Member Dana Nielsen
MemberForum Replies Created
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PS – I love that Tedder course!
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Hey Nate! Huh… that seems super odd and no bueno. I haven’t done much bouncing out of Logic, so I can’t weigh in on that from my own experience; but perhaps @michael or other Logic geniuses here have some insights to share?
I’m “subscribed” to this thread and look fwd to hearing what others have experienced! Thanks for sharing and reaching out, man!
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Yes! I know a lot of long-time “Maschinists” on Reddit and YouTube are pissed that the v3 update doesn’t (yet) have many of the long-awaited, often-requested updates; but I for one am excited about what is included. I’ll take what I can get, right?! Haha. And at $29 it’s a no-brainer for me. … well … with one caveat: Maschine+ “standalone mode” isn’t yet supporting the v3 update.
I have a Maschine MK3 and also an M+. I’m gonna wait for M+ v3 compatibility cause I just KNOW that if I download v3 for my MK3 I’ll start creating projects and then will be super bummed when they don’t open on my M+ in standalone.
All that said, I can’t wait to implement the new v3 features into my workflow!
How bout you, @smoothygroove? Gonna take the plunge and update your Maschine?
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Stuart!!
Back from walkabout with another wonderful Roholt Reward! Love it, man, thank you for sharing this. You have a keen eye for sweet and fleeting freebies, and you are the BEST for hipping us all to them!
And yeah, I agree – All the Soundtoys stuff is excellent. Hope this freebie brightens someone’s day! 🌞
Great to have ya back, homey!
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Hey Drew, thanks for the excellent question, and I love the multi-city remote collab! There are actually a handful of songs on the latest Avett Brothers’ album that I recorded in the same manor, remotely, one or two instruments at a time.
@-PT has already beat me to the punch with some great suggestions that help make a huge difference in the “reverb vs mud” battle. I’ll quickly reiterate a few of those and rattle off a few more musings that might help…
- It sounds like what you need is something subtle. Something more felt than heard. Something you’ll perhaps notice on headphones but much less so on speakers. In these situations (really, in all situations), finding the right reverb is essential. Take your time, try different units/plugins and then try different “room” or short decay presets on offer within each plugin. Then, when you find something close to what you envision, wiggle all the parameters/knobs from 0% to 100% and learn what they do by hearing the effect change. From there you’ll learn which knobs help turn that “almost there” preset into the perfect sound in your head. One room-style reverb I’ve turned to often is the UAD Ocean Way plugin.
- Once I’ve twiddled knobs and gotten as close as I can on one preset or plugin, I might bypass the plugin, duplicate the plugin onto the next insert and go hunting for “option B”, repeating the same process as above with a different “almost there” preset. Or load up an entirely different reverb plugin/engine on the next insert and see what kind of magic I can stumble onto with that. I might end up with 3 or 4 bypassed reverb options ready to go, ready to un-bypass and try on at any time. I might fall in love with one option for 20 minutes or 2 weeks and then all the sudden realize I kinda hate it, lol, then I can quickly switch to another reverb option I’ve already spent time on and is already really dialed (by me) and ready to go.
- Finding the perfect verb for each song is hard. And it’s fun. If you’re not landing on something special right away, that’s perfectly natural. If you follow the steps above, and are diligent about saving your own fav presets along the way, you’ll start amassing your own collection of go-to reverb settings you can call on again and again.
- I almost always end up EQ’ing the reverb for final adjustments, either by using the eq settings within the reverb itself, and/or by adding an additional EQ insert after the reverb. An amazing de-mud trick as @-PT mentioned is to reduce or cut the low frequencies of the reverb return. Fantastic trick. I also often times use some shelving EQ to reduce the high frequencies too if needed.
- Play around with the reverb’s pre-delay setting. Listen to how the effect changes as you move from 0% to 100% pre-delay. Pre-delay is measured in milliseconds, not percentage, but I mention percentage ’cause I’m a big advocate of pushing all knobs of all your plugins to THE MAX so you can really hear what each knob does. Pre-delay will delay the reverb, giving your source sound time to poke through the mix, dry for a moment, before the reverb is heard. This is another great trick to avoid a verb-y muddy soup. And it can be an exciting effect when pushed to the extreme!
