1 Jun
2010
1 Jun
'10
8:58 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 01, 2010 at 11:14:16AM +0200, fons(a)kokkinizita.net wrote:
On Tue, Jun 01, 2010 at 10:00:17AM +0200, Jean-Yves
Poilleux wrote:
+1 on this. It's a craft, best learned through apprenticeship. I've only figured
this out very recently. Get an experienced engineer to show you the ropes; you'll be
very pleased with how much difference it'll make.
I've been try to compose for several
months/years now and i'm never pleased
with the mix and with the synth sounds. My use of effects and filters are
more or less random. I'm self-educated here but not very well ;-).
More, each time I listen to my tracks on a new system, it sounds different.
So I'm willing to learn some mixing techniques (and some synth techniques as
well). I'd like to have a better understanding of sound mixing and synth. A
little studying will do me good.
Do you know any good book references about these subjects, french or english
? Of course if they tackle the subject of free audio software as well I
would just be great.
Bob Katz has already been mentioned.
Porbably the most efficient way to learn this sort of thing
is to work under the supervision of someone who knows what
he's doing, either formally or unformally.
Apart from that, again 'know what you are doing' - that is
don't just turn knobs blindly, but try to understand why
things work or don't work, and learn the relation between
'the knobs' and 'the sound'.
If something sounds OK after you have been tweaking it for
a long time, the chances are that I will disappoint you when
you hear it again next week. The reason is that your hearing
will adapt even to the worst ideas if you give them enough
time. This improves with training and lots of very conscious
listening. But an essential part of being able to set e.g. an
equaliser or an effect is to do it relatively quickly and
without too much 'exploration'.
It's amazing how much different something can sound just the next day, let alone in a
week's time when it's like a totally different peice. There's no substitute
for time and patience.
This isn't just true of music. A few decades ago I was in the printing business, and
one night we were shoving a rush job out the door, finally finishing it at around 1am. The
next morning, we were boxing it up for shipment, with the UPS guy standing there tapping
his foot, and were horrified at how awful it looked. One of the guys who had not worked on
that job, picked up one of the pieces, studied it for a minute, and said, "Yeah, at
1AM, this'd look *just fine*."
I'm don't have a ready Deepwater Horizon analogy here, but, suffice to say,
neither rushing to beat the clock nor pinching pennies-- nor, worse, the combination of
both-- are conducive to producing quality work. Take your time and it'll be
fantastic.
-ken