LabRat

i got one of these to take with me. can throw it in my lappy bag without taking up room i think they're 60 bucks or something. it's great! i use my synth for most of my other stuff but this is good to smash ideas out

I got a Cakewalk UA-1G. Does what I need it to do but it doesn't run my studio mic as it hasn't got phantom power. Everything else is fine

Yeah I'm basically the same area. City seems to work ok. Could go leedy, mt lawley, subi etc…

I miss my 800's

It's a bit hit and miss for me too but was an interesting read

Where are you located, Torqued?

10 Things they don’t tell Music Producers…. til it’s too late If you are new to music production, or even if you’ve been poking around for a while, there are a number of things that you haven’t been told about making music. Depending on what angle you are taking to get into the music production game, you are likely either over preparing or under preparing for what lies ahead. Sadly, many suffer from what they consider to be complete failure & thus give up. It is my belief that if they had this information ahead of time, they probably would have had the power to move through the rough spots. The following are 10 things I certainly wish I had known when I started (or even after 10 years in!) 1. Your first attempts at making music won’t be great, and that’s the way it should be. One of the biggest mistakes an aspiring producer can make is to think their next song is going to be the song that not only changes their lives but changes music history. Unfortunately, these are the high expectations and pressure they put on themselves & this is the reason they never finish anything. Nothing you make the first time around can compete with the producer’s who have churned out 100′s or even thousands of songs. If you sit there for a year or more struggling with making your first song the hit of the century, you are missing the opportunity that creating many imperfect songs can bring you. The truth is that you need to finish a good 10-20 songs before you start to find your groove. This might seem daunting for perfectionist, but if you can put aside perfection and just call a project done when you’ve reached the tip of your current skill level, you’ll find yourself improving at a dramatically faster rate. Plus, as your production & listening skills get better, you can always go back and revisit old songs for improvements that now seems obvious to you. 2. Nobody creates in a constant peak state Peak states of consciousness, also called flow is considered to be the most desired state of being a human can experience. Extreme athletes & adventurists don’t risk their lives because they are crazy. It’s because being on the edge is the only way to create these flow states. Nobody can experience these states constantly. And when I say nobody, I mean it. The reason for this is that peak states of creativity follow a pattern which involves lulls & frustration. It’s 2 sides of the same coin & you simply can’t have one without the other. If you aren’t putting yourself at the edge of your capabilities and risking failure, your level of focus simply won’t be intense enough to put you into this peak state of mind. If you are a multi-tasker or tend to surround yourself with distractions, you will have no chance of reaching this state. Peak creativity states make the whole world fade away and you experience “now” in a way that can’t really be explained unless you have been there. Great artists have taught themselves how to get into this state more often than others, but still understand that 90% of the time, all artists have to push themselves to do the work regardless of how they feel. In fact as I write this, I was interrupted and brought into a whole conversation that I had to politely exit. It will now take me a bit of time to get back into my flow, even though it wasn’t a “peak” flow. Regardless the show must go on, and so must you. Don’t wait for the right time. Peak states only come to those who are willing to do the work regardless. 3. Most of what you think you need to know, doesn’t matter So many artists have this belief that they can’t start making music with what they know right now. Because of this fear of creating, they over prepare. They end up wasting 100′s of hours watching every tutorial outlining tips for every style of music & diving deep into music theory. What they don’t realize is that most of this information will fall right back out of your head & never make it into your tool box. On top of that, they are getting so many opposing pieces of advice, that all this information causes more confusion than it does benefits. As a rule, a new producer should be spending 80% of her time making music & only 20% (at most) spent learning new techniques. I recommend you take your own skills as far as you possibly can, and only then do you search out the 1 or 2 tutorials that will get you over that creative hump so you can reach the next level in your music making. This is the only way you will retain what you have learned as well as the only way you will keep yourself focused on actually music making. Don’t get yourself caught up in the information trap for the wrong reasons. 4. Most of the tools you think you need, you don’t Many producer’s new and old join groups & forums related to their musical style or DAW of choice. I believe it is smart to interact with likeminded people, but be warned. The time people are spending in these forums is time they probably should be making great music. This lack of focus on actually working on your music can become addicted as everyone in the group lets everyone else off the hook. Then there are the “know it alls”. These are the people who are pissed off their amazing talents haven’t boosted them into the stratosphere of fame and glory. These people are better than you & want you to know it. “oh you’re using that compressor? That thing sounds like dogshit! If you aren’t using xyz plugin or this piece of hardware, you might as well pack it in” Pretty soon you are spending all of your songwriting time searching other forums discussing 100 different points of view on what compressor you need to have to be taken seriously by your peers. Stop it. stop it. STOP IT! Yes, there are some amazing plugin’s out there, but the truth is, if you learn how to use a certain tool inside & out, you can usually get great results. I personally use mostly internal plugins from my daw of choice (Ableton). I’ve heard many people tell me Logic effects are better, and although I