- When recording instruments in isolation, such as in your remote recording situation, I always like to include some extra mics picking up the room, which may (or may not) come in handy during mixing. This could be a) a very intentional positioning of close mic for direct sound plus a pair of mics in X-Y configuration deliberately positioned a few feet from the sound source; or b) a more haphazard approach with a close mic for direct sound plus whatever other mics happen to be set up around the room at that given moment, regardless what they’re pointed at. Haha. Sometimes this produces the most amazing natural room sound cause it kinda imitates what it might sound like if you WERE all recording in the same room together.
Ok, I could go on and on and on, cause I love this stuff and this question and I’m all fired up and excited now haha, but it’s almost 2am and I have a session in the morning. I hope these tips (and those from other MP members and guests) will provide a bit of mix inspiration for you and your project, @DrewB! Feel free to post your audio progress in the Member Spotlight forum – would love to hear it!
uaudio.com
Ocean Way Studios | UAD Audio Plugins | Universal Audio
Retain mic bleed, proximity, and other naturally occurring behaviors for realism with the Ocean Way Studios Plug-In. Learn more.
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One last thing .. I should also clarify that I almost never ever insert reverb directly on the source track. I always send individual tracks to reverb via an aux send, with the reverb inserted on an aux return track (with the reverb’s mix/blend knob set to 100% wet). This will give you the most control over the sound of each track, and will be the most efficient use of CPU-hungry reverbs. 🤓
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So sick!! Thanks a mill for sharing this, @Jon_Plett !! I can’t wait to download and dive in! 💜🙌🙏🏻
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@nits!! So thrilled you’ve fallen deep into the Ableton abyss – you’re in good company here!
The Focusrite interfaces are an amazing bang for the buck. I use a 6i6 for my system sounds (zooms, youtube, etc.) and i’ve had it for years and it never bothers me with software updates and it always works. I regularly recommend the Scarlet interfaces for their ease of use, portability, and great value. And they sound good too!
One additional note re MIDI: if the 4i4 seems like overkill for your audio needs, you could opt for a 2i2 and add a cheap lil’ 1-channel MIDI-USB interface to your Amazon order. Not sure if that’d save money but just offering that as another option.
Can’t wait to hear what kinds of fresh beats you been cookin up!! 🎧
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Wow, dang… scenario B! That is a head-scratcher then! Keep us posted if you continue hearing this issue (um, without trying to psych yourself out too much lol)
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Ah, yeah I get it! And true, none of these features are new to me either, as I’ve been making “digital stems” for years now using iZotope RX’s Music Rebalance. Ditto on the other “new” instruments added to Maschine V3.
I think what I’m realizing, however, is that unlike most users, I’ve always used Maschine outside of my main DAW (pro tools, Ableton) and so these V3 updates for me are like, “ok cool, thanks NI!”. In other words, even when I’m composing or beatmaking in Pro Tools, I prefer to run Maschine software as a standalone DAW rather than a plugin within Pro Tools. I just find it to be much more fun to use maschine when it’s untethered from my DAW. This is also why I’m loving Maschine+ lately, cause now I’m LITERALLY untethered from my whole computer! lol.
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Oh, that is an important follow-up question for Nate: @nategomoon, when you notice the difference in high end punch on your bounces, are you listening on the exact same system, using the exact same outputs and speakers?
Scenario A: If you’re bouncing mixes out of Logic, in your studio where you mixed it, and noticing a sonic difference while listening to the bounce in your car or on your home stereo, then room/speaker calibration might be the solve, as @michael suggested.
