Echo

Echo effects are pretty much essential in any genre of modern electro music. You can say it is one of the easiest ways to improve quality of  your sound.

There are 2 different effects, delay and reverb?? What the hell? Well it's because it's easier to have two seperate effects. You will often use them together to improve quality of your sound. Reverb will make a very natural effect that will make your sound echo like it's inside of some rom or space. You will have room size, diff (number of walls)  and damp settings. Echo is different in similar sized rooms, in more empty room it would decay slower. If you have decay, delay or damp knobs, fuck arround with them to make your reverb somewhat original. Delay effect is pretty much a repetition of the same sound every x seconds or every x steps with decaying volume. Unlike the reverb, it is possible to recreate delay in piano roll. Good general advice from Fruity Loops Studio manual:
"Reverb is one of those effects that is easy to overdo in a mix, creating a washed out and 'muddy' sound. Reverb works best on isolated or solo instruments. When your track gets busy and has a lot going on it is better to use some light delay on instruments. Rarely should you use reverb on the Master track and affect the whole mix, this tends to muddy the sound also."

It is advised to not apply reverb on drums. Apply less of it for drums and bass channels

People who are new to producing always use too much reverb once they discover it. Using high amounts of delay effect will make your melodies sound much different. using too much reverb will make your sound muddy.


Most generators or samplers will have built in reverb and delay settings. Some of them can only have like 2 knobs. I can tell you a little secret.. Those knobs are not there for you to modulate them. Buit in reverb makes built in preset sounds much higher quality than they would be without it. If you want to use those presets you would naturally turn off "built in reverb" and apply any effects outside of the plugin. You wouldn't like reverb applied on top of reverb, right? You want to keep things so that you can keep track of them and change in the way you like.

Reverb in Rob Papen Albino. Turn it off :

Most Common Plugins

I am a fan of doing music collabs with other people. I've done several collabs in Reason and dozens in FL Studio. Most didn't end at all or were half assed..But anyways, I'm going to post a list of most used vst plugins that I've encountered:
Nexus
Vanguard
Z3ta+
Rob Papen Albino
Sylenth1 (Free)

Check them out!

Symptoms of an Amateur Track

Sup guys, sorry for being inactive for two days!

I have been interested in music production for 4 years. To get my songs heard more I often had to review other people tracks. I kind of started to distinguish what makes an amateur track and what takes it other level. So here are main points what I think makes a track amateur:

1. Lack of mastering quality
   This one is the most common one. New producers just do shitty mastering because they either suck at it or have shitty hardware. You feel that instrument volume and frequency levels sound unbalanced, there is something wrong with compression or compression is not present
2. Something wrong with song structure
   There are songs that might have "the catch" but it evolves in a weird way. In such cases I believe the person didn't think much about the structure. Music is about repetition and in  most electro genres that repetition should come after the drop. Stick with the same idea through the song
3. Sounds like the creator didn't try hard enough
   Sounds like a copycat of a million songs out there, simple chord choices, repetition without the change, sounds empty. These kind of tracks won't get anyone anywhere, obviously, you don't feel like listening it again because there is nothing else to discover. A good track needs at least 20 hours of production IMO. Intro and outro are needed too, lol.
4.  Sounds like the creator tried too hard and failed
   This one is funny and I actually I see it often enough. It's hard to explain what is wrong. Todays music has to be a bit subtle, a bit cool, mashing in a lot of stuff does not always do the trick, you know what I am saying.. :) Trying too hard kills the coolness.

What Makes A Good Synth Generator?

 By synth generators I mean  plugins that allow to create your own unique sounds. Some artists prefer such plugins instead of using samplers because it makes you way cooler.


What matters: 

1. How many oscillators are there?
   
   There should be at least 2 oscillators. You'll use 1 or 2 for most sounds unless you are really good at it
   
   
2. What type of waves you can choose from?
   
   You will be able to choose from simple waves like saw, sine, square, pulse, but it's nice to have some additional options.
   
   Rob Papen Blue which has 6 oscillators and multiple wave options compared to 3xosc which has 3 oscillators, few wave options:
   
   
   
3. Filter options
   
   How many filters can you choose from? Can each oscillator be linked to filter you want? Most will have Highpass and Lowpass filters. Some of top tier synths might not have Formant, Notch and Comb filters.
   
   Z3ta+ having 6 oscillators and only 2 filters:
   
   
   
4. Envelopes
   
   Do you want a pad sound or keyboard hits? That's where envelopes come in.. It's good if you have separate ASDR envelope for each oscillator. It's also good to have envelope for filters.
   
   Vanguard doesn't have separate envelopes for each oscillator, only main ones:
   
   
   
5. LFO options
   Low Frequency Oscillators add some more programming options. Wobbles! What waves can you choose from? Can you have multiple LFOs? Can you link one LFO to another?
   