wouldn’t disagree, I’ve found a way to get the job done quickly & efficiently with the tools I have and so far, the type of plugin’s I use has not effected getting my tracks signed & reaching the charts one single bit. At the end of the day, the person that finishes the most songs wins every time. Focus on that. 5. Your habits count more than your knowledge Once again, you need to stop thinking you need to know everything. I’ve personally gone that route. In the past, I was able to teach people how to use music software inside and out & they would take a few chosen gems & run with them while disregarding much of the information they didn’t need right now. Good on them, they were finishing music, and at the time, I wasn’t. Lesson learned. If you want to be a successful songwriter or producer, you should first concentrate on your habits far before your knowledge. If you haven’t instilled the habits that will force you to work on music daily, your knowledge won’t matter. Frankly it’s a bit stupid to keep adding tools to your already oversized toolbox if you are never going to sit your ass down and use them. You will get FAR more benefit by creating the habit of sitting in from of your DAW of choice for 15 minutes a day, even if you don’t write a thing, than you will from force feeding your brain with more “knowledge”. If you ever want to create a creative flow, it comes from clearing your mind, not stuffing it like that closet you don’t show any or your guests. 6. Everything you want comes through people People are more important than knowledge. Look around at all of those highly successful people. Are they all there because they are geniuses? No way. Everything you want (outside of your personal spiritual growth) is going to require relationships. You simply can’t stay locked out from the world, making great music & expect that to be enough. You are going to have to interact, communicate & share your value in trade for the value of others. If you think you are above promoting yourself (in the most ethical way of course) and sharing you with the world, the world will never have the opportunity to appreciate who you are & what it is you do so well. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is lying to you. 7. You don’t have to be miserable to make good music Man, if I hadn’t wasted all those years with the “artist” mentality, I might have gotten more done & enjoyed myself a whole lot more. You don’t need to fabricate a difficult, dark & addicted lifestyle to be great. If not saying that getting out of your head every once in a while can’t be beneficial. It’s not popular to say this, but sometimes the drugs do work, at least for a little bit. Gladly, I did my share & got out of it before doing myself much permanent damage. I can reflect on those experiences from a sober state of mind & say with complete conviction that I am 10 times more productive as a sober person (who has the occasional beer). Don’t follow your fellow musicians down the rabbit hole too far or you will fuck yourself, your creativity & your productivity. Have experiences & make music, but always give your music top priority. The “lifestyle” is largely bullshit anyway. Don’t believe the hype. 8. Musicianship is optional I’ve spoken out many times of my happiness in being a non-musician, or at least my happiness of not letting it get in the way of creating things I am proud of. So many great songwriters are not the best musicians & many of the best electronic artists don’t have a big musical background and many of those who do, found it a hinderance to creating outside the box at times. A non-musician does not have a total lack of talent, it’s just coming from another angle. The man who I consider to be the greatest engineer & one of the most celebrated artists is Brian Eno. All the music theory in the world wouldn’t put me at his level of talent. He’s responsible for some of the best works of David Bowie, U2, David Bryne, Coldplay (I know, I know), James & even Devo, not to mention his incredible work with Roxy music. For all of the incredible music he is responsible for, he still considers himself a crap musician. If you have a music background, wonderful, use it. If you don’t, also wonderful, create from a different angle. You will never know your capabilities until you embrace them. 9. Time is the only difference from you & those who are now successful Your musical heroes are not really heroes, they are arrows pointing in the direction of your own potential. Do not allow the thought that “some have it and some don’t”, it’s simply not true. The truth is that some people work for it(unfortunately very few) tirelessly & consistently until they get it. Some of the best artists actually took longer to get there than you would expect. The video below explains this concept better than my own words ever could, so please watch it and let it sink in. If you want to know whether you’ve got it in you or not, look at your daily habits, not your skill level. 10. Everybody steals So many people are so fucking paranoid that they just sit there staring at their computer screen like me wandering aimlessly in a supermarket trying to put a meal together. My god, if I couldn’t steal recipes from people much more gifted in cooking than me, I’d be in even more trouble. The truth is, that all of the music you hear is inspired by another musician, artist, poet or some abstract thing someone recognized as having a beauty that others might not have seen from that perspective. That idea you are afraid to borrow was almost certainly inspired someone else, if not completely stolen. Picasso, John Lennon & Steve Jobs, all considered to be creative innovators all are famously quoted for nicking ideas pretty blatantly. You think Led Zeppelin were innovators? I did too & I still love them, but if you do some research, I’m sure you’ll be shocked. Stealing ideas is how artists constantly fuel their own creativity. Letting go of the fear of being completely original will actually set you free & make you more creative, not less. Use samples, presets, loops, quotes, or even steal from your own past ideas. Nothing you can steal will be put back together quite like the source you got it from. We are all human filters. This means that no matter what we borrow or steal, it still has to run through our unique set of parameters before it gets spit back out as our own art. Drop the fear & use everything around you when you create. It’s liberating. Happy music making, Source: http://www.musicsoftwaretraining.com

