Bargain Center: discussion, gossip, etc.

[LoveEnigma18]

Not sure if the book will really help me to complete the songs more than dedication and focus.

What really lit a fire under me in terms of mastering was having 2 out of 10 tracks on my next album professionally mastered. I got a lot of good technical feedback and information from them. That gave me the motivation and pointed me in the right direction to bring the rest of the tracks up to the same standard as well as I could. I've really raised my game -- I mean, I've done my own "mastering" for quite a while now, but it was pretty basic level-matching stuff.

I also read a couple more books on mixing and mastering, wondering if anything else would click, but didn't really find much insight there. A little confirmation, maybe.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience. I have tried to get my stuff mastered a couple of times, but couldn't because of price. Perhaps I should give it a go.

By the way, do you mean that getting books really won't help as much?

Everyone learns differently, requires different things to get into their zone. I tended to agree re books only confirmed what I had already learned rather than adding new info. But it may be different for you, perhaps you should go for the pdf deal and if anything you'll come stronger out the other side.
I personally struggle to read pdfs, the format isnt pleasant on my eyes.

That's right. Basically we are looking for same things presented differently and trying to figure out what works or not. It's the same with plugins, too.

[Uncle E]

Was really hoping to jump on a Reason 11 upgrade deal :*(
Can see for circa $115 uk £100. 50% would be acceptable @:)
I just see the update from 10 to 11 being some what onerouse. But thats me.

When it eventually goes on sale, it probably will be for $99. When they do those sales, they lower our margin a lot and we usually have to remove any extra discount, so the real difference between buying now and buying during a sale is about $15.

[Uncle E]

Any chance to see a sale on Leapwing Dynone at JRR Shop ? I saw they're discounting the price on Dyone right now.

They're having us start the sale tomorrow.

[Ceej]

Last black friday I bought Manipulator and was underwhelmed with it. Its powerful no doubt but not nearly as immediate as I had hoped. I havent used it yet in a production yet, thats a sign too. Anyone had any positive use of it?

I've had a blast playing with it. It's definitely an aggressive tool, and I imagine it'll take some time to learn what the various controls do and how they interact. But if nothing else it's a mighty entertaining toy.

[LoveEnigma18]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience. I have tried to get my stuff mastered a couple of times, but couldn't because of price. Perhaps I should give it a go.

By the way, do you mean that getting books really won't help as much?

Everyone learns differently, requires different things to get into their zone. I tended to agree re books only confirmed what I had already learned rather than adding new info. But it may be different for you, perhaps you should go for the pdf deal and if anything you'll come stronger out the other side.
I personally struggle to read pdfs, the format isnt pleasant on my eyes.

I learn OK from books generally, it's just that the material didn't cover much that was useful to me. One of them had a lot of tips about specific mixing issues with drums, guitar, bass and vocals, which might be more useful to other people -- but I make noisy dark ambient / drone Some of the advice about compressor choices and settings would have been useful, except that I'd read some of the same advice online for free. The other principles it covered where more of a review to me at this point.

And yeah, getting even just two tracks mastered did cost me a bit, but I considered it an educational investment that will help me on future releases too. The advice specific to my own music, and the engineer's description of what he did, was very helpful.

Thanks again for your thoughts on the book. Getting tracks mastered by someone sounds like a great idea to me.

[atya]

Surprised that no-one mentioned this offer:

Has anyone tried Cinematrix and Supine?

Rigid Audio 72-hour flash sale: Cinematrix and Supine for Kontakt both $3.33

Link:
http://rigid-audio.com/

Yes, both of them and I own Aquiver as well. I got them all on sale and kinda like them for what they are (some excellent Kontakt scripting in there!) but at the end of the day I don't use them that much. YMMV.

[fairlyclose]

does noiseguild have sales? - their gong library is the best I have heard, quite amazing

https://www.noiseguild.com/bundle-offer-trinity

They have confirmed a sale for this week but not given details yet.

here it is https://www.noiseguild.com/bundle-offer-trinity I will wait a few hours to pretend I am not just jumping in. Then I will get it.

[mgw38]

Hi Uncle E, your listing of the Harrison AVA Spectral Compressor shows “out of stock”. Any reason for that?

[mgw38]

Getting tracks mastered by someone sounds like a great idea to me.

Having somebody else master your track is a must if you are working alone imho. At some point you need a second pair of ears. However, in my experience mastering engineers tend to be very close lipped about what exactly they are doing, so if your mix is already pretty good to begin with it is usually not that much of an educational experience. I found it to be more useful to have somebody else do the mixing or at least do stem mastering. You can get reasonably good engineers do that for under a hundred bucks.

[foosnark]

in my experience mastering engineers tend to be very close lipped about what exactly they are doing, so if your mix is already pretty good to begin with it is usually not that much of an educational experience.

I can recommend Nathan Moody at Obsidian Sound. I told him up front that I was doing this partly to learn to improve my own skills and he was fine with that. He pointed out the technical problems in my mixes/recordings, and outlined the mastering process he used.

[mgw38]

in my experience mastering engineers tend to be very close lipped about what exactly they are doing, so if your mix is already pretty good to begin with it is usually not that much of an educational experience.

I can recommend Nathan Moody at Obsidian Sound. I told him up front that I was doing this partly to learn to improve my own skills and he was fine with that. He pointed out the technical problems in my mixes/recordings, and outlined the mastering process he used.

That sounds like an interesting option. Thanks for the pointer!

[agharta]

in my experience mastering engineers tend to be very close lipped about what exactly they are doing, so if your mix is already pretty good to begin with it is usually not that much of an educational experience.

I can recommend Nathan Moody at Obsidian Sound. I told him up front that I was doing this partly to learn to improve my own skills and he was fine with that. He pointed out the technical problems in my mixes/recordings, and outlined the mastering process he used.

That sounds like an interesting option. Thanks for the pointer!

Hopefully we can end this chat now as it's not Deal related!
Be a very good topic for discussion though.

[mgw38]

Hopefully we can end this chat now as it's not Deal related!

Oops, sorry.

But I can fix this. Marc Mozart is currently offering a sale on all of his services, including mix and mastering services and mix coaching. He is pretty good.

https://mixedbymarcmozart.com/shop/

On a completely unrelated note. One of the less talked about sales seems to be the IK Multimedia hardware sale. The iLoud MTMs are currently 80$ off a piece ($270 instead of $350). That is a pretty good deal. I scrapped all my BF plans and got me two of those.

[Fleer]

[cptgone]

Having failed to buy Thorn before DS Audio joined Dirk's dark side, I tried to buy it in PA's Black Friday sale, armed with 2 vouchers.
I had a feeling that it might get complicated, and it did.

- Tried to find another product to reach the voucher threshold (€75 for the regular voucher / €99 for the BF voucher). Didn't find much, finally settled for G8. As I tried to check out, computer says "no". I figured I had to use my BF voucher first, so I started over. Also had to look up the vouchers again.
- Second attempt: I finally realise my purchase total was 1 cent short.
- Even if that hadn't been the case, VAT was added, so my free purchase was not gonna be free anyway.
- Added another product I didn't really want (as I already own BYOME and Triad): Dent
Looked up my vouchers again.
When I add my 2nd voucher, computer says no to the previously entered one. I suppose only a single voucher can be used anymore.
- So now I have a choice:
1) let 1 voucher 'go to waste', and pay almost $60 for Thorn + 1 plug-in I might do without, pass on the dynamic discount
2) spend even more on Thorn + 2 plug-ins I might do without
3) spend both vouchers in separate purchases, pass on the dynamic discount

I simply gave up for the time being.
I don't like this time consuming game, it isn't any fun.