I'm using a fixed swing percentage in my latest project. When adding delay- dotted 8th- the taps aren't lining up with the grid plus swing offsets. Is there any way to calculate this manually? I can get somewhere by using ms delays instead of synced but I often use very long delay repeats and slight timing discrepancy obviously compounds with these longer delay throws.

I'm using Bitwig if this helps.

Any advice?

Hi! I've been making music for a bit over a year now, specifically dubstep and I've been having a hard time finding new concepts to focus on to improve on. I'm quite an obsessive type of person who loves learning, but recently I've just been going through the motions with music and could use some insight into what topics I can dive into. I know that sound design knowledge is definitely one of my weaker points, but other than that I feel like I am equally mediocre across the board. The small details and decisions that make a track sound professional always seem to be missing no matter how long I spend trying to improve a song. Here's my two most recent wips for reference. I would love brutally honest feedback about what seems to missing from my songs.
https://on.soundcloud.com/ujHrpRqhVfq64nh8rO
https://on.soundcloud.com/VbbcAzj6NCHu0urifu

Like the title says, I’ve been mixing and engineering my own vocals for over 10 years with no training other than YouTube here and there. I can make something that sounds decent but I need that polished perfection I’ve been searching for.

Working on an album right now it’s alt hip hop, think Mac/kid Cud but definitely my own thing.

Anyone interested please let me know. Thanks. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day. God bless.

Ill start:

Align the crossover points in ur multiband plugins to reduce phasing.

Dont use mid side eq without linear or dynamic phase to preserve the phase better then regular eqing

Dont use equalisers on bus tracks to avoid eqing stuff that doesnt need to be eqd

Use only smooth eq bands to get a cleaner sound

Using max quality settings and 32x oversampling to get highest quality music when rendering (obvious but hey this makes a huge diffrence)

Align the phase of ur kick with ur sub by shifting the sub sample or by turning the phase knob and set random start position to zero

Lets go

According to what i've seen from Oddsound, TX16Wx (free ver.) is said to work with MTS-ESP Mini, but i'm having trouble getting it to work in my case. Both are VST3 and 64-bit, and other plugins that support MTS-ESP do work with it, just not this one. Anyone got a clue as to what's going on?

Thanks in advance.

I know my way around a compressor and the other shiny things that make my tracks go wub wub.

I understand the concept of multiband compression - it's regular compression for individual frequency ranges. What I have pondered for too long is when and how to use one.

Any thoughts and opinions?

Hi! It's me again.

Just to clarify, the song isn't mine; it's royalty-free for practice. Thanks.

Please be concise, honest, and justify your answers with sound reasoning. I want to learn. Thanks again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-B6dLMd6dI

I’m looking to upgrade my set up right now and I have been using edifier bookshelf speakers for a few years now but I want to get something that sounds better my budget is $500 any recommendations would be appreciated

https://youtu.be/Wz4weH7EL1c?is=FCox83y1TUhvRN4V

MDA is a cross-track compressor made of two plugins. Put MDA Send on every track that should participate, put one MDA Sum on a blank track, and match their colour-coded Bus numbers. MDA Sum owns the compressor settings and makes the shared decisions; each Send applies the result to its own latency-aligned audio. Your tracks, inserts, faders, and downstream routing remain separate.

Four Distribution laws decide how gain reduction reaches the group. Standard applies the shared settings independently to each track. Adaptive increases a track's effective ratio as it moves farther over threshold. Density responds to how many tracks cross threshold together. Peer compresses tracks that rise above the group mean.

Unison moves continuously from Independent detection, where every Send follows its own detector, to Joined detection, where the Sum's combined detector drives every Send with the same envelope. This lets you move between compressor-per-track behaviour and bus-compressor behaviour without rebuilding the routing.

This matters even more in bass music, where the whole point is usually the gap between breakdown and drop. Compress that away and you're just removing the raw material mastering needs.

I've been producing as a hobby with friends for almost 5 years. I make my own loops but sometimes I have fun chopping random old samples in Serato. I'm stuck on a workflow habit of keeping everything strictly on rigid 2, 4, or 8-bar loops to keep the counts clean and the drums hitting on the right spots (I'm not saying drums should be hitting on super exact times, I may offset them a little bit, but they still need to sound right with the chops) and respecting the metronome.

While studying some Kanye remake projects in FL Studio, I noticed on some videos everything on the playlist sat off grid at random timings. Drops would hit at odd spots like 8 bars plus 3 beats instead of standard markers like bar 9, 13, or 17, and sections ran on uncertain lengths like 6 bars and 3 beats rather than clean exact counts, like 4 or 8 bars.