next weekend i'm mixing a 90's party, which is gonna be sick fun and i'll be coming down to support ya at the DMC's. should we make it next weekend?

Just keep the thread updated with what you guys decide to do. If we're gonna talk production I'll bring down my lappie so it's easier to explain things. It'll make it more interactive too, which is always fun

I'm good whenever. This weekend can work if anyone else has time?

We could do a pub like the breakwater or mullas early enough that he'll be allowed in. We just gotta order food to make it look like we're there for a meal lol anytime before 7 or 8pm on a weekend should work and anytime prior to 3 or 4pm on a Sunday when security aren't checking ID

Hey mate, I'm from p-city too! I'm down for a catch up to talk about production and the other bits of the djing world

cheers bud. was on my phone so was a bit difficult lol

This one seems a bit interesting as it points out more of the business side of things. May be worth a read if anyone is interested Ever since 2007, SoundCloud has been revolutionizing the way artists and fans share music online. Before it, there were few easy way for music bloggers to embed listenable tracks on their sites and share new underground music with their followers. Most notably, SoundCloud helped spur on the movement in Electronic Dance Music (EDM) and the DJs that make it. SoundCloud is now the defacto YouTube of underground music, and just like the video behemoth, the music platform is undergoing some very public growing pains as it tries to keep the record labels, the artists, and the fans all on the same happy —especially when it comes music copyrights. With over 40 million registered users and over 250 million listeners, SoundCloud is now too large to have human employees supervising, flagging or removing the millions of songs that get uploaded, sometimes illegally, on a daily basis. A simple solution was to introduce its platform to Audible Magic, a technology that identifies and automatically removes unlicensed songs uploaded by users that infringe on the copyright held by record labels. Essentially, Audible Magic can identify the “acoustic fingerprint” left on a piece of audio and quickly know if it’s copyrighted content. However, there was a tiny caveat with the implementation of Audible Magic. As stated earlier, SoundCloud has always been a hub for Electronic Dance Music (EDM) artists and DJ’s and thus, the millions of fans the genre has ignited. But herein lies the problem: the genre is flooded with “unlicensed” mash-ups, mixes, and collaborations—music that producers and DJ’s create casually in the studio. But because of SoundCloud’s new strict copyright rules and ruthless scanning technology, these unlicensed sessions violate their Terms of Service and can no longer be hosted on the platform, as one EDM heavyweight discovered the hard way. DJs Begin Their Protest On June 4, house music DJ Kaskade went on a public tirade against SoundCloud after the platform took down 70% of his catalogue, even official tracks that had actually been licensed, but to his former record label rather than his current one. On his Tumblr, he called SoundCloud’s practices “out of touch” and “irrelevant.” He also referred to Audible Magic as a “soulless robot program.” Kaskade was so displeased with the platform that he vowed to start his own music sharing service. A few weeks later, he uploaded his most recent album, Atmosphere, entirely on YouTube. If it hadn’t been for the screw-up, perhaps fans would be listening to the Kaskade album on SoundCloud. If the talks are successful, each record label is rumored to receive anywhere between a three and five percent stake, as well as a percentage of future revenue. The deal would follow suit for the three major record labels, which have invested in similar digital music portals throughout the years. The largest, Universal Music, holds a five percent stake in Spotify