Producer Lingo

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Producer Lingo

Postby guitarskills » 04 Jul 2011 23:16

This thread is to help people read:me who know nothing about the production process. All I have is about a year of classical training, but that is it. When it comes to stuff like this:

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EQ and compression are GODS for this. I'll usually use EQ on snares, toms, and the bass drum to cut out ringing frequencies (by making a very thin Q, listening for the shitty zone, then cutting it to zero), then EQ the metals to remove annoying middle frequencies or boost the "shinyness" in the upper frequencies. Then I'll bus all the drums to one channel and apply compression - usually more "pumping" (high ratio, quick attack & release, middle-range threshold) settings for electropop, and more conservative settings for rock. This can really be cool.


I don't know half the words in that. The only thing I understood was the word "frequency", and I still have no idea how I would remove those.

Granted, I haven't spent much time with as DAW, but I would still like a starting point on my adventure into composing.

considering this is the best thing I can make with Fl Studio... And the version made with a flash game (yes my name is Pinkie Pie over there. I love being a mod.) has better EQ, I don't know where to start.
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby Rainbow Hash » 04 Jul 2011 23:30

First of all I'm gonna just give a disclaimer that I just started learning about DAW's and music production in general so take what I say with a grain of salt.

EQ is short for Equalizer, which can limit which frequencies you hear. I'm not sure how this is done in FL Studio, but I imagine it must be very basic. He's saying to limit some of the middle frequencies to make the drums sound how he wants.

Then he's taking the drums and applying a compressor to the track (unfortunately I don't have a very good understanding of compressors yet).

If you look up some videos specifically on YouTube I'm sure you could get what you're looking for :)
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby Aussie » 04 Jul 2011 23:33

EQ = Removing/Boosting frequencies so everything sounds better.
[EDIT] A good EQ VST is here: http://www.brothersoft.com/classic-eq-133869.html

Bus = Grouping tracks together, like a bus. If you have separate tracks for a kick and a snare, you can bus them together. Makes thing more organized, and then you can add effects to the bus instead of doing it all individually.

The rest went over my head, except compression, which I'm just really really bad at explaining. :D
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby Stars In Autumn » 05 Jul 2011 00:03

I'm still learning, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

As stated above, EQ is lowering the volume of certain frequency ranges. You can apply EQ to your master track or to each individual FX bus in FL studio.
Image

Each of those represents a FX bus. On the left are plugins you can apply. FL Studio has a couple EQ plugins you can use.

I don't know what Q is, but you can remove ringing noises by notching (lowering) the volume level that the ringing is occurring on. Certain frequencies can tire the ear quicker (4500hz) so I think people generally add notches there. I use this guide sometimes: http://www.djforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158512

Compressing is the act of reducing the dynamics of a channel or song. You set a threshold that starts reducing how much volume gain is made by a certain radio when the audio gets too loud. You can modify things like the attack (how quickly the audio starts getting compressed when it gets too loud) and release (when the audio stops being compressed after the audio levels have dropped to below the threshold).

Hopefully that made sense.
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby guitarskills » 05 Jul 2011 00:27

Thank you for your help on EQ.

One of the main things I want to know is mainly where I can find out what all these words mean. not just about EQ.

Whats the master channel?
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby Aussie » 05 Jul 2011 00:28

guitarskills wrote:Whats the master channel?


It's everything that's in the track.

DISREGARD THIS SPIRIT EXPLAINED IT BETTER
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby Spirit » 05 Jul 2011 04:22

guitarskills wrote:Thank you for your help on EQ.

One of the main things I want to know is mainly where I can find out what all these words mean. not just about EQ.

Whats the master channel?


the master channel is basically everything in your song, any drum tracks, MIDI tracks and Audio tracks all in one track. adding effects and stuff to this track affects everything in your song. E.g. if you add a reverb effect to the master track, all your tracks are affected by the same reverb.
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby DerpyGrooves » 06 Jul 2011 14:51

Q is an uncommon word for resonance in synth circles. When you're talking about a filter, there are two things you have to keep in mind, for the most part- Cut off frequency, and resonance. Cut off frequency is the point at which the filter starts to roll off the sound. Resonance is the peak at the end of most filters, which after it passes a certain threshhold, starts to self-oscillate, resulting in ringing.

Essentially what this fellow is doing is putting a bandpass filter over these drum samples, finding the ringing frequencies and then cutting the resonance out, cutting out the ringing tones.
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby Bagpipe Brony » 06 Jul 2011 15:43

DerpyGrooves wrote:Q is an uncommon word for resonance in synth circles. When you're talking about a filter, there are two things you have to keep in mind, for the most part- Cut off frequency, and resonance. Cut off frequency is the point at which the filter starts to roll off the sound. Resonance is the peak at the end of most filters, which after it passes a certain threshhold, starts to self-oscillate, resulting in ringing.

Essentially what this fellow is doing is putting a bandpass filter over these drum samples, finding the ringing frequencies and then cutting the resonance out, cutting out the ringing tones.


Sorry, but what does bandpass mean? I'm kinda new to mixing as well. I seem to have more or less a grip on the EQing though.
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby Stars In Autumn » 06 Jul 2011 19:15

Bagpipe Brony wrote:
DerpyGrooves wrote:Q is an uncommon word for resonance in synth circles. When you're talking about a filter, there are two things you have to keep in mind, for the most part- Cut off frequency, and resonance. Cut off frequency is the point at which the filter starts to roll off the sound. Resonance is the peak at the end of most filters, which after it passes a certain threshhold, starts to self-oscillate, resulting in ringing.

Essentially what this fellow is doing is putting a bandpass filter over these drum samples, finding the ringing frequencies and then cutting the resonance out, cutting out the ringing tones.


Sorry, but what does bandpass mean? I'm kinda new to mixing as well. I seem to have more or less a grip on the EQing though.


Bandpass is like a combination of lowpass and highpass. It has a cutoff at both the lower and upper frequency ranges.
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Re: Producer Lingo

Postby guitarskills » 06 Jul 2011 21:08

So, does anyone have links to a site like the one asked for in the first question?
So far, I'm just watching a tutorial on youtube and its teaching me a few things and terms.

Except Ping Pong loop, he didn't know what that was either...
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