For Mixing I recommend the book "Mixing audio" by Roey Izhaki.

You could also subscribe to video tutorial site, there are several: Ask.audio.com, lynda.com and groove3.com are very good ones. Take one of the complete courses on mixing on any of them, then you can go deeper with the ones that are more specific for all the important effects: eq, compression, reverb, delay, filters, saturation.


In lynda.com this courses are quite good:

https://www.lynda.com/Pro-Tools-8-tutor ... 371-2.html
https://www.lynda.com/Audio-DAW-tutoria ... 649-2.html
https://www.lynda.com/Audio-tutorials/F ... 707-2.html
https://www.lynda.com/Audio-DAW-tutoria ... 708-2.html
https://www.lynda.com/Logic-Pro-tutoria ... 998-2.html

In groove 3
https://www.groove3.com/tutorials/Mix-School-101
https://www.groove3.com/tutorials/Mixing-Jazz-Fusion

In ask audio:

https://ask.audio/academy?nleloc=course ... 3e43loomt0
https://ask.audio/academy?nleloc=topic/ ... 3e43loomt0
https://ask.audio/academy?nleloc=course ... 3e43loomt0

[dalalphabet]

Thank you! I've added the book to my to-read list and will check out the courses. It may be the mixing that's causing all the ugly muddiness, for sure. I'm not even familiar enough with it all to identify what processes fall into which categories. I got a bit carried away with the fun of creating arrangements and never fully appreciated how much work goes into making the music sound good outside of the instruments themselves until now. I look forward to peeling back the curtain and diving into it all.

[jabe]

Many years ago, one of my friends had used my portastudio to make a recording and had ended up with a muddy/boomy mix. I did what I always did - listened to each track in isolation and adjusted the EQ on any that I didn't like the sound of (while remembering that EQ can be dialled downwards too). The end result was without horrors.