Hi all,

as we say in Holland: “het duurt ff maar dan heb je ook wat”. My YB studio workshop happened last nov. At 12 noon I arrived at the studio and Matt, another pledger, was also there. There was supposed to be a third guy, also from NL, but that day many flight were cancelled due to bad weather. I’d flown in the eve before so lucky!

Benji’s studio was pretty cool, with lots of vintage and not-so-vintage stuff. Since I’m into producing, that was very much my cuppa. Benji set out creating a dub track to demonstrate techniques and the creative process. Simon joined in later and played some guitar riffs. All in all I did learn quite a few tricks, and also what tools I need to do it. As a result of it all, I’ve since gotten all the NI stuff (Komplete), an electric guitar and the UAD2 dsp card for my cubase rig. You were right Benji, that 1176 compressor sounds great

As the afternoon progressed, so did the track and Matt played a very nice riff on Benji’s iPad with some funky Moog synth app. Best of all, I got all the tracks to continue to work on back home (which I’m doing as we speak)! I made a few shorts recordings that I’ll uoload if anyones interested.

A very enjoyable day, and thank you very much Benji and Simon, you were great hosts and very friendly in sharing music and otherwise

I’d love to have a listen Bet that was a really cool experience, would have loved to do that myself

Phenomenal. That is even too cool to be jealous of! Good for you DJrevmoon, and please put up your finished tracks on SoundCloud for our edification!

Here’s two short vids I made that day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNKtifDKyMg&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrUVf4fBp7g&feature=youtu.be

I’ll upload the track to soundcloud when its done. I’m assuming Simon and benji dont mind. If you do, guys, let me know and I’ll take it down.

cheerio!

Awesome ! Can’t wait to hear the track !

PS : don’t forget to share some of the master’s tricks and recipes with us !

Share more with us and as the shanti beat said; Share some tips and tricks

Yes, any tips or tricks would be much appreciated!

Sure I can relay some of the technical details, I just hope my memory is accurate.

Benji explained how his Logic rig worked. Loads of plugins of course and some shweet outboard stuff. Best picks for me were the TL audio valve-based mixer, the Eventide Orville delay unit and the very accurate sounding Quested monitors.
Also, he had a UAD dsp card running loads of plugins. Especially some of the compressors and the roland space echo made an impression on me, which is why I immediately went out and got the UAD2 card when I got home.

As for actual workflow and getting things to sound good, I learned that there is no skimping on trimming samples: everything must be sample-accurate timed, cut at zero-crossings, tuned (by melodyne or otherwise) and quantised to match the track tempo, while avoiding bad artefacts. Yes, thats basic but I never realised exactly how important is was. A trick he used was that in Logic, when you set hitpoints in a sample, you can then select ‘Convert regions to sampler’ and play the sample regions mapped to keys which is a very nice way of mashing up samples.

Also we discussed what Benji called the ‘dark art’ of compressor settings Their favorite plug seemed to be the UA 1176 limiting amplifier. I’ve been using that also now and must say it does make stuff more ‘liquid’. However, the effect was much more outspoken on their monitors than on mine (making me doubt my monitors now, although I reeckon I have more to win from proper acoustic treatment). Also, the compressor from the SSL channel strip was discussed.

The Eventide Orville is now on my wishlist too. That is the most lush reverb/delay unit I’ve ever heard and definitely a game changing bit of gear. Simon ran their old OSCar vintage synth through (after slapping it for 20 minutes to get it working LOL) it and the result is an eargasm. Shame its so expensive….

Another nice trick they used was the moog ipad app (also featured in one of the youtibe vids I posted). A very nice app that actually uses has a preset based on gamma goblins. But they trick was that the app allows you to disable the piano keys in the interface that dont fit in the musical scale your using, and you can select various scale modes including vague eastern modes. You can play that app really well that way without requiring much pratice. A good reason to get an iPad.

Cheerio!

Really interesting, thanks for the info.  Looks like it was a lot of fun!

- What did they use to trim samples - was it all done in the sequencer when the samples were together, or was it done on individual samples prior to loading into the sequencer? 

Be interested to know a bit more about this process.

- And how did they use the UA 1176 - was it on individual tracks, and was it before or after other effects?

Who’s to say if what I saw was representative for all their work, but the sample editting was done in Logic, using the built in editor, plus celemony melodyne for tuning instrumental recordings. 1176 was done pretty much anywhere and everywhere it sounded good, on tracks, busses and the output channels at the same time, both before and after fx.

Cool cheers - was just wondering - I use Cubase but I don’t really find editing the samples within Cubase that easy.  Always toying with the idea of getting Logic…

What issues do you have with Cubase sample editting? It really is easy and there are various tricks and shortcuts for almost everything…

Well not sure if I understood, but I assumed you were talking about editing the length/timing of individual drum hits etc within Logic?  I do most of the sample editing either in sound editors before importing, or in sampler VSTs running through Cubase.

Might just my way of working, but I don’t actually edit samples directly in Cubase.

DjRevmoon, I have an Eventide Orville for sale

HelloMellow - 13 January 2012 03:43 PM

DjRevmoon, I have an Eventide Orville for sale

anything i’d be able to afford?

Heheh, $2700