cutaia

Sandwich.

And one hell of one. Thank you! I'm definitely on the hunt to get working with some people out there in the real world now, guys. You've all been incredibly helpful here.

Not bad ideas there, Starise. Thanks to everyone who's contributed to the thread! Given me a lot of good stuff to think about.

Haha, no joke, I decided the other day that I need to get a drum set so I can do exactly that. I realized it'd be a much more comfortable starting point for me.

Great replies so far, all! Already you're putting me at ease a bit when it comes to jumping into this. Thanks to both of you!

Hey all. I've recently been getting the desire to start playing with people. The problem is that I've always self-taught and produced all my own music solo. This has left me in the unfortunate position of not knowing a lot of official music theory, not having the ability to read music, and not knowing entirely how things work in a band setting. Now, I'm basically afraid to try to get into something collaborative, because I worry that they'll start throwing around a bunch of lingo that won't mean anything to me. "Play [x] key with [x] scale at [etc., etc., etc.]" Then I worry I'll look like an idiot who doesn't belong there! I'm doing my best to start learning some of these things, but in the meantime, I'm curious about your experiences in group settings. Have you played with people like myself who didn't know all the technical aspects of music? Did it cause problems and if so, what were the hardest to overcome? Or is it pretty much expected that anyone joining a band can do these things? Or, contrarily, have you worked with someone like me and still had it be a positive experience where you were able to work within those limitations? Am I just being too scared, and should I try and get out there anyway? Any general advice for someone in my position?

To be fair, that's exactly what this song is. It's the theme from the movie Last of the Mohicans.

I figured it out! It truly was me just totally screwing up a few lines by a half step. No idea why I did that during recording, but whatevs. For anyone who finds this thread in the future, this was how I figured it out where I messed up: I just played the vocal melody on a piano so that I could then compare that version to my vocals, and once I had it down to just those two tracks, it suddenly became super easy to figure out which lines were off. Thanks for the help guys.

Yeah, I think that's exactly what I'm gonna do soon...is post it over on the critique board. Some of the folks here have much better ears than I for stuff like this. Thanks all.

I just went through and checked all the instruments by themselves and in various combinations without the vocals and it all seems fine there. (I know what you mean about bass being a little weird sometimes, though. I've definitely had that one happen to me.) And most the vocals seem fine, too. But every now and then I just hear one or two lines that make me go, "Wait a second...is that off?" It's weird. Gonna just give myself the rest of the day off and see if I can suss out which vocals need to be fixed after a good night's sleep. lol

I recorded some vocals last night, and for some reason this morning some of them sound off to me. Transposing some of the lines half a step makes it sound right to me, but then a little later it seems wrong again. I don't know what's happening. This ever happen to anyone? Do I just need to let my ears rest?

This has all given me some insight as to potential reasoning behind this advice. Really helps me out. Thanks guys! Edit: I'll probably still keep trying to follow this "rule" but at least now I'll feel less bad when I find something above the master bus. What Hobo said made sense, so I'll just make sure everything is sounding good and not overloading for the most part. Also, I used to have to ride the faders on an old Boss BR-8 when I was putting songs onto a CD, and can confirm that it's pretty fun. Although, I'm happy to have a digital workstation where I can do far more precise automations now!

Ok, thanks for the answer. To be completely thorough, I went through my book and found the exact quote that lead to my question. Since I'm obviously not doing a good job asking it, I'll just let the author speak for me. lol

In the few recording resources I've read, I notice that they consistently advise against having child sliders at higher levels than their parents. Or any sliders above the master slider. However, I'm curious if this advise still applies as much when it comes to digital studios? Or is that one of those things that doesn't really matter as much these days, but that we still just do out of habit? Does anyone have any links to any resources addressing this topic, because I'm apparently not doing a good job of googling myself an answer...

