I taught myself the beginning of The Yellow Princess but I struggle so much when it goes into the faster fingerpicking. I start slow and try and speed up but nope, my brain and fingers get confused and it’s so, so annoying.
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learn the rules to break them isn’t it. a lot of guys i know just don’t really the basics of keys and constructing chords and it really hampers their music.
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DAW-heads: what is your process for mixing and mastering? I find that I produce and mix at the same time and maybe that’s now the best way to go. Do people export stems, load them back into Ableton and mix that way? Like, I use a lot of MIDI so is it best to export as audio, then do the mix? Then export the master file and master that?
But enough about Blink 182!!!
(seriously, someone sit them down and explain that all of their melodies are root, fourth, fifth and NOTHING ELSE)
That’s me really…:: but there you go!
Bowing out of this now as I’m being a bit negative!
Have fun with your so called ‘notes’ guys!
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wouldn’t want to let composition get in the way of the dicks jokes tbfttl
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Always get so confused by music theory chat. Absolutely never going to learn it.
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This is so kind of you!
I will read all this through and try and make it go into my stupid head but I really struggle with this stuff (like not just in music but anything that leans into equations or languages, was always my weakest stuff in school, have got very stuck if I ever have to tackle scripting stuff at work etc)
Have to do a lot of continuous learning in my job so layering up more learning of stuff which I find really hard to get my head around isn’t very appealing to me!
But I will dove into this as you have put some effort into explaining it to me!
Thank you!
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I try and avoid it as much as possible. Other folks I play with compose around it which is a great base but I come up with far more creative parts thinking about sounds and rhythms, and just knowing if it goes or changing it if it’s a bit off.
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Yeah so I got a bit confused at ‘triad chirds’ so I looked that up on goggle, and then let me to some articles that explained what triad chords were by using lots of other words that I didn’t know what they meant, and… well it all seems quite overwhelming
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c major triad
C E G
imagine it on a keyboard
ta da
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Re: Mastering, I’m not a pro by any means, but have done about 60 records now, including basically everything for Dis State and some commissioned work too and have learned quite a lot in that time. Still really only scratching the surface, and I keep learning things that replace what I thought I knew, but here’s some stuff I’ve picked up along the way in case it’s useful:
Volume
In terms of printing mixes, some pro mastering engineers seem to not care if you’ve exported your mix at 0db, but on the whole the general recommendation is to export it with peaks at -3bd and -6db. More headroom means more space for the mastering engineer to work with without clipping or introducing artifacts etc. Particularly in the digital world, where you can be adding pretty unpleasant clipping above 0db.
Thoroughly recommend recording in higher bitrates btw. 44khz is fine, but if you’re able to record at higher than 16bit (preferably 32bit or 24bit floating point) then I believe this enables greater manipulation and processing of the file before adding artifacts, and potentially can get your file louder without unpleasant clipping.
Masters will also be different volumes for different things. Streaming is generally quieter than CD, for example, and if you send something too loud to Spotify or iTunes, then they’ll use an algorithm to turn it down to their own recommended level. I think it’s done because in the early days of streaming people complained that listening to playlists meant you’d turn the volume up for one track than have your ears blown out by the next track, so they normalise everything. So it’s good to make sure that masters for streaming are aimed at the appropriate volume.
This is a very useful website for that:
They have a plugin as well, which can just sit at the end of your chain and tell you whether streaming services will turn your music up or down. I use it for everything that’s going out streaming-first.
Compression
Bus compression is absolutely fine in mixing - particularly a little parallel compression - but trying to get the mix to sound great without loads of compression on the mixbus is the best approach. And if you’re printing your mix with brick-wall limiting or maximising already applied it’s going to be significantly more difficult for the mastering engineer to do anything positive with. They’ll be trying to boost the volume and make it competitively loud and it has more chance of ending up sounding like that terrible Metallica album. You know the one I mean.
Mastering chain
I don’t have a set mastering chain and it can go from just a little EQ and limiting, all the way through multiple stages of processing, like this:
- Gentle saturation (for a little mix-glue) >
- Low-end focused EQing (we’re talking sub-frequencies here to add extra punch if needed) >
- Stereo Imaging (might need to open up the stereo soundstage or narrow the bass frequencies for focus) >
- Wide-band EQ (sometimes clearing up some of the muddier low-mid frequencies and adding some air/sheen to the highs, sometimes mid/side if it’s proving difficult to get clarity there) >
- Parallel compression (sometimes stereo, sometimes mid/side, used relatively lightly to start boosting the volume and gently catching some of the more extreme peaks) >
- Limiter/Maximiser (usually mixed parallel, just getting a little more gain to boost volume and catch peaks) >
- Brick wall limiter (final limiter to help reach appropriate volume)
Oh yeah, and this book is absolutely superb. Pricy, but genuinely great at explaining the different concepts and approaches in a way that doesn’t make me feel like my brain is dribbling out from my ears.
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‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac - really easy
‘Girl from the North Country’ by Bob Dylan
‘Road’ by Nick Drake is a nice one. sort of difficult, but not prohibitively, I don’t think, but a good one to step up a level or two
there’s a tutorial on Youtube that got me started (the original has some extra little bits, but don’t worry about those yet/I can fill you in on those bits).
‘The Partizan’ by Leonard Cohen - good for getting your thumb picking up to a higher level, also with a rolling picking pattern which is deceptively challenging
‘Angeles’ by Elliott Smith is tough but rewarding, and there’s an especially great tutorial on Youtube by a dude called Ethan
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depends on my mood, entirely
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All Elliott smiths tracks have like a bunch of complex chord changes that sneak up on you but once you realise he’s going off the pacing of the lyric foremost it becomes a million times easier
have you got any specific examples?
oh yeah
one crucial thing that helped simplify things for me so much, btw, is try to stick to playing your lowest three strings with your thumb and your highest with your first three fingers
not always gonna be able to do that, but most of the time you will be doing that
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Yeah, it’s almost like playing piano with two hand - splitting it into the bass part with your thumb on the low strings and other fingers/ high strings doing chord / melody stuff
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also!
one thing I still have to work on is being able to play quickly and loudly with my thumb on the bass notes
this is something ‘The Partizan’ made clear for me - video is en Francais, but you can still follow
there’s emphasis on certain notes, you see.
so you’ve got to make sure your picking hand is positioned so you can move your thumb properly.
this same idea applies in Road’, and not just on bass/thumb notes
by which I mean dynamics, innit.
not all the notes you’re picking are gonna be emphasised the same. some strong, some graced.
don’t worry too much about it, just work on it with everything else.
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exactly this!