ok i’m listening to panini with the compensation on and having an out of body experience. this sounds so good lol
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I don’t know if I’ve ever had a great approach to mixing! part of it is just me not having good enough speakers or headphones until relatively recently but I also am lazy and don’t like to do those kinds of adjustments 
at my internship at sony they had me in a non-sound treated room so I mostly mixed on a pair of sony MDR7506s and that’s the headphone I swear by now - it’s the most neutral pair I’ve heard and since I can trust it to be neutral I know that the adjustments I’m making will be reflected on most setups other people are using
but I think the mixing process is a little less “guarantee your response is flat before starting the mix” and a little more “have a good understanding of the response of the system you’re mixing on” - I’ve heard engineers say that they could mix on apple earpods if they had to because it’s just a frequency response they’re really familiar with
not sure if this helps! I’m not good at mixing!
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yeah mixing & mastering are mysterious esoteric arts to me, it’s my biggest weakness as a producer imo (even more than the whole “i barely understand music theory” thing.) i use relatively neutral headphones while i work & try to make my demos sound reasonably decent on cheap speakers since that’s what most folks will be using anyway
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i recently found out that even badly mastering something myself is worth doing.
i’m doing all this stuff on some cheap but ok monitor speakers, and will give everything a run through laptop speakers/apple earpods just to check it.
it really is just trying to A/B compare things to see what sounds better.
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yeah I’d define my “mixing” process as what happens during the actual composition of the piece - it’ll usually happen slightly after I’m done with all the parts and involves me figuring out which of those parts I’d like to emphasize at different parts of the track, so it’s kind of intertwined with the arrangement of the track in a way that makes it hard to separate out into its own atomized section of making a track. I think that will be more and more the case the closer you get to purely electronic music, but I mostly think about mixing these days in terms of which parts I like enough to hear loud
then the “mastering” is stuff I’ve done before and after composition - in the case of my techno tracks it’s mostly what I’ve done before, in that i have a template on the octatrack that I use every time I write a new track with the gain staging already figured out, so all the levels and EQ will sound pretty good regardless of what I write, and if I do something way different I just need to do some slight adjustments. then I have an elektron analog heat just sitting at the end of the chain for compression, boosting the levels a bit and warming stuff up with some distortion. all of this makes it so that the only “mastering” I do after the track is recorded in ableton is slap a limiter on the master and turn up the gain until the limiter is actually doing some work, export and call it a day. I used to have a mastering chain that I’d use but as I moved into hardware-only tracks that chain changed too much so i took it off. it’s important to remember that “mastering” as a step in the production process was mostly a result of having to put the tracks on physical media, which required a different master for vinyl, cd, etc. if you’re just releasing tracks digitally then for most intents and purposes you can get away with a pretty simple mastering process
it’s just a lot of experimenting until you find a setup that you like enough to use over and over again
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During the last year or so, I’ve found it helpful to listen to radically different material while mixing/mastering. If I’m mixing music I will have a browser open with something like talk radio or a radio play (BBC Sounds is good) or a high quality let’s play video. I initially started doing it out of boredom while editing but I think it really helps me with objectivity and fosters a good amount of creative distraction. It seems to make getting a translatable mix easier.
I was told a long time ago by a very accomplished engineer that sometimes the best thing to do is leave the room and go watch some TV. This is kind of like that I guess. Keeps a kind of distance.
