One Synth Challenge #158: Surrealistic MG-1 Plus by Cherry Audio (MilksterX Wins!)

[hope4ever]

I got a comment on another forum I goto that said my songs posted here/there are muddy and they do not like the kick its too loud and muddy.. also i guess they mean the BASS is muddy too... I actually agree with them but do not know enough to change that. I am a total beginner at mastering, I messed around with EQ and limiters etc in this project (no outside mastering though) but I dont think I got it right, I rarely even do that for my songs I ust leave them as they are. I tried cutting some lower end out but then te sound transformed away from the good sound it was originally.

[doctorbob]

Thanks for your input especially on workflow.
All of my song is created only with midi clips that play out of the synth in this challenge.

No problem. I just wanted to point out the rules about audio clips because this round we have a lot of newcomers (via CA newsletter!), and it's easy to fall foul of this. Oh yes, welcome, we are a friendly bunch!

Sounds like you are dong it correctly. And yes, it is laborious, people here do take the whole month to compose, mix and ,master a track! And then, once submitted, people often run out of time.

The challenge is to create the track in one month. A prize is a bonus! The whole point is to get to grips with a new synth each month, get a complete track done in the time, and most of all, learn from the experienced people here who are more then willing to help and advise.

dB

[hope4ever]

Thanks for your input especially on workflow.
All of my song is created only with midi clips that play out of the synth in this challenge.

No problem. I just wanted to point out the rules about audio clips because this round we have a lot of newcomers (via CA newsletter!), and it's easy to fall foul of this. Oh yes, welcome, we are a friendly bunch!

Sounds like you are dong it correctly. And yes, it is laborious, people here do take the whole month to compose, mix and ,master a track! And then, once submitted, people often run out of time.

The challenge is to create the track in one month. A prize is a bonus! The whole point is to get to grips with a new synth each month, get a complete track done in the time, and most of all, learn from the experienced people here who are more then willing to help and advise.

dB

Cool. I arrived here via the Cherry Audio email too, I purchased some humble bundles with some of their plugins in previously so I am on their radar.
I joined kvr forums years ago though due to the tech support forums for MuTools Mulab being hosted here.
I hope to gain experience from all of you here, it has been most helpful.
I find Jams most interesting and fun, though this is my first entered into.
It doesnt suprise me that music making is time consuming I thin thats why I hardly ever make full length songs, I have some 20 seconds long lol, I ust give up, I tend to make a good start in a couple - few hrs though.

[zipidowski]

Here is my first entry to the competition.

https://soundcloud.com/zipidowski/zipid ... routines-1

Got mail from Cherry Audio about this challenge and thought this is the perfect way for me to finally finish my first song ever. I have started quite a few songs but get bored to them fast and never finish them. So no previous mixing or mastering experience before this track. I found it a pleasure that you don´t have to browse thousands of presets to make a song which made composition work much faster.

Oh boy it´s quite a job when you have no clue what you are doing but YouTube helps a lot. This song took a big effort for me to finish and I´m pleased I did it so next time it wont be such a big task finish songs. At least I hope so.

As this was my first song it was a big surprise that after making mixdown in Studio One it was almost impossible to get trough any mixdown which didn´t have clicks and pops and cracks and so on.

UPDATE:
I modified my song and added drums and some percussion. I think it is now more interesting.

I used
DAW: Studio One 5 Professional
Used 22 X Surrealistic MG-1 Plus
Used FX:
- Studio One stock EQ: Pro EQ
- Studio One stock Delay: Analog Delay
- OTT by Xfer
- Valhalla Supermassive
- LoudMax64

As a total beginner I appreciate any feedback received was it good or bad.

Edit: if you can listen this song anything else than phone speakers. Lot of low end missing in the track so it sounds little dull with phone speakers.

[doctorbob]

I got a comment on another forum I goto that said my songs posted here/there are muddy and they do not like the kick its too loud and muddy.. also i guess they mean the BASS is muddy too...

You will most likely need to sidechain your bass with the kick so the competing frequencies are kept apart. Lots of careful EQ-ing. Use a frequency analyser (SPAN is a good free one). Also, check your loudness with e.g. Youlean Loudness Meter (Free). Most tracks aim for -14 LUFS. EDM somewhat louder, maybe as much as -10 LUFS. Also, watch your dynamic range, don't "squash" things too much with a compressor.

As time goes on, and you do more of these challenges (hopefully), you can glean information (as I have over the few years!) from the other regular members.

dB

[hope4ever]

I got a comment on another forum I goto that said my songs posted here/there are muddy and they do not like the kick its too loud and muddy.. also i guess they mean the BASS is muddy too...

You will most likely need to sidechain your bass with the kick so the competing frequencies are kept apart. Lots of careful EQ-ing. Use a frequency analyser (SPAN is a good free one). Also, check your loudness with e.g. Youlean Loudness Meter (Free). Most tracks aim for -14 LUFS. EDM somewhat louder, maybe as much as -10 LUFS. Also, watch your dynamic range, don't "squash" things too much with a compressor.

