What skills are you working on developing at the moment?

[avasopht]

Curious to see where everyone's at.

I still haven't gone through Synth Secrets to the end, so I've still got a way to go on my mastery of creating sounds.

I'm comfortable with subtractive synthesis, but could do with more ear training to better perceive the spectrum and harmonics.

I understand how FM works and have been able to create intelligible sounds with it for quite some time, but I'm no match for those crazy Mega Drive sound programmers!

I've done a lot of study on additive synthesis in my obsession with creating a convincing string sound. I think I've done quite a good job to be honest.

Where I want to be is able to hear a sound and recreate it in Thor, creating new sounds or at least my own expressive palette, and having my own ideas for a synth to create sounds I can imagine but don't exist in other devices (though I might be able to make them with modular synthesis).

[Oquasec]

Answer these questions and you'll have an answer.
Where'd this question come from?
Why synth secrets? You're not getting answers till you get really fucking descriptive pal.

Also, pick synths you like. Pick synths you know very well in layout and if you do not mind that type.
USE IT ALOT AND SAVE PATCHES OFTEN. Use synth secrets examples for general knowledge.

I do not trust tutorials because most of them will just say yo this is how you make xyz in abc instead of this is how oscillators work when being used in conjunction with filters and amp envelopes in general.
Subtractor is a subtractive, FM & PD synth and the limits of that one have yet to be reached.

[Creativemind]

Past couple of days I've been tryna improve my guitar and songwriting skills. Watched some Britpop acoustic songs on You Tube from the likes of Suede, Oasis, Pulp and Cast. I realised I'm a good songwriter but I'm also very stuck in my ways with my guitar. I need to improve my strums and flare on the guitar. I always tend to do the same strum and something lacks about it.

I can't play lead so I was practicing some lead just (to a degree) over some guitar chords on Reason with a section looped. Great fun and you start to wish you were Eric Clapton then haha!

Yesterday I did a bit of synthesis, you may have seen my thread. Trying to emulate 2 sounds done on the system 700 on a You Tube video I saw. I always find it harder than I think it should be.

What's Synth Secrets? a website / magazine?

A good one for Synthesis is Syntorial. There's over 100 lessons, 20 of which are free as a demo but you have to pay for the rest. Is has a synth come with the software / tutorial and it teaches you to recognise the sounds using that synth using your ears. I was surprised how a pulse wave (or was it a square, it was ages ago I did now and I've forgot lol!) at high octaves sounded like a sawtooth but not a low octaves.

[Oquasec]

When it comes to learning things I'd rather the free approach, to each their own.
SynthSecrets and Synthedit manual applies to most things synthesis.

[Minimalize]

Mixing, Arrangement & overall writing and production skills. I have a long way to go.

[KevTav]

Proper gain staging from the outset. And constant awareness of MONO versus stereo. It's a puzzle

[pskovacs]

I feel that I need to develop my sense for melody writing... I occasionally will come up with something that has a nice "tune" to it, but it mainly occurs by accident. I want to try to do more than my usual rhythmic and textural experimenting (which I feel I have mastered, and can accomplish in a heartbeat, without much effort). Melody writing though for me tends to be a very long and difficult process.

[MannequinRaces]

Finishing damn songs. The idea generating phase is easy and fleshing out eight bars or so is also easy. The problem is I get bored easily and move on to something else almost never revisiting my orphaned ideas. It's a vicious cycle.

[grizelda]

Proper gain staging from the outset. And constant awareness of MONO versus stereo. It's a puzzle

first post, hi everyone

i learnt so much about gain staging from this site.

there are some good RE products you can buy to make gain staging super easy. personally i use a "selig gain" meter RE on every track in my sessions and tweak the volume through the chain until i can get a steady peak reading of -12dbfs (i think thats what its called!) without having to add or subtract too much volume from any one part of the chain. once set i can then i can play with the volume faders in the SSL as much as i want as they dont affect the gain setting.

f you search gain staging here you will find loads of good stuff from the very helpful members and mods on this site

grizel

[aeox]

i'm teaching myself to play piano/keyboard.

[Loque]

I still need to improve my sound design skills. If i have a sound in my mind, i want to create it, but still suck on it.

And there is always lot of space to improve mixing, arrangement, self-control to not overload a song and bring it to a focused point.

Beside the "standard" stuff, i do not lose focus on to create something new, that means experimenting with different styles, bringing them together or trying to create something new...

Due to the fact that its still a hobby, it will take time to improve those skills and i am sure, i never gonna master them all

[Oquasec]

Main modular areas consist of Reason & synthedit.
[Reason for production, synthedit for learning]
Had some offshot success recreating some disgaea/mvc2 sounds lol.

Synth secrets ftw for explaining synthesis as well.

[Gorgon]

Finishing damn songs. The idea generating phase is easy and fleshing out eight bars or so is also easy. The problem is I get bored easily and move on to something else almost never revisiting my orphaned ideas. It's a vicious cycle.

This is a big problem for me as well. The point is, to actually arrange the 8 or 16 bars into a proper song, you need to spend time doing things that aren't really that stimulating or creative. Lots of copying, editing, listen, make an adjustment, listen again, yada yada. You need to put at least a few hours into that kind of work to come to some sort of basic arrangement. I did quite well with such things when I was still smoking pot. It kept me focused.

[Creativemind]

I feel that I need to develop my sense for melody writing... I occasionally will come up with something that has a nice "tune" to it, but it mainly occurs by accident. I want to try to do more than my usual rhythmic and textural experimenting (which I feel I have mastered, and can accomplish in a heartbeat, without much effort). Melody writing though for me tends to be a very long and difficult process.

