heres my website:

charlesegertoncameron.***

This is mostly for student and gigs with my jazz trio.
I teach mostly. I have lots of knowledge about chord theory,
music theory, music history, almost all genres of music.
I play classical music too, from bach to debussy to gershwin.
I play jazz, funk, neosoul, blues jazz rock hip hop all the rest


lookin for some tips on music production, final mixing and sequencing

composing and arranging won't be a problem for me.
I'm developing beats for a web company

Heres what i'm lookin at for my set up:

logic
imac 8gb ram
presonus 8channel interface

pretty basic set up, i have all other gear i need.

Questions:

What is the best way to process my arrangments to their final form? can I do it on Logic?

What technical knowledge do i need to make sure I have
a top quality track - sound wise?

for example, headphones? surround sound?

what terms do i need to know? whats the cheat?

I want to take a track, throw something on it, and ensure i have the best quality
product i can have, with minimal effort.

fg ft

if anyone has any insights, pm me.

also an additional question - i don't know if anyone here can answer this -

If I i finish 4 tracks, how do I make sure they are all the same volume/quality and equalized the same way?

check out T-racks 3

godly mastering software

just gotta torrent unless you wanna pay




and a tip

when your tryin to master a track use dont just use headphones

This post was edited by MoBBHouse on Mar 17 2013 06:49am

In order to answer all this properly would take about a books worth of writing so I'll give you my coles notes answers:

Heres what i'm lookin at for my set up:

logic
imac 8gb ram
presonus 8channel interface

pretty basic set up, i have all other gear i need.

From what I listened to on youtube, this is an adequate setup and you should be able to accomplish what you're aiming for with this setup. I would suggest spending a bit more on your sound card and get a Motu 8pre over the presonus and I will outline why in the tech question.

Questions:

What is the best way to process my arrangments to their final form? can I do it on Logic?

I am not too familiar with Logic. Logic is not used by too many people so you'll be limited in online help tech support and some plug ins may not work well with it. As far as I know, this program should be able to do everything you need it to do.

What technical knowledge do i need to make sure I have
a top quality track - sound wise?

As a musician, you know the difference between a $200 portasound and a $2000 portable grand. As a musician, you can make pretty music on both but you also know you can make one sound a lot better than the other... sound wise.

As a techy, the same rules apply. In the right hands, a cheap piece of gear can work. But the reality is, if you cheap out, you sound cheap, just like on your instruments. I'm not going to tell you to go spend a fortune but I am going to tell you here's what you need:

A good instrument. A good way to capture it, (microphone, unless you're doing everything direct.) A good way to amplify the microphone, microphone preamp. A good way to convert your audio, A/D Convertor. A good facility to process your music.

Ex: Roland RD 700NX or Yamaha S90XS (Audio Technica AT4050 - Vintech 573) - Motu 8pre - Logic - Peak or Wavelabs

Without getting too into detail in "What technical knowledge do I need to know..." I'll give you an analogy. Take a gorgeous woman and a real expensive camera and take a photo graph through a beautiful lens and set it at 100 MB file size. You'll see colors and shadows you've never seen before. Then when you transfer your file from the camera to your computer, save it as a 10 MB Jpeg. You've now lost, 90% of the information. Then process it through the best photography editing software and you'll find you have a neat photo, but not a pretty one cause you cheeped out on your conversion. Okay well, lets convert at 100 MB but not use a prett model. Now you've got a wonderful picture of an ugly woman. Okay, well... lets use a shitty lens and get the pretty model back, now you don't have a nice picture to convert!

for example, headphones? surround sound?

What you want in a reference speaker is accuracy. True reference speakers are very expensive. The short cut here is to get a decent set of speakers and/or headphones and listen carefully on how your mixes translate onto other systems. Get used to how they sound outside of your listening environment although most people will tell you to get a killer set up. I've done some pretty good mixes on Dynaudio BM5s and used Grado SR325's

what terms do i need to know? whats the cheat?

