KVR Audio

doctorbob · Post by **doctorbob** » Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:45 pm

I'd like a porta too! Sadly doesn't seem possible ...

dB

doctorbob · Post by **doctorbob** » Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:50 pm

TheNeverScene wrote:I was too scared to make any bad advice I might give public.

Nah! That's the way to win! Hehe! Just joking

... had the same thoughts as well, so didn't proffer advice, just my patches!

dB

TheNeverScene · Post by **TheNeverScene** » Mon Feb 19, 2018 9:40 pm

Well if that's the case, be sure to apply a steep hi pass to your kick at 13khz and use detuned saws for any and all cymbals, toms and snare should just be short bursts of white noise

mostlyjustj · Post by **mostlyjustj** » Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:56 am

TheNeverScene wrote:Well if that's the case, be sure to apply a steep hi pass to your kick at 13khz and use detuned saws for any and all cymbals, toms and snare should just be short bursts of white noise

Finally, some advice I can work with!!

I don't think I'm gonna be a threat to win this challenge for some time to come, haha! But it is a great place to learn... my next goal for myself is to make it into the middle third in the voting - and for where I'm at that would be a big win. Being able to run in the middle of this pack would be a big step up for me.... I love what I hear coming out of these OSC challenges!!

mostlyjustj · Post by **mostlyjustj** » Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:43 am

doctorbob wrote:You're welcome. Anything to help ... this is the spirit of the OSC. We are all here to learn. There's probably some redundant stuff in all the patches - but, like they say, if it ain' broke, don't fix it!

On the kick, my reaeq is set up highpass, band, band, lowpass. then ... lowpass starts at about 30-40Hz, big boost at first band at around 160Hz, next boost at around 300 hz, and then the lowpass falls off to cut all above 1k. Then I use TDR Kotelnikov to compress it.

All perc tracks go to a drum reverb buss with TAL reverb 4. I open the routing on the reverb track and can then adjust all the perc sends in one view, listening how they interact (even the kick has a little verb). Nice and easy without switching between each perc instrument track.

Anyway, have fun. Tweak and mod to your hearts content.

Cheers,

dB

Holy crap - so with the EQ settings you specify there isn't much left that gets through at all! I'm guessing your compression settings help with that?? Maybe it's my pitch? Maybe longer MIDI notes? So many variables. So much to learn

Right now I'm figuring out how to sidechain the kick into a bass bus to see if that helps bring it out more, as I've gotten that suggestion from a few ppl. now.

You know I've been making rough half-ass compositions for many years - I really am just a total newb at how to get things sounding polished... thanks everyone for your help and input! Both on the public board and in my Inbox!

mostlyjustj · Post by **mostlyjustj** » Tue Feb 20, 2018 6:10 am

schiing wrote:
mostlyjustj wrote:But I do find the drums/rhythm section kind of boring/weak and really would love any advice I could get from anyone here to help take my percussion synth/mixing skills to the next level. There are many OSC'ers that excel at these things and I'm not sure how you all do it!?
I'm really just starting out shaping drum sounds from scratch myself, but here are a couple of patches you might find useful.

From what I can hear, the sound of your kick is good. But it doesn't sit right in the mix. I don't know, it might look okay on a spectrum analyzer, but it definitely needs to feel louder than it is. Have you considered side-chaining it to the bass, or even to some of the pads? I almost always do it, even gently on soft tracks like my entry. And your bass doesn't sound too deep, I think there must be plenty of room to add some punch to the kick with eq or some kick punch tool? But it's so hard to tell what's ultimately the best strategy to make the kick stand out - usually a combination of these things and endless testing on 6 different speaker sets (for me, anyway! )

Your snare sounds a bit hollow and on the dull side - I don't know if it's the patch or the eq? Of course, it might be a conscious choice as well - if that's the case there are some unpleasant frequencies I'd want to take out... but I would still make it a bit brighter!

This may not be right thing to do for you, and it depends a lot on the style, but in my music I often use lots of barely audible percussive elements to bring the rhythm to life - a clank here, a hiss there, maybe a delay on the hats that's so weak you'd never be able to identify it, but you notice something's missing when you remove it.