As time goes on, and you do more of these challenges (hopefully), you can glean information (as I have over the few years!) from the other regular members.

dB

I actually understand everything you just said, very helpful, Ive heard these things on my travels. Thanks for the plugin recommendations. There is a line analyzer of frequencies in one of the two EQ's I used i used that as a guide. I maxed out my volume, not as familiar with LUFS but get the idea.
I guess I have to put that all into practice, at some time in the future I hope. I know there is a plugin called frequency spacer i looked into that idk if its free.
I hope I can do more challenges here,
Many thx for advice!

[] Peter:H []

I actually understand everything you just said, very helpful, Ive heard these things on my travels. Thanks for the plugin recommendations. There is a line analyzer of frequencies in one of the two EQ's I used i used that as a guide. I maxed out my volume, not as familiar with LUFS but get the idea.
I guess I have to put that all into practice, at some time in the future I hope. I know there is a plugin called frequency spacer i looked into that idk if its free.
I hope I can do more challenges here,
Many thx for advice!

The thing is you have to create "room" for basedrum and avoid "conflict" with other bass instruments.
A basedrum consists of several things/phases
* A thump (attack phase) which is rather short and rather high pitch (yes it is ...)
* A body (sustain sort of) which is more bass sound
* A tail (release phase) which is again bass but releases the volume...

Easiest way to get room, to get everything else out of the way of a basedrum. Use for Instance the newly released Volume Shaper https://www.caelumaudio.com/CaelumAudio/?Page=FluxMini2. Please remember to only use the volume automation of it to play with the OSC rulez. Use one of the Presets called "Fakechain" on everything but your basedrum, i.e. have your basedrum on one track and somehow group all your other tracks together and then apply Flux2 to this group (Grouping of tracks works in Bitwig. Other DAWs could work with buses as their routing concept. Then create a "everything else" bus and route all tracksbut the basedrum to it)
What it does: When you Basedrums thump/attack phase happens in the first part of each quarter (assuming a techno 4-on-the-floor) it reduced the volume of everything else, so the basedrum can shine on it's own. Afterwards "everything else" is going to faded in. That will give you the typical "pumping" effect.

Then try to avoid conflict as well, conflict in terms of bass frequency. Basedrum body and release might conflict with other bass frequencies in your track which come from other instruments/tracks. Figure out which tracks should contribute to the overall bass. Make them play mostly unisons-notes to avoid mud, meaning don't play very low chords for instance. Instruments which should not contribute to your bass try to cut or reduce it with an EQ. Then as well mono the complete bass-band in the your master. There are tools that can do that for you.
Sound design and instrument selection might be a solution as well to avoid frequency conflict.

Control how your bass sounds. You can for instance place a "multiband splitter" on your master and solo your bass band and listen to how that sounds. if you get a clear bdr and bass then everything works well.

Hope that helps for a start and for a beginning of your journey into sound. Have fun.

Fakesidechain Explained.png

--
P.S.: To whome it concerns. It's so nice to read talk on discord about some of the newcomers ... a friendly community.

[hope4ever]

I just went all in on the tags for my 3 mixes
30 tags each lol

[ZioMau]

UP2 [ Unsaved Project 2 ] ("Galaga edit.")

In this second time on OSC, i was thinking to convert all the tracks of my last guitar-based funky tune with the only MG synth...never heard anything worse! So i made it totally different from scratch but i decided to keep the song name (adding a "2"). At this point, reversing the concept i will soon make an instruments-free edition of this song...never kill the idea! The "Galaga edit." is because it sometimes reminds me to old arcade coin ops soundtracks!

https://soundcloud.com/zio-mau/up2-unsa ... al_sharing

16 instances of the synth in Reaper DAW, some of them to stereo-doubling the tracks. There are really 6 lines of instruments(bass, piano, organ, pad, seq, lead), 1 drumkit (4 MG instances), 1 backingtrack and 1 fx

Here all the inserts(...some of audio fx could be added or removed during mixing):

INST. FX

Cherry Audio - Surrealistic MG x 16

AUDIO FX

Cockos - ReaEq x 9
Cockos - ReaComp x 5
Mode Machines - Giant Verb x 3
Cockos - ReaDelay x 3
Analog Obsession - dbComp x 2
Denis Tihanov - OrilRiver x 2
Sonimus - SonEq x 2
Dead Duck - DD Autopan x 2
JB - Smash Pro x 1
Tal - Ultra Simple EQ x 1
Melda Production - M BandPass x 2
Variety of Sound - Ferric TDS x 1

MIDI FX:

Cockos - midi note filter (js) x 5 (this was in order to splitting keyboard and play drums parts simultaneously in individual synth channels)
Arto Vaarala - Kirnu x 1
Code FN42 - Randarp x 1
also some Cockos ReaControl because at the end i decided to downtune 1 semitone

MASTER CH

Tokyo Dawn Labs - TDR Nova
Analog Obsession - Buster se
LKJB - Luftikus
Sonimus - SonEq
Infected Mushroom - Wider
Thomas Mundt - Loudmax 64

METERING

TBP ProAudio - Isol8
Voxengo - Span
Melda Production - M Stereo Scope
Youlean - Loudness Meter

Thank you so much for listening!

