Well, now that people are posting here a little I’ll edit this post!
I haven’t been making music much over the last few months, but you can find me things on Sondclod and bundcump. The newest thing that I never posted here was just some keyboard improvising:
@Brooks Right now I’m using Reason 7.1 as my main synth/composition workhorse, and Reaper 5.1 for editing, misc. recording and production stuff. I have a copy of Pro Tools Express lying around that came with my audio interface, but ┐(‘~`;)┌
thanks blueberry, I agree re: that song and humid days. the second guitar feels like summer evening air and then the vocal is a crisp breeze, or a glass of ice water. I recorded it with a variety of expensive microphones and an enormous mixing desk, it was pretty fun.
your soundcloud is cool, I need to take a closer look
Here are my two latest tracks. The first is a short, percussion-heavy fusion piece in irregular time; the second is a fast-paced FM jamfest that plays with a central melody.
Now, as far as I know the loudness war is basically done with the advent of auto-gain systems in most new playback software
I’m always interested in the mixdown practices of others so, plz share
Currently I am being highly anal about retaining major dynamic range, keeping my average RMS (well, LUFS these days) way low and avoiding compressors like the fucking pox
Also experimenting with impulses for better space presentation
I strongly appreciate that very expensive plugins are very easy to steal
Any DAW worth its salt comes with a decent set of basic plugs, too, so it’s gravy.
I need to concentrate more on retaining dynamics, as I’ve noticed things get pretty squished in the louder sections of my recent tracks. Pretty sure I push things too far when I’m bringing everything up to level. I’m not totally against compressors as they can really help glue everything together in the final mix, but it’s pretty easy to overdo it.
I record most of my guitar via DI, so I’m pretty reliant on reverb to help give recordings appropriate atmosphere. Haven’t used my convolution plugs very often ITR, but I’d had decent results when I have.
Most of the recording I do/have done has been low on processing in general. Generally I have to do whatever a client wants but I do refuse to push levels too high and also avoid compression and artificial plug ins (this does not attract me very much business).
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is just how dated things seem to me when relying too heavily on cutting edge technology. At the moment I try to get good recordings in one take to avoid too much editing later, then just balance levels and EQ and compress individual elements to taste with some cheap, but solid, outboard gear. I’ll also mixdown stems of guitars, drums etc just to make some decisions final. The flexibility digital recording affords means half of the people I work with just keep tweaking and tweaking for hours on end. I cannot stand this process.
It helps that I only really work with live bands because this practice is not at all sustainable in the current climate of record production.