Haha, well fortunately I have nobody important to anger. It's just sometimes, I'd like to have so-called radio friendly versions ready in case any situation ever called for one, and wish I didn't have to guess as to exactly what to censor. lol

Wow, ambiguous was definitely the correct word. There's some fascinating information here, especially some of the charts in that .pdf, and the anecdotes about completely innocuous things being censored because they were misheard. lol I guess I'm just gonna have to use my own judgement when it comes to this kind of thing. So very silly...

I've always wondered exactly what words need to be scrubbed from a song to make it "radio-friendly." Is there actually an official list on some FCC website somewhere, or is it just something I should figure out via common sense? Seems hard to do the latter when different genres seem to be targeted by editing to widely varying degrees. For example, I've never heard the word "gun" censored in a rock song, but in a rap song? Plenty of times. (Of course, I've always wondered if that was a conscious choice done to promote an image, rather than following any real hard and set rule.) So, what say you, forum? Any resources for this kind of question floating out there?

Posted this on both the Line 6 and Propellerhead forums, but thought the fine folk here might have ideas, too: --------------------------------------------------------- Hello there, I recently started recording, and wanted more Line 6 tones than the small amount of amps and cabinets that come with Reason. I downloaded POD Farm Free to see how it works. My hope was that the cabinets and amps -- and even the effects -- from POD Farm Free would simply be added to my options in Reason. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case, though. I'm uploading a picture to show my exact issue. Here's what I've done: 1) I created a tone in POD Farm Free called "Cutaia Test." I added in some models that do not come default in Reason. As you can see in the picture, POD Farm Free allows me to use those amps/etc. and says, "You have all the model packs needed for the selected tone(s)." 2) I went to Reason and selected my saved test tone, but it doesn't sound like it should. Furthermore, the picture shows that the Power Amp isn't selected, and while the Brit Celeste's name is shown, it has an asterisk, indicating it's "missing." I thought that by having the licence for these models in POD Farm, I could just save a tone, and use it properly in Reason, but so far, no dice. Is there something I'm doing wrong? Maybe: - I have saved things in an incorrect place? - I'm misunderstanding how POD Farm works? - My POD Farm licenses aren't loading correctly? (I have noticed that each time I open POD Farm, it tells me that it isn't authorized and will run in trial mode. When I click "Licence Manager" from that warning, though, it opens and tells me that it *is* indeed authorized). I hope I can get this fixed. From the little I've played with POD Farm Free tones, I'm sure I'd want to buy the full version, but not if I can't use the tones!

Haha, well, like I said...I wasn't really seeing anywhere like it, either. It's a good community, so if it's the only one I end up frequenting, it won't be a bad thing, I suppose.

...and by "this" I guess what I mean is communities where you can find people doing so many genres of music. I ask because I've tried posting some songs on other sites for critique and found that a lot of them seem to be comprised of nothing but people doing various styles of electronica. I like those songs, but it's not usually what I do, which means that posting a song of mine would invariably lead to the thread getting ignored. So, it's been refreshing here to be able to critique a number of types of music and to get critiques from a wider variety of musical background. I guess what I'm saying is that I'll probably be sticking around Songstuff for the foreseeable future, but would still love to expand my interactions so I'm connecting with a greater number of people. Forgive me if this feels like I'm asking for links to "the competition" or something. If I'm breaking any forum rules by posting this, certainly delete the thread, mods.

The description of this challenge makes me think of Filter's Hey Man, Nice Shot.

Even if you go ahead and use pre-programmed loops from said drum machine, you'll be fine, since by buying the drum machine, you've essentially also bought the license to the library of included sounds.

Eek. I'll see if I can muster up the courage to post a sample later today, but for now, definitely curious to keep hearing opinions on if people have ever experienced this.

I find that when I record vocals, I often hate them a bit at first. But the more and more I listen to the song, the more I suddenly start liking them. Is this because I'm just getting over hating my voice and finally able to hear them "for real." Because that would be good. The bad possibility? Maybe they really aren't any good, but I just get used to them sucking! Any thoughts on this phenomenon? Is this normal? Something you've experienced?