Jump to content

des99

Moderator
  • Posts

    12,446
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    180

des99 last won the day on March 20

des99 had the most liked content!

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

des99's Achievements

  1. Kontakt 7.9 is out with *official* Sonoma compatibility, but as reported earlier and by others, earlier versions seemed to work fine on Sonoma for everyone anyway.
  2. Not directly in Logic. You can program macros in things like Keyboard Maestro to do similar things though, to drive Logic's interface programmatically. And there is another tool optimised for remote controlling DAWs, but I forget it's name right now...
  3. Alchemy is a super complex synthesiser that supports multiple synthesis engines, including sample playback, granular synthesis, and more regular virtual analog style synthesis. Sample Alchemy is a cut-down version of Alchemy that isn't a synthesiser as such, it does sample playback only, and has a much optimised interface for letting you play with, and manipulate samples in a more intuitive way.
  4. My fan has turned on precisely *once*, when I was rendering out something that took a while. That's it. You wouldn't even know this MBP *has* a fan, until it really needs some cooling help... The Mx-series laptops right from the start have been incredible machines, all of them.
  5. I think the first thing to do is start to be able to identify what is competing for space, to then decide how to handle it. And by space, not just in terms of where something sits in the mix, but whether it's competing for *attention*, and from there, then you can get a feel for whether it's a mix issue, or an arrangement issue (you can fix some arrangement issues with the mix, of course, eg, dropping parts out or changing them up with processing or positioning etc) Think in terms of left-right (panning), up-down (frequency & volume), and back-front (frequency, volume and ambience). Should something be up front and in your face, or pushed to the background to give space for other things up front?.. etc. If you've got multiple things going on, where should the focus be? At any time, is one thing more important than others? If so, are you shining a light on what's important, and letting the other stuff give way? A good mix always keeps the important things in focus, but then often brings other details in and out for little moments and colour when the vocal is out of the way, for instance (using automation). You can do a *lot* with panning, EQ, volume and reverb wet/dry balance... You can also do some more advanced techniques like sidechaining parts so that, for instance, when the vocal comes in, it pulls some of the instruments that would otherwise compete in that space down a little, or on reverb so that when the vocal is present the reverb levels are low, but when the vocal stops the reverb swells back up a bit - there are lots of tools and techniques to learn, but it's important imo to start with the fundamentals and learning to build a good mix without a bunch of other stuff going on that you may not be totally in control of...
  6. How much CPU is the last CPU core specifically taking in this case? It sounds like you're overloading the Live Mode core.
  7. Do you guys break into fits of giggles every time you use Logic’s Lock SMPTE Position feature? 😝
  8. SMPTE is still a thing, you know..! 😉
  9. Yes, Apple even released a driver update for them so they even work on Apple silicon systems.
  10. I still use my AMT8 and SoundDiver (although not so much Logic 1.x/2.x on the ST, as I had to give up my LOG3 when I moved to LAP on the PC)... 👍 I'm not sure what the funny is around Notator's SMPTE window, though? Notator's timing, particularly with it's SMPTE interface UNITOR was widely known as being excellent...
  11. There's a preference setting for that: Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Open Plugins in Controls view by default
  12. Maybe the plugins you are using are lowering your channel volume? Try disabling the plugins on that audio track, and checking the levels in the channel meter between input monitor mode, and track playback. They should be the same. If you then turn on your plugins and the volume drops, then what you are doing with the plugins is turning your playback & monitoring volume down, so you'll need to address the volume issue there.
  13. And make sure "Enable Complete Features" is checked in your Settings -> Advanced preferences, otherwise you won't see the controls view switcher (as evidenced by the fact it's missing in your screenshot).
  14. Your experience is basically *everybody's* experience when starting out on any complicated, technical and creative endeavour, so you're probably on the right track! 😉 It's more complicated in many ways starting today because everybody has access to *waaayyy* more tools - people are struggling selecting which of their twelve different compressors to use before they've even learnt how to hear compression, let alone how to *use* them both technically and artistically to achieve a particular affect. It doesn't matter whether it's photography, drawing, playing an instrument, sculpture, whatever - the exact processes might be different, but the principles are all much the same - how to learn the vocabulary of the task you want to do, and how to develop the experience of which tools to use, and how to use them tastefully and with intent, to achieve the desired creative outcome. For anyone learning *anything* creative, I always loved this bit from Ira Glass: For something more specific, and without knowing exactly where you are in your learning process, I would strip it down to basics. Take your most recent song, save out a copy, and remove all plugins etc, reset all faders and pans. Mute all the extraneous stuff to only leave the core parts playing - let's say, the core drums, bass, chordal part and vocals. Bring up a basic balance where the drums and bass are working together, bring up the vocal to where it sounds good, and bring up the chordal parts to fill out the sound, without overwhelming the vocal. If you can't get something here that kinda works, then likely you have problems other than you mix - ie, your arrangement, your playing, the basic recordings etc may all have problems that make it hard to achieve a good mix. If so, you can look at those and see what can be done to improve them. If you can achieve a rough balance at this point which sounds "ok", then you can try bit by bit bringing in the other, less vital parts and "colouring in" the mix. If you feel the vocal starts to lose focus or get stomped on by these other parts, then probably those parts aren't working, so consider leaving those out of the mix, or trying approaches which get them out of the way (I'm trying to not focus on specific techniques at this stage). Once here, and you have a basic balance with most of the parts you want, try and assess whether there are any problems to take care of. Is the bass muddy and indistinct? Is the guitar too sharp or it sticks out in places? Does the vocal sound a little unpleasant at times, etc? There are a variety of ways to address these problems, and if you choose to do so, *be gentle about it*. Use the *least* amount of processing you can to *improve* the problem, rather than try to be heavy-handed and "fix" it (remember, you probably haven't developed your ears enough to make adequate judgements of how much to do something, so stay on the side of under-doing it for now). Take your rough mixes, and listen to them out of the context of mixing - ie, put them on your phone/headphones/car etc, go for a walk/drive, and listen outside the concept of thinking "which EQ should I be using on the acoustic guitar part". You'll start to listen more artistically, rather than just listen for technical issues, and start to get some general rough ideas on what's working, what's not working, and possible ways in which you want to move the mix to something that "feels" better. And lastly, the thing no one wants to hear when they are learning - the mix you do in ten years' time will be way better than what you are doing now (if you're doing it right, at least!). For now, do the best you can, listen, analyse, get feedback, try stuff, don't be afraid to strip the mix down and start again, and above all, however you get there, *finish it*. Even if you're less than happy with the results, finish it, and move on. We learn by doing, and the more you do, the more you'll develop your own techniques, aesthetics and creative voice. But it does take time to do that, there aren't any shortcuts, and *everyone* goes through this in their own way and time. Above all, enjoy it, try not to get overwhelmed, and be glad you're learning with the amazing tools we have now, rather than on a four-track cassette portastudio with extremely cheap and limited, hardware-only gear like some of us had to use. What you can do in your first year of making music is *millions* of times better than what I could do when starting out, to keep everything in perspective... 🙂
×
×
  • Create New...