Scenario B: Let’s say you’re mixing in Logic, in your studio, using a UAD Twin, outputs 1-2. You do a bounce of your mix using UAD 1-2. Then you open your bounce in Quicktime with your computer output set to UAD Twin 1-2. If you play back that quicktime using the same exact interface outputs, listening on the same speakers, does it sound any different from when you click over to Logic and play the live mix session from there? …. if so, the culprit may be in the Logic bounce settings and/or the youtube/gearspace/tedder conspiracy is real 😲😂.
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Love the video, homey!! And excellent question.
As @-PT mentioned, what you’re discovering is gain staging (🥳), which refers to how we manage gain as it is applied (or reduced) at many different points in a signal path on its way to our ears.
Your video example shows one sound source with one send and one return in a digital audio workstation, where we don’t have the typical analog issues to contend with such as Signal to Noise ratio (S/N as commonly abbreviated like in Paul’s reply). As such, the answer to your specific video question is: there would be no difference. Kinda like, “do you get a different answer adding 1+9 vs. 9+1?” Nope. In a perfect, zero-noise digital world, they will both equal 10.
However, even in the digital world, here are 2 caveats that come to mind right away:
- When you’re sending multiple tracks to the same return, each with their own unique send level, the gain staging balancing act becomes much more complex. As a starting point, keep your return faders at 0db / Unity Gain and use the send pots/faders on your individual tracks to achieve the sound you want. Later on, if you feel you like the sound of the reverb but would love a little less of it overall, you can easily turn down the return fader for a quick win. Just be mindful: if you do that over and over your gain staging will get F-d up lol, as you’ll end up wanting to add more reverb to a track whose send is already at 100% cause you’ve turned down the reverb return fader too far over time.
- There are certain situations when I deliberately keep my send levels high and my return level low, even in the digital domain. Any time the effect(s) on the return path have some kind of harmonic distortion element or compression element I want to feed them lots of signal (via the sends). But maybe I don’t want the resulting effect so loud in the mix, so I will turn down the return fader — Or, if the final plugin inserted on the return has an ‘output’ knob I might utilize that instead or in addition to the fader … again, gain staging.
Hope these tips help!
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💜🤓 Woo!!
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My pleasure, @DrewB!
1) Do you pan the reverb send towards the pan of the instrument? For example ‘Follow Main Pan’ in Pro Tools or something like that?
- That’s a great option and solid starting point! That said, I don’t follow that as a rule. In fact, sometimes I LOVE panning the direct signal on one side of the stereo spectrum and the reverb on the other side (great trick for delays too). Or whatever panning floats your creative boat! If your goal is realism though, then yeah, ‘follow main pan’ is a great choice.
2) Do you generally send the same levels of the instruments to the room reverb?
- No way, man! I mean, you certainly could do that … and it might end up sounding perfect. But … don’t miss out on additional creative options by applying a unique amount of verb to each instrument, giving the listener a sense of depth. For example, maybe the lead singer has very little room verb (send level very low), and the tambourine that enters in the chorus is tucked into the mix at a low volume but with lots of room verb (send level very high) to give the illusion that it’s farther away. You could magnify that effect even more by setting the tambo’s verb send to ‘pre-fader,’ which will allow you to tuck the direct tamb signal way down low (via the main mixer fader) yet still have plenty of signal sent to the verb (via the send fader). This is because, when sends are set to ‘pre-fader’ (aka ‘pre-fade’) they have full access to the dry signal before (aka ‘pre’) that dry signal gets turned down – or up – by the mixer fader.
Happy verb-ing!
Dana
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Alesis QS8!!! What a classic! I had the the QS6 was my first midi controller (prob inspired by you) and I had it for YEARS. These days I use my Roland System-8 synth as my controller. I also often use my beloved, tiny, powerful Arturia Keystep 37. Both of those connect via USB without the need for midi, tho I still do use midi occasionally for sure.
I’m so thrilled you’re up and running with your new Focusrite. AND that it included the Lite version of Ableton to tide you over till your addiction takes hold and you pawn your pizza oven for cash to buy the full version. 😂🍕
Can’t wait to hear what you’re cookin up over there (ableton-wise and pizza-wise)!
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