   Malstorm having some fancy waves and some minimal linking options(mod:A control changes speed of the first LFO):
   
   
   
   
6. Modulation options
   
   This is where serious shit gets going. The most popular interface is source/destination and I like it more than 2d graphs which make stuff complicated.
   
   Example in Thor synth:
   
   
   
   
   Unnecesary complicated Sytrus modulation options:
   
   
   
7. Portamento
   Make sure you've got that knob! It can be hard to do outside of Generator.
   

Things that don't matter in a Synth Generator(in my opinion):

1. Post effects (reverb, delay, distortion, etc..) - I think these should be left for other plugins using mixer channels. There you can do it more effectively.
2. Gate, arp settings can be done outside of generators too.

Future of Electro

Do you guys remember maybe 5 years ago or something around that time minimal as a subgenre appeared everywhere. Minimal house, trance, dnb.. and people were like "It's the future of electronical music!". And suddenly.. You know what happened..

Suddenly, dubstep!!! It is freaking everywhere now :) Nobody saw that one comming!

Fruity Loops Studio Pricing

At the first sight, FL Studio has huge price discounts but the cheappest they are offering is utter crap:

FL Studio Express Edition €31.09    

FL Studio Express Edition is the perfect drum machine.Used as VSTi, DXi or ReWire client it is the perfect companion for any other host. This version does NOT have a piano roll and recording (check detailed feature list here).Includes Life Time Free Updates!Downloadable Version Only

No Piano roll? Are you kidding me? Looks pretty useless

FL Studio Fruity Edition     €62.82    

FL Studio Fruity Edition is the perfect entry level virtual music studio serving all your sequencing needs. This version does NOT have audio recording (check detailed feature list here).Includes Life Time Free Updates!Download version only.

"Aimed at those people who need piano roll for sequencing functions but don't need Audio Recording, Slicex slicing tool, Edison Wave editor or Automation clips (although automation is still possible with the included Event editor)".

Not having ability to edit sound waves is fine.. I can do it in Audacity or in other software..but no automation clips? No, thanks! Good luck trying to sell that to anyone who knows at least a tiny bit about producing... You can upgrade it anytime but I haven't found upgrade pricing..

FL Studio Producer Edition     €126.28    

FL Studio Producer Edition is your all-in-one virtual studio serving all your sequencing, audio recording & editing needs. Comes with AudioTracks, Full Mixer, ASIO recording and WAV editor (check detailed feature list here).Includes Life Time Free Updates!Downloadable Version only."Aimed at people who are looking for the highest level of functions within FL Studio. It gives you access to Audio Recording, Automation Clips, Slicex slicing tools, Edison wave editor and much more!"

Looks pretty good because I don't record audio or I can do it outside of FL. Edison and Slicex are really nice and I use them a lot but this is quite a huge price increase just to have those automation clips...

FL Studio Signature Bundle (you save €398.99) €189.75    

FL Studio Signature Bundle (XXL Edition has been discontinued and is replaced by Signature Bundle).Includes FL Studio Producer Edition + these additional plugins:* Sytrus,* DirectWave Full Sampler* Soundfont player* VideoPlayer* Maximus maximizer* Hardcore Guitar effects suite... and gives you a big reduction on the total cost. If you already own any of these products they will be deducted from the total amount and you will pay less.Includes Life Time Free Updates to FL Studio & the included plugins!Downloadable Version only.

"Aimed at people who are looking for a feature-rich bundle of FL Studio.Signature Bundle is a 'bundle' including FL Studio Producer Edition + a collection of our 'signature' (most advanced) plugins. It's the cost effective way to get your hands on our best gear."

Product	OS	Price	You pay
DirectWave (FL/VSTi)		€69.80	€25.00
Hardcore (FL/VST/AU)		€69.80	€25.00
Maximus (FL/VSTi)		€133.26	€47.72
Sytrus (FL/VSTi)		€126.21	€45.20
Soundfont Player (FL Only)		€24.68	€8.83
VideoPlayer (FL Only)		€24.68	€8.83
FL Studio Producer Edition		€140.31	€50.25
Total		€588.74	€210.83

Wow, that's a bunch of discounts.. But I am still not sure if I really need that stone age "Sytrus" or some "Hardcore" distortion effects randomly added in the package. Since when "Soundfont Player" is that expensive? I bet I can find something that loads soundfonts for free..

Alright, all in all it's not that bad offer.. Music producing software is pretty expensive everywhere. I still think I would probably get that Producer Edition if I had the money.. :)

Info from https://support.image-line.com/jshop/shop.php?offer=Default&promo=EECCE341
Info from 2011-03-21
How do you like those badass spoiler tags?

How to Make Music!

STEP 1: Learn music theory

STEP 2: Learn software

STEP 3: Compose something

STEP 4: Apply effects

Step 5: Master your track

STEP 6: Upload it to Youtube

STEP 7: Enjoy 13 unknown views that will never comment on your song!