I want to take a track, throw something on it, and ensure i have the best quality
product i can have, with minimal effort.

The term is called turd polishing. What you need to know is every stage counts enough that they should not be ignored. As far as tips and short cuts go, when you use the right tools for the right job, it makes your job easy. You can use the handle of a screwdriver to bash a nail into a 2x4 but I prefer a hammer.

You're lucky. You sound like a good musician. In my humble opinion, the song, the musician and the instrument are 80% of the project. Everything else accounts for the other 20. I'd say you're 80% of the way there already.

Here's my 2 cents on it:

What is the best way to process my arrangments to their final form? can I do it on Logic? Every recording program will allow you to record, edit, mix, and master. The differences lie in the workflow and features. Most of what I've seen from various recording forums is that many people prefer Logic for midi work and arranging. It also comes with awesome sounding virtual instruments. Pro Tools seems to be the favorite for recording and mixing. With that said, it's subjective, and your experience with each recording program will be different than another person's. Personally, I use Cubase, and I'm slowly starting to use Logic mainly because when I started recording, Pro Tools required proprietary hardware to use it. At the end of the day, you shouldn't get hung up on the program itself. Logic is a great program and will almost certainly allow you to do what you need to do.

What technical knowledge do i need to make sure I have
a top quality track - sound wise?
To get the "best sounds," you have to make sure that whatever you're recording sounds the way you want, even before placing mics on it. The "best sounds" will generally be tones you normally hear in the style of music that you want to record, but there are no rules. My best advice in this department is to have a vision for how you want the final product to be and to find/manipulate tones that fit that vision. It's all about experimentation. If you're just starting out, you can pick tones from songs you like and try to emulate them. There's a lot of videos on YouTube that show the effects of mic placements on certain instruments. In my opinion, the recording gear itself comes after all of these considerations. The Presonus interface you chose is great because it's easy to use and has nice, transparent preamps.

for example, headphones? surround sound? Most people use monitors for mixing instead of headphones, but that's not to say you can't mix with headphones. It all depends on how well the mix translates to other mediums after being mixed on monitors or headphones. The stereo spread and frequency response you hear will be different, so you'll end up making different choices when it comes to panning, eqing, etc. The best thing to do is to learn how your headphones or monitors make songs sound and make adjustments accordingly to get a balanced mix no matter if you're listening in your car, on your laptop, or your home stereo. As for surround sound, you shouldn't have to worry about it unless you're planning to mix your song in surround sound.

what terms do i need to know? whats the cheat? There's no cheat. It's all about experimenting and trying new things. You should do whatever you need to do to achieve the sound you hear in your head. You can watch videos and read forums for mixing advice, but you'll never find hard rules.

My advice is a little broad, but it's something I'd give to any person wanting to start recording/producing

This post was edited by heyunloving145 on Mar 20 2013 06:08pm

On a technical point of Presonus vs Motu:

The Motu's mic pre's have +20db (12 x volume) more gain with 0.00003% thD compared to Firestudios 0.005% thD. The result is higher output for quiet mics and a lower noise floor with less distortion. The midi clock is also more accurate than the presonus resulting in clearer A-D conversion on. Everything synced will have less veiling attributes.

I don't want to restate what has already been stated but I have a few things to add... which may turn into a longer post but I'll try to be succinct. (Not my strongest skill I'll admit...)

First off, I'm not the best to give tracking advice but I can give some feedback on mixing and mastering so I'll just skip the recording part. Onto mixing...

As far as your question of "What's the cheat?" well... there isn't one really. It just takes hard work and practice. If you're looking at a quick turn around time for this project and you don't know what you're doing from an engineering standpoint, you might consider hiring a mix engineer that can do the job for you. If you do know what you're doing or you're up for the challenge of learning then you need to understand your tools at least well enough to get a result you are satisfied with. If you are truly lusting after the very best production you can get, you will need time and practice, and adequate gear. You can mix fully "in the box" (on a computer) without using outboard processing if you choose to do it this way. This way is generally easier on your wallet, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each route. Logic will handle all of that for you. You might look into VST or AU plug-ins for effects that are not native to Logic, though Logic has some very good plug-ins that come with it. The biggest "cheat" I can think of is: good gear often helps good sound, but if you are mixing a shitty recording, it's going to come out sounding like you mixed a shitty recording. If you are getting to a point where your gear is holding you back, don't be afraid to admit it to yourself, but conversely, don't be fooled into thinking higher end gear will make you a wizard.