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OK I am finally now thinking about midi keyboards, 32 keys and under. any that play particularly nicely with reaper? best under $150?
just started looking into it and so far I’ve heard about the m32, keystep, mpk mini
sorry I’m always asking dumb questions in here lol I’m just working on finally setting up a music battlestation or whatever. I am looking forward to simplifying my workflow with reaper and a nice controller. with the mpc as sort of a mess around box
I think I’m gonna start out minimal like, I have nice headphones and borrowed monitors (m-audio AV30), an interface, a DAW, a pad controller (MPC as MIDI follow), borrowed mic /stand (MXL2001), a bunch of virtual instruments, and hopefully soon a keyboard controller
all the tools I need to take the little voice memos I hum while doing laundry and turn them into songs 
I just want to make my workflow brainless and easy so I spend little time preparing when I have an idea
been using sonarworks ref since version 3, even sent my own senn hd800s over to get measured and create a custom profile
it’s a fine piece of software. if i were buying new cans any time soon, i’d literally ask this company straight up for recommendations because fuck knows they’ll have analysed hundreds at this point and i can just pick the ones that need the least dramatic compensation curves
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don’t worry about asking too many questions! I always wish I had people to talk to when I was learning all this stuff years ago which is partly why this thread exists
i think the keystep is the best keyboard controller just because it works with everything, i haven’t used it so i can’t tell you about the quality of the keys
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i was pleasantly surprised by the quality/feel of the keystep, on top of the good value and sequencer etc. can’t recommend it enough for the price.
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I got a MPK Mini from a friend and the built in arpeggiator is a lot of fun especially since a lot of my synths are monophonic. USB only though which means I need a laptop in the middle.
The keystep has that CV out though if you’re into that.
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dope! thanks for the feedback, i’m def gonna buy it.
speaking of sonarworks they’re running a 40% off black friday sale which has me bugging. i was gonna stick with headphone edition, but studio edition WITH MIC for 179 is nuts…
fwiw one of the other lads at the shop did the whole studio edition package and was immediately chuffed with the results
i don’t have the conditions to build a decent mixing room so headphones it is for a long while yet
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i was trying to make a little feature comparison between the controllers but I was failing at it so i’ll just type some thoughts… here’s the features i’m comparing…
- most important things: I really care about musicality as the main aspect of the midi keyboard. more keys is better, nice keybed feel. ive disliked ‘toy-ish’ keyboards in the past, they just feel rinky dink and i end up not wanting to touch them. I don’t want to go over 2 feet long to fit on my desk. sequencing/arp/generative tools are great, I love having a lot of options to give me inspiration or ideas. needs under 2 feet long to fit on my desk.
- less important things: since I’m using reaper, I don’t foresee major differences in DAW control, and I don’t have a lot of other hardware to hook up (altho more I/O is always nice to have for future versatility.) backpack portability would be nice but i’m not really going anywhere right now, lol.
- don’t really care about: drum pads (nice to have but I have an MPC for that), integrated sounds/software (shrug)
- price - i’m okay with going up to 170-ish but obviously cheaper is better
pros for each model i’m considering:
- keystep 37 - love the look of the one-of-a-kind generative tools, especially walk, strum, pattern mode. it’s why i’m considering the 37 over the normal keystep. 37 keys, good keyfeel with aftertouch (idk what that means but hey). great connectivity/versatility for any future hardware purchases.
- NI m32 - best keyfeel, 32 keys. great build quality. strong DAW control options
- mpk mini - super small and lightweight, ultra portable while also having best drum pads and good arp. seems like the most ‘pick up and go’ option, like it wants to be played with
Cons:
keystep 37 has no DAW control knobs (iirc) or drum pads which is a bit of a shame. won’t fit in backpack.
M32 is super software-reliant with the tiny screen, also won’t fit in backpack / no pads. not sure how the integration will work on reaper / will i be super tied to the NI software.
mpk mini – 25 keys + i feel like i could really be shooting for better keyfeel. seems like sort of a jack of all trades master of none situation.
what do you all think? should I be considering something other than these three? out of the three i feel like the keystep 37 is prooobably the best choice for me.
i think the main choice here is between the NI or the keystep. and, from what i can tell, that really comes down to wanting to work well with hardware (keystep) or software (NI).
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the chord knobs can be toggled to four banks of CC controllers, and the message number can be set directly or in the setting manager
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Are any of the later Oxygen 25s bus powered?