The melody writing for me is just something that comes naturally. I sing and deliver. It has varying degrees of how catchy / good it is and sometimes I will scrap a melody being unhappy with it or think it could be better and thus change it. I have some good tunes but a lot just sound alright.

[Oquasec]

Interesting. Never smoked pot but I've had many drinks in my system, but those usually hinder the composing.
Especially when it comes to composing, with reason and not just using it for sound design

While it's sequencer gets the job done when you feel like using it, it's just not studio one's by a long shot.

[Creativemind]

Finishing damn songs. The idea generating phase is easy and fleshing out eight bars or so is also easy. The problem is I get bored easily and move on to something else almost never revisiting my orphaned ideas. It's a vicious cycle.

This is a big problem for me as well. The point is, to actually arrange the 8 or 16 bars into a proper song, you need to spend time doing things that aren't really that stimulating or creative. Lots of copying, editing, listen, make an adjustment, listen again, yada yada. You need to put at least a few hours into that kind of work to come to some sort of basic arrangement.

Yeah it's a common producer thing isn't it. I have about 50 unfinished songs on my comp. For me it's not effort, it's knowing how to progress it sometimes, what to do with it. Also, if it's an electronic track, I want to make my own white noise sweeps, my own effects and I'm no good at making decent ones so I spend about an hour trying to do a decent effect and then it kills the flow of the song. I s'pose the trick is, to make these in sessions of their own and then they're made for times when you need them and so they won't ruin your creative flow.

[Oquasec]

a thousand wips and counting, anything finished officially would have an itunes link.

[Kov]

Recording drums. Without recordning i can play basically error free. As soon as it's recording i screw everything up and need like 1000 takes if i don't want to cheat with editing afterwards *lol*. Goal is to record an album in one take.

[Gorgon]

Recording drums. Without recordning i can play basically error free.

Haha, that reminds me of when I was learning to mix. I could do it pretty well at a certain point (after lots of practice) when nobody was listening. As soon as I had a crowd or I was recording it, I would mess everything up. Being deaf in one ear doesn't help either, so I'm quite happy with my autosyncing controller now.

[artotaku]

Keeping it simple. Removing stuff. Reduce to the absolute necessary. More whitespace on the canvas. It´s so easy to add another note layer, FX or instrument with nowadays possibilities to obfuscate the result.

[semomat]

Finishing damn songs. The idea generating phase is easy and fleshing out eight bars or so is also easy. The problem is I get bored easily and move on to something else almost never revisiting my orphaned ideas. It's a vicious cycle.

This is a big problem for me as well. The point is, to actually arrange the 8 or 16 bars into a proper song, you need to spend time doing things that aren't really that stimulating or creative. Lots of copying, editing, listen, make an adjustment, listen again, yada yada. You need to put at least a few hours into that kind of work to come to some sort of basic arrangement.

Yeah it's a common producer thing isn't it. I have about 50 unfinished songs on my comp. For me it's not effort, it's knowing how to progress it sometimes, what to do with it. Also, if it's an electronic track, I want to make my own white noise sweeps, my own effects and I'm no good at making decent ones so I spend about an hour trying to do a decent effect and then it kills the flow of the song. I s'pose the trick is, to make these in sessions of their own and then they're made for times when you need them and so they won't ruin your creative flow.

Just this Also got tons of nice but unfinished ie. 8 or 16 bars long "ideas" on my SSD, but rather create something from scratch AGAIN instead of focusing on finish the older ideas first ...

Regarding the "noice sweeps" problem (or more generally "trying to create sounds from scratch within a song-finishing-session"), you describe exactly the way I try to do it: Have sessions for sound-creation only, and other sessions where I focus on the song, using previously made sounds. But as you can guess from my statement above: Most of the time it is sound-creation and laying down some simple 8 to 16 Bars Loop, way to less "song-finishing-sessions"

[EnochLight]

f you search gain staging here you will find loads of good stuff from the very helpful members and mods on this site

grizel

Gain staging is largely a vestige leftover from recording on analog studio equipment that distorts easily or has a dynamic range that reveals noise easily. In Reason, gain staging isn't truly necessary, from what I've read/seen. Still, a useful method if you enjoy that method of working (I'm not saying it's not useful still).

That said, check out Ryan's (of Propellerhead) thoughts on levels in Reason for more info:

[Oquasec]

Synthedit & Reason keep me interested in music production.
The exact opposite holds true for reaktor for some reason.

[pskovacs]

I feel that I need to develop my sense for melody writing... I occasionally will come up with something that has a nice "tune" to it, but it mainly occurs by accident. I want to try to do more than my usual rhythmic and textural experimenting (which I feel I have mastered, and can accomplish in a heartbeat, without much effort). Melody writing though for me tends to be a very long and difficult process.

The melody writing for me is just something that comes naturally. I sing and deliver. It has varying degrees of how catchy / good it is and sometimes I will scrap a melody being unhappy with it or think it could be better and thus change it. I have some good tunes but a lot just sound alright.

I've been considering adding some vocals of some sort... I technically sing pretty well, but I don't really feel my voice matches well with my music. Either I need to adapt my music to fit better with my voice (which would be a challenge) or adapt my vocal style to my music (which would be almost impossible!)

Keeping it simple. Removing stuff. Reduce to the absolute necessary. More whitespace on the canvas. It´s so easy to add another note layer, FX or instrument with nowadays possibilities to obfuscate the result.

This is also a problem I have... definitely try to "kitchen sink" things a bit too often. Maybe what I can do is work on making more white space in my textures and rhythms, and simultaneously work on trying to create a melodic vocal... might just be what I need!

[samsome]

I'm just trying to achieve more peace