and a 47 percent stake in Vevo. It also held a 14 percent stake in Beats Electronics before Apple acquired it. Warner Music also holds stake in Spotify, and all three labels held a stake in YouTube before Google acquired it. This deal might be a mutually beneficial for both SoundCloud and the record labels. To this day, the labels use SoundCloud for promoting new music to the platform’s 250 million listeners. Holding a stake in the company would guarantee them access to these fans, as well as more control and information on how their music is consumed, distributed and shared. In addition, SoundCloud recently hired Stephen Bryan, a former Warner Bros. digital business exec, to head the startup’s business development and strategy. Recode notes that bringing Bryan onboard could help SoundCloud create a bridge between the startup and the record labels, one that would eventually facilitate for revenue-sharing deals. However, these deals will only affect artists who are signed to either Universal, Sony or Warner records, guaranteeing that their music gets hosted on SoundCloud. Indie artists and DJ’s will still be susceptible to Audible Magic, especially if they sample songs licensed to the major record labels. If SoundCloud really is looking to create a protected environment for artists and users alike, they would be looking to negotiate with the record labels in a fair way that handles user-created mashups and “unlicensed” collaborations taken from their official catalogue. But as of now, that still seems to be up in the air. Another scenario that might play out in the proposed SoundCloud partnership is how interested the record labels will undoubtedly be in immediately monetizing the platform. So far, SoundCloud has aimed towards more of a YouTube business model, as supposed to subscription-based Spotify. So don’t expect subscription plans anytime soon, but you pre-roll audio ads could very well be in the future of SoundCloud. Furthermore, if record labels begin seeing SoundCloud as an official marketing channel, more artists will be tasked with creating and promoting their presence on the platform. In the end, Kaskade might not have a choice. But regardless of if or when the deals will be inked, it’s already looking like a identity-defining summer for SoundCloud. Only time will tell if it can live up to the YouTube comparison, or if it will go the way of Napster and implode. Source: pastemagazine.com

Haha thanks mate

surely i'd be able to buy the upgrade to scratch 2 on the NI site, right?

time code vinyl and time code cd if i am not mistaken. with pro you can only use as that midi controller Bummer… was that possibly the issue with oxy then?

Dumb… I've got traktor pro 2. Is it just the time code vinyl that won't work or anything?

Weak lol I thought you guys solved the mystery. I haven't fired mine up yet. Gotta get time code still. I look forward to the frustrations of the meet

having a listen now. the bass is a little too over powering from the rest of the track and with those mids cut out it's become a little thin. i could've boosted the highs a little more as the top does stand out a bit better. i can see what you're saying, and i'll look into it. there's that mid-hi freq range that i could notch out a little

I thought you two got it going...?

Oh, soundcloud seems to be messing around with my uploads. They sound real dull compared to the original file. Don't know why it's doing that but it seems to only be me…

I'll check it out and get back to ya when I get a chance to

he's a champ that guy. definitely appreciate this offer

Cheers man! I think the kick punches alright but the bass was a bit if a piss off. I didn't wanna make it too subby but I didn't want it to lack either. I'll look into it again and have another listen. I compared it to a few other bounce tracks I got and the bass seems to fit with some of those but yeah, I actually had trouble with this for some reason