Thanks schiing and again to everybody else. I really moved the bar today on my mixing skills and my percussion on this track!

I learned to sidechain in Reaper (thanks to NeverScene for tips with that) as you suggested, and with a new kick it mixes in much more solidly.... oh and I also stole your closed hihats, and have reworked your clap to add some spice, haha

Having so much fun with this process and feeling much less intimidated and encouraged about learning some proper mixing procedures which I've known about for a while but never got around to doing before

mostlyjustj · Post by **mostlyjustj** » Tue Feb 20, 2018 6:10 am

dupe :/

TheNeverScene · Post by **TheNeverScene** » Tue Feb 20, 2018 6:42 am

Once again, my crash cymbals sound like a tire deflating. Psssshhhhh. I will survive.

schiing · Post by **schiing** » Tue Feb 20, 2018 7:55 am

Excellent, mostlyjustj! Can't wait to hear the changes

The hat is all over the frequency range, so it might be a good idea to high- and low-pass it. I think I took out the low end at about 5kHz and the high end at about 10-11kHz with medium slopes, probably 12dB/oct.

doctorbob · Post by **doctorbob** » Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:17 am

mostlyjustj wrote: ... I really moved the bar today on my mixing skills and my percussion on this track!

I learned to sidechain in Reaper ... Having so much fun with this process and feeling much less intimidated and encouraged about learning some proper mixing procedures which I've known about for a while but never got around to doing before

Great, glad we have you on the right track ... hope the patches were useful starting points for creating your own and sliding them into your mix. Sidechaining can be good sometimes. I only use it when my ears tell me to tighten up the bass/kick combo though. The other thing is that the bass and kick normally are usually (mono) panned centre. Therefore they can compete for the same stage and frequency points, hence the sidechaining to allow one or the other to dominate (so to speak).

Looking forward to hearing the new version too! Was sounding quite good already ... just have to move on up to good and then great! Hehe!

Cheers,

dB

Lovesindoom · Post by **Lovesindoom** » Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:47 pm

https://soundcloud.com/user-699042552/all-you-want

I will take a look at what presetst Ive used if they arnt listed already and post them before the comp voting beguins (I had password trouble after finishing the song and i just got in today so I forget if i added it already)

functionform · Post by **functionform** » Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:42 am

The clicking is killing me. It's like the tiniest little trolly click seemingly everywhere. None of the de-click options work (osc page or filter page). I can mostly remove it by increase the attacks to something like .005 ish but then then I lose a satisfying attack. So bizarre. Haven't a click problem in a very long time and definitely seems like something with the oscs themselves.

This brings up a sore spot with me synths in general. So much of what our ears do is disentangle the incredible amount of information contained in a simple attack whether its drums, synths, guitar etc. I wish more software took advantage of that. Seems like so many synths spend effort giving you options for sustain (lfos mseds etc). Why don't more of them exploit all the incredible things that happen under .1 seconds? I would spend most of my time there. For me, long drawn out sustain just isn't my area of interest.

functionform · Post by **functionform** » Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:54 am

Lempface wrote:
Maybe we can do https://www.fathomsynth.com/ next month, it works on Mac too!

As a Fathom owner no please. I'm not sure I can do another clicky synth twice in a row.

Tj Shredder · Post by **Tj Shredder** » Thu Feb 22, 2018 10:38 am

I would not mind, because Fathom works on a Mac, and Diodow doesn't so I missed one already... Mr. Fathom seems to be the most active developer here at the moment...

doctorbob · Post by **doctorbob** » Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:43 am

The latest version 2.7 of Fathom works well and they have improved the performance by quite some margin.

It's possible that we could also get a month's use of the poly pro version too - which has the added advantage/disadvantage that we could do our own wavetable constructions (ie can o' worms!).

I am running 23 instances (in reaper64) and see around 16% cpu use on my big beasty box.

dB

One Synth Challenge #108: Diodow by HrastProgrammer (Schiing Wins!)