your favorite 'frowned upon' techniques.

[raffael77]

What's your point? I don't get it sorry.

[Dayl]

Peer pressure. When I'm reviewing the almost complete product.. figuring out those final details that need to be addressed.. I will often snap myself add this ot that just because my peers are doing it... this will usually result in a kind of no mans land beat that I wont be happy with.

[Dayl]

I still use compression from time to time but had to let it go and learn to live with out it. Once I got rid of that and and other crutches like eq and anything else that can polish substandard sounds.... as soon as I relaxed off these, my sound selection skillset improved. I'm not the man or anything but it certainly made a difference.

Its like an adult taking something off a child and saying they will give it back when they learn to be responsible.. only we dont often get that in the home stusio world.

[Dayl]

Originally Posted by raffael77

What's your point? I don't get it sorry.

Share real world, practical experiences. Learn from each other.

[B.A.S.E]

Some "kind" of haas delay on drums. I frown upon myself each time but I know how to make it work.
Can make the boom of an 808 kick drum very corporeal.

[Dayl]

Do you mono tghe lows and Haas the mids/highs (not that there are highs by chance?

[B.A.S.E]

Yes, especially when the drums are distorted..

[beat you down]

good one, thought of it never tried it, too much frowning lol.
will try soon.

[Godson]

i don't know if this is usually "frowned upon" but i turn the bass stupid high when i'm mixing till i can hear it vibrate through the beams in the wall lol

needless to say, i usually have to turn it down at least a dozen times each "bounce" till it's at a reasonable level. so if i can hear it just enough, it's usually perfect. if i can hear it well, it's too much.

[jbrown1music]

using an l2 on the master.

[smoke]

-Monitoring thru HiFi devices to hear what it'll sound like.

-Mixing at very low volumes to listen for transients

- I also mix low to check low end, I want to just start to hear the bass and the bottom of the kick at a certain ratio with just the transient of the snare and maybe click of kick.

-Multiple reverbs

-Stereo drum everything, stereo kick, stereo snare, even stereo HH. Sounds better to me. Not a fan of mono.

-Referencing MP3s. I don't care about quality. I am referencing a crude balance just to make sure I'm in a ballpark.

-Unorthodox orchestral arrangements. Double Bass at high registers. So what?

-Piano Strings. I use them.

I'll see if I can think of some other stuff, I know theres a lot.

[WesWizzy]

I think Dayl brings up a great point....SOUND SELECTION.

We have unlimited amounts of tools but you can't polish a turd into a diamond.

As far as frowned upon techniques? I don't have any that I know of but then again I could be doing all of this wrong anyway lol

[B-Cool]

I'll use 10 different plugins when the results i want could probably be achieved with only 3 of them.

It's an "if I buy em I'm going to use em" complex.

[beat you down]

Originally Posted by jbrown1music

using an l2 on the master.

the classic

[beyondat]

"Digital clipping", it's the new "Tape Saturation"!

[Moraha]

"Looking" along with "hearing"....

When working with these "trap beats" that everyones making, the transition between the kick and sine wave usually clashes for a quarter of a second which I personally notice (especially when listening to it in a car with a good system). It's basically just a quick dip that I have OCD over. Sometimes, I move the bass over until it "looks" right by looking at the waveforms, and it always ends up sounding right when doing that.

[Nahuel]

I stack a lot of kiks

[Thunderdan]

Originally Posted by jbrown1music

using an l2 on the master.

Using an l2 on something other than the master

[3rd Degree]

-EQing things with crazy boosting with both samples and virtual instruments
-EQing samples with an analog EQ before I have created anything (can't go back)
-Layering samples up to 5x or more, rather than more surgical EQing.
-Taking things with beautiful dynamic range and compressing the hell out of it (useful for samples to maintain consistency or on instruments to bring out any artifacts).
-Ducking the kick behind the bassline (not often and probably way more odd in Hip Hop that it would be an another genre)
-Creating artifacts purposely

[Jaynm26]

What I always say there is a HUGE line between Producers & Engineers

Producer - create new innovative sound or new technique. Praised for it

Engineers - us, we're idiots or blokes.

Producer - use of tools in a non conventional way. There genius's signed to a major label.

Engineers - WTF!! Did you do with that EQ!! Looks like you tried to draw a picture you freakin idiot. Never get a job ever moves to radio.

Day and life of producer and a engineer. Producers you guys are lucky

[Ken Lewis]

overdriving channels

[ZillahGod]

I flatten the vocals and put distortion on top. i dont care. i love it.

[lemonsquash]

high pass drum reverb buss and squeeze it with compressor

mix everything by only using the "compensation" fader on the compressor

[skillz335]

Originally Posted by smoke

-Stereo drum everything, stereo kick, stereo snare, even stereo HH. Sounds better to me. Not a fan of mono.

I do the same other then with the kick. for some reason the kick doesn't sound right to me stereo. unless its slightly different dynamically on each channel.

Originally Posted by beyondat

"Digital clipping", it's the new "Tape Saturation"!

i do like that gritty harshness you can get out of digital clipping on some elements, especially if you print and re sculpt the transients. still doesnt compare to tape though.

Originally Posted by Jaynm26

Engineers - WTF!! Did you do with that EQ!! Looks like you tried to draw a picture you freakin idiot. Never get a job ever moves to radio.

lol, I say that to myself alot.

Originally Posted by Ken Lewis

overdriving channels

lol, not fair! not all of us have a board!! especially an SSL



one of my frowned upon techniques, I gainstage with separate auxes to all to a master aux instead of printing. either Im stupid, a controll freak, or lazy. I still cant tell.
Awesome thread by the way.

[DAH]

crazy like +10-+14 dB of high shelving on the vox with a lot of deesing.

[B.A.S.E]

using waves x-noise on music samples to "blur" them... picked it up from here, used it in pretty interesting FX chains (beware of the delays introduced though).

Frown upon as in: "how do you get such a silky background" frown.

Other thing that can get stares is M/S Eqing the reverb sends.

[ncoak]

Originally Posted by B.A.S.E

using waves x-noise on music samples to "blur" them... picked it up from here, used it in pretty interesting FX chains (beware of the delays introduced though).

Frown upon as in: "how do you get such a silky background" frown.

40's secret!!

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by Ken Lewis

overdriving channels

One of the best, little talked about reasons to have channels, i.e. a desk, that overdrives in a good way. Anyone who frowns upon that shouldn't be mixing music.

[LeoLeoLeo]

Having grumpy cat as studio pet.