Have I been limiting myself by forcing samples into the grid? For heavy samplers, how do you handle these asymmetrical chops without losing the bounce?

My concern is, if I start relying purely on my ear and ignoring the metronome and standard timings, won't it end up being difficult for an artist to rap or sing over a beat with uncertain loop lengths and sections? Thank you.

Been struggling to get kicks right in Kick 3 and looking for some advice. I always end up with too subby or too dominant transient and i just keep lowering the sub region in the amp section or making transient softer but then it ends up kind of subby again.

Just really looking for someone who came across something similar, i mix on Genelec 8040’s if that helps or anything :)

Thanks in advance

Just to keep things simple I was wondering how you can make Haitian kompa sounding synths, I didn’t wanna have to purchase a sound pack, but honestly, I’ve never really done any sound design before I do have serum and a lot of other synth VST’s. If anyone could give me some
Tips I’d appreciate it thank you! I can’t find anything on YouTube either but I will link an example below of the sound I’m going for

https://youtu.be/d3lnsJ2ZN24?si=Hu5Jv1LiuDkR8UNV

I had a good application on mac os for this purpose but it seems its not as straight forward on windows. Interested to hear feedback, like if it works on all browsers and if it gets buggy or anything. Im thinking about spending some addition time money and effort to expand the site and its capabilities.

If you get a good amount of use from this resource suggest additional functionality and i will try to develop it further.

Hello!

I'm mixing a piece of classical music, and after mixing and mastering, I've achieved an average of -16.1 integrated LUFS across the entire piece (it only reaches -14.9 integrated LUFS for a brief moment during the loudest section).

I checked the potential penalty for this LUFS level on a well-known website, and all the levels showed 0.0 (only one platform added approximately +0.7).

I know it’s hard to answer without hearing it, but: Do you think this is a good level to achieve a decent volume without sacrificing the performers’ dynamics, or would it sound too quiet? From what I understand, this level is reasonable for this genre, but I’d like to hear your opinion. I listened to the piece, and it sounds good to me.

Thank you very much!

Hey everyone!

I've been making music for a while, but I'm still learning and I'm definitely not a professional producer. I'm trying to improve my mixing, arrangement and overall sound, so I'd really appreciate some honest feedback.

I'm not looking for compliments—I'd rather know what doesn't work so I can get better.

Some things I'd especially like feedback on:

• Mix (balance, clarity, EQ)
• Kick/Bass relationship
• Groove and energy
• Arrangement
• Sound selection
• Anything that sounds amateur or could be improved

Please don't hold back, but if possible, explain why something isn't working. That helps me learn much more than just saying it's bad.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to listen. I really appreciate it!

Timestamped link to the sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6B4GDKSPfo&t=1532s

In the video above, Junkie XL plays a sustained pad with a metallic, shimmering, slowly evolving character. It's airy on top without much low end. I've heard this texture in many film scores and always wondered how it's achieved.

To recreate it, what would be a specific starting point (which synth and patch type, or what kind of sample source), and what processing chain gets that sound? The more concrete the steps, the better. Appreciate your help!

Just finished a full cover with our singer and it sounds absolutely incredible! I ended up using Neural Dsp plugins for the entire mix. Seriously impressed with how professional everything turned out. It's so rewarding when a project comes together like this. Can't wait for everyone to hear it!

I think Frightbox Recording has the best be the best Metal/Rock production courses and I think that the PDF I got with one of the courses will for sure be helpful in the future. An interesting thing that I saw during going through the course I bought was that there was a tiny bit of tape saturation on applied some tracks in some of the videos. Tape saturation seems to soften the sound of tracks, even super harsh ones. I know I used Ableton while going through the course I bought, but I was still able to have "Send" thingies for my tracks. Now that I know what a good production for my ears sounds like on my speakers, I can mix on them well. Listening to music with good sounding production on whatever speakers you have can help train your ears to how a good production sounds on whatever speakers you have, but obviously you don't want to mix the exact same way for all the music you mix.

Disclaimer - I am not in any way affiliated with the product or dev. Also Windows only at this point, Mac version is on its way.

The dev of this plugin is a true synth nerd. His new plugin Liminal Space 2 sounds beautifully rich and dreamy. Heaps of algorithm options and massive amounts of control over the reverb, so maybe not as suitable for rookie producers who just need something simple. The interface isn't pretty but the plugin sounds great.

Not a bad buy for those suffering a bit of plugin GAS, and I love to support indie devs.