Maurizio

In this screenshot there are some vst that i changed and tracks that i never used and deleted lately.

[hope4ever]

I actually understand everything you just said, very helpful, Ive heard these things on my travels. Thanks for the plugin recommendations. There is a line analyzer of frequencies in one of the two EQ's I used i used that as a guide. I maxed out my volume, not as familiar with LUFS but get the idea.
I guess I have to put that all into practice, at some time in the future I hope. I know there is a plugin called frequency spacer i looked into that idk if its free.
I hope I can do more challenges here,
Many thx for advice!

The thing is you have to create "room" for basedrum and avoid "conflict" with other bass instruments.
A basedrum consists of several things/phases
* A thump (attack phase) which is rather short and rather high pitch (yes it is ...)
* A body (sustain sort of) which is more bass sound
* A tail (release phase) which is again bass but releases the volume...

Easiest way to get room, to get everything else out of the way of a basedrum. Use for Instance the newly released Volume Shaper https://www.caelumaudio.com/CaelumAudio/?Page=FluxMini2. Please remember to only use the volume automation of it to play with the OSC rulez. Use one of the Presets called "Fakechain" on everything but your basedrum, i.e. have your basedrum on one track and somehow group all your other tracks together and then apply Flux2 to this group (Grouping of tracks works in Bitwig. Other DAWs could work with buses as their routing concept. Then create a "everything else" bus and route all tracksbut the basedrum to it)
What it does: When you Basedrums thump/attack phase happens in the first part of each quarter (assuming a techno 4-on-the-floor) it reduced the volume of everything else, so the basedrum can shine on it's own. Afterwards "everything else" is going to faded in. That will give you the typical "pumping" effect.

Then try to avoid conflict as well, conflict in terms of bass frequency. Basedrum body and release might conflict with other bass frequencies in your track which come from other instruments/tracks. Figure out which tracks should contribute to the overall bass. Make them play mostly unisons-notes to avoid mud, meaning don't play very low chords for instance. Instruments which should not contribute to your bass try to cut or reduce it with an EQ. Then as well mono the complete bass-band in the your master. There are tools that can do that for you.
Sound design and instrument selection might be a solution as well to avoid frequency conflict.

Control how your bass sounds. You can for instance place a "multiband splitter" on your master and solo your bass band and listen to how that sounds. if you get a clear bdr and bass then everything works well.

Hope that helps for a start and for a beginning of your journey into sound. Have fun.
Fakesidechain Explained.png
--
P.S.: To whome it concerns. It's so nice to read talk on discord about some of the newcomers ... a friendly community.

Thanks for the time you put into this detailed post, I will put it on my todo at some point and see if i can made a difference to the muddiness, very easy to follow good stuff. I will come back to this.

Many thx for being my first soundcloud follower, I notice you are based in Germany.. I grew up in the UK going to raves that played a lot of German Techno and Hard Trance, love it ... i like noom and time unlimited labels from the 90s among others, there were a lot of great labels back then.

[Spring Goose]

I got a comment on another forum I goto that said my songs posted here/there are muddy and they do not like the kick its too loud and muddy.. also i guess they mean the BASS is muddy too... I actually agree with them but do not know enough to change that. I am a total beginner at mastering, I messed around with EQ and limiters etc in this project (no outside mastering though) but I dont think I got it right, I rarely even do that for my songs I ust leave them as they are. I tried cutting some lower end out but then te sound transformed away from the good sound it was originally.

I understand that 400hz is where "mud" resides. Somebody correct me or elaborate if necessary.

[Spring Goose]

--

[jordipbou]

Hello everyone,

first time participating, I hope it will not be the last. Lots of fun.

Here's my entry:

https://soundcloud.com/user-962007315/j ... al_sharing

DAW: Ableton Live 11
Synth: 3 instances of MG-1 for bass, lead and noisy thing, 2 for drums and about 21 in an instrument rack for a polyphonic version.
Effects: Ableton Reverb and Delay

[r0b50n-machad0]

UP2 [ Unsaved Project 2 ] ("Galaga edit.")


Thank you so much for listening!

Maurizio

In this screenshot there are some tracks that i never used and deleted lately.

wow! fantastic!

[ZioMau]

UP2 [ Unsaved Project 2 ] ("Galaga edit.")


Thank you so much for listening!

Maurizio

In this screenshot there are some tracks that i never used and deleted lately.

wow! fantastic!

Thank you so much! Sorry but i had to replace file on soundcloud due to some bassline and other minimal update. Hope i haven't put hands on it anymore...me eternally unsatisfied!