What’s up everybody. I started producing 6 or 7 years ago. I was able to build up a pretty big knowledge of most things about it. Though i would love to hear how you guys ‘practice’ of further improving yourself. Since a couple of months i started diving more and more into Sound design. The thought of being able to create most sounds you want very precisely. I really wanna learn more about that and about arranging your sounds as i think it is just as important as the sound design itself. But please post what you had trouble with too and how you got around that.
I’ve been writing music for 7 years. Producing for only one. I’ve learned there are guidelines but no rules. I.e. People say always put your eq after your compressor but I can make a neat snare sound putting my compressor after my reverb and eq.
I listen to music I enjoy and wish to emulate on many different speaker types, from my phone, to my studio monitors, to my Sol Republic headphones. I take notes. What does the kick sound like, where do the vocals feel like they are sitting in the mix, what effects do I think he’s using?
I listen to my own music on many different speakers. I show my friends. They aren’t audiophiles, but occasionally I get some solid advice just from having a second or third set of ears.
My producer friend downloads individual tracks of songs off of the internet (vocals, bass, drums, etc) and then experiments with them in his DAW, looks for different ways to mix them, give them different vibes. Personally I think that is genius.
^check out my shitty music
What do you guys do?
1 BigUp
Shitty? I love it already after just listening to it for a couple of minutes. I just love these ‘f*ck all your rules i do what i want’ sort of bangers. Is that you singing in these tracks? Sounds awesome.
That is me singing! Except for “Never,” that’s my friend who’s classically trained. Thanks!
Rules are for shmucks.
I’m still a n00b when it comes to mastering.
Mastering is overrated 
you just need to get the mix and the arrangement right.
I really like this sort of trashy sound
Ha-ha thanks. Every time I post to SoundCloud I find things I wish I had fixed. My snares are a little weak in this mix. I will post my better mix once my album drops on Halloween. I wish I could get a more polished sound, but I can still roll with trashy. Punks would like it.
If you have Skype i might be able to teach you a thing or two about poloshing your sounds 
One will always find something to ‘fix’. you can never release music. Only abandon it 
The trick to arrangement is to think of it as follows: there can only be so much volume of one frequency at any given time. Volume * frequency/octave * time.
Go practice writing songs with that in mind. The thing is that formula applies to mixing as well, so if you follow the formula before even getting to the mix, your mixes tend to fall into place pretty fast.
Well as far as you go you mean the frequencies interfering with each other right? Such as Phase problems. i know how to avoid all that and putting together/filtering out the right frequencies. I rather mean adjusting the attack, decay and release of sounds in so they are timed right and ‘glued’ together with compressors and so on.
Sorry, was a bit confused by “arranging” as usually when people say that they mean composing, song writing.
Compression and envelopes are both pretty basic in terms of knowing what they do and what the parameters do, its more about just training your ear through many hours working in your studio. There is nothing you can read to train your ears.
I don’t, but I’ll make one after work today. That would be swell.
Leonardo Da Vinci once said that about art. Wisest words I’ve heard so far.
Well i could go all in depth about frequencies still existing a long time after you have played the sound out of reach for our ear but still interfering. That is rather what i meant ( darn i need to learn how to properly ask questions. my fault) but what i rather want to know here is how do people on this site still practice their craft after years and years.
I’d say, what I said earlier. Train your ears. Try lots of different speakers, genres, and tools to get a feel for sound and music as a whole. What is pleasing, what isn’t.
And remember you aren’t the only human and the the only opinion. You can never 100% get what another is feeling/thinking/hearing, but you can learn the right questions to ask.
I like to turn the music down as low as possible until each instrument dissapears to see what punches the hardest.
I practice by making music…
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The most efficient thing that I have done to “practice” is to pop a verse of a pro song into my DAW and then just try to match everything that I could. There is no sense in writing an entire track to learn how to sound a certain way…just work on a 4 bar loop or something and get it mixed, mastered and sound designed so that it A/Bs on par with the pro track.
Learning some music theory will help a ton. Listen to the way your favorite tracks are arranged…study your favorite producers and practice. I choose to focus on melodys…once I got a good melody the song will make itself.
when i eventually found a DAW that i was completely comfortable with, it was like new lease of life… i feel like my productions really improved after that.
i’d used about 4 different DAW’s before i found something that allowed me to work the way i wanted to… my biggest regret was me not being open to trying different software sooner… i was held back by being worried about leaving something i was already familiar with…
a lot of lost time…