From a technical standpoint, what you need to know could be stated in an entire book (which you may benefit from reading a good one) but for now you should learn the basics of your processing units: EQ, compression, reverb etc. You should also get a coherent understanding of proper gain staging and I think that cannot be stated enough. It's often overlooked and it's very important and can make a huge difference in the quality of your productions, not to mention understanding gain staging is invaluable to building a solid foundation to learn production on. Again, terms you would need to know could be talked about in a book. Look into all your effects. Learn those terms, and learn the parameters and what they do. Just go through and find anything you have questions about and Google it. There's a ton of information out there. Again, a book could help put all this information in one easily digestible place so it may be worth finding a book you think will do well for you.

You will want proper monitoring. You CAN mix on headphones but I wouldn't particularly recommend it. Not everyone will agree with me on that but it's truly how I feel. Unless you want to spend close to $1k on headphones, you're going to make some compromises along the way. Even with a very expensive set of headphones there are still advantages to classic monitoring. Having said that, using headphones in conjunction with monitors for referencing can be a very good practice. For monitors, find something that is revealing as has been stated above. A set of monitors that shows all the faults of your mix is much more valuable to you as a mix engineer than a pair of monitors that flatter your mix. This is why NS-10's are extremely popular in high end studios. On the note of monitoring it is well worth mentioning that acoustic treatment is a valuable addition to any studio. I, personally, am of the belief that you can mix in any room given time to get used to it but you will constantly be fighting an uphill battle until you are used to your room and even then you will need to learn the value of referencing professional tracks. Basically, room treatment can make your life easier.

As far as your comment that you want to get the best result with minimal effort... a very understandable sentiment, however, don't expect to get away with making something very polished with very little effort. It just doesn't work that way. Mix engineers work just as hard as musicians and there is just as much time and dedication put into the art of mixing as there is put into the art of playing and performing. Just learn your tools and learn to enjoy the process. That's all I'll say about mixing for now.

To address your very last question about finding the same volume for all tracks: That is the job of the mastering engineer. Mastering is a whole other can of worms. You could get by with some mastering software, as stated already above, something like Ozone or T Racks or something. But you must understand that mastering engineers have a different perspective than a mix engineer in some ways. There is a lot of overlap but what you are looking to get out of the process is different in some subtle and some not so subtle ways. Basically, mastering aims to bring your tracks to commercial loudness while also preserving dynamics and often there are other small finishing touches added such as harmonic saturation or stereo widening etc. If you don't want to learn this or do it yourself, hire a mastering engineer. It will be well worth it if you are not confident in your ability to master. It also can give you a fresh perspective on a track which can be invaluable at that stage in the process.

I know I've said a lot here and I don't mean to intimidate you I just want to be clear that if what you are after is truly commercial level mixes then there is a good body of stuff you need to know. The people cranking out commercial mixes are very skilled at what they do and have many tricks up their sleeves. Some of it is very simple and subtle, some of it is very technical and heady. You can choose where you want to go once you have everything recorded but like somebody above stated, what you put in is what you get out. Do your best to make your best mixes and put a lot of love into them and you will be rewarded. It's a process just like any other art form and the more you do it the better you will become.

You sound like a skilled musician and I am excited for you to learn this stuff. I'm sure you could play circles around me on an instrument and I have a ton of respect for people who can do it all so it's a very worthwhile step to take in my opinion. I, myself, am a production geek but I find great pleasure in polishing music and getting creative with audio processing because I find it to be very rewarding. Hopefully you will feel the same. Good luck!