ok perfect as instrumentation is it okay or do you need to add more for example the synthesizer? also for the theory on how to produce those sounds, are your links enough for me or else to add more?
In a basic description you have discovered electronic synthesis or electronic synth sounds.
Common approach today is to use computer plugins or VST
for actual sounds.
so you would sequence/ record/edit/ compose the sounds with numerous
available workstations sequencers.
all spawned mainly from Steinburg computer based sequencers.
Mainly as Midi sequencers in the early days, Now of course
you have Midi and audio based editors Sequencers.
Basically again all spawned from Steinburg.
Invented the rolling piano midi screen, then audio editors.
then of course the whole VST engine. ( Virtual Studio Technology)
VST allowed synthesizers and effects to be built with software.
So building actual hardware based effects or synths was extremely
expensive. And in a virtual software based world you could have
thousands of filters, oscillators, effects, delay lines, math, gates
etc etc needed to build synths. Without having to build
thousands of expensive discrete circuits.
Anyways its basically why I stick to the people that invented
the rolling midi screen sequencer. And invented VST.
Steinburg and Sequencer/DAW Cubase
Which is up too Cubase 12
Far as cutting edge Synthesizers or VST plugins
there is likely thousands of manufactures now.
But as far as more modern sounds and even whole
new Genres being invented by famous synthesizers.
I would say Dubstep, Future House, Big Room Electro
were all spawned by Patches from
Native Instruments plugins
and basically any producer around
can tell you Massive invented Dubstep.
NI created VST Synths such as
Massive
Absynth
Reaktor
FM8
and many many more.
you just need computer to run Cubase and VST plugins.
most would use Midi Keyboard as well for composing.
Synthesizers:
As white dragon told there is an impressive number of VSTi availlable ( VST instruments): ranging from drums, guitar, piano,... to synthesizers, samplers,...
The most advanced you can find are now VST instruments and does not exist in hardware anymore (Serum).
Hardware synth ( them being analog or digital) are desirable because they are instruments, with an interface though for human beings ( with knobs to tweaks) and some distinctive sound ( from the hardware).
Most of the hardware synth can be cloned in VSTi so they usually are cheaper and fully integrated to the workstation ( software sequencer) allowing things which can be painful to perform with an hardware one.
So i would not invest into a pricey synth before have tried through a computer ( with VSTi).
Gear i talked about is absolute minimum ( computer, soundcard, DAW, controller/keyboard).
As white dragon told there is an impressive number of VSTi availlable ( VST instruments): ranging from drums, guitar, piano,... to synthesizers, samplers,...
The most advanced you can find are now VST instruments and does not exist in hardware anymore (Serum).
Hardware synth ( them being analog or digital) are desirable because they are instruments, with an interface though for human beings ( with knobs to tweaks) and some distinctive sound ( from the hardware).
Most of the hardware synth can be cloned in VSTi so they usually are cheaper and fully integrated to the workstation ( software sequencer) allowing things which can be painful to perform with an hardware one.
So i would not invest into a pricey synth before have tried through a computer ( with VSTi).
Gear i talked about is absolute minimum ( computer, soundcard, DAW, controller/keyboard).
I disagree. Massive have been the workhorse synth ten years ago for the whole bass oriented style but dubstep was invented and performed way before it appeared.
I would say it is the Emu ultra range of samplers which 'invented' these style: it was the base sound for the whole D&B scene when dubstep emerged circa 2000.
Same gear used in dubstep.
Here is an example from 2002 ( this is not dubstep but the M.Harris invented what the dubstep evolved into 10 years after).
Pretty much.
Most companies do offer free downloads/ demos.
Also with just a copy of Cubase and few plugins.
You could technically sequence a song and listen to the sounds.
Without a external soundcard or midi controller.
Almost all plugins can be run stand alone and triggered with
just qwerty keyboard letters.
And likewise you can create midi sequence in Cubase and others
by making midi pattern with mouse.
Likewise edit and arrange Audio files.
All could be monitored through built in computer soundcard output
As far as being serious producer.
You would need soundcard/midi input/ and midi controller
all these tools just simplify creating.
As with soundcard it is for higher resolution, low latency
and full duplex.
full duplex means you have analog input/output and DA conversion
at the same time.
Basically full duplex is input and output at same time.
And most soundcards would have midi in and midi out.
So you can send signals to computer from midi device.
But keep in mind since USB2 has been around for many many years now.
Most midi keyboards or controllers can use USB to send / receive Midi
signals.
I started using VST in 1996/97 when Steinburg released it.
So that was before windows 98 !!! LOL
As far as best company at the time for soundcards and
software drivers that actually worked. M-Audio was
the leader for resolution and drivers.
When windows 98 came out , then XP. Most soundcards were
garbage, lots of conflictions. But M-Audio drivers
always worked. I was at 24 bit 96 Khz resolution in 1998 !!!
with M- Audio technology.
And will use nothing but Steinburg and M-Audio products
till the end of the world.
I use M-Audio Soundcards/ Midi adapters and Midi Controllers Only.
nothing else.
Cubase Period.
Native Instruments plugins.
If you Bought just cubase 12 and NI Reaktor
you could basically make anything.
Yes I mean make anything. Reaktor comes with
premade instruments. but has every element available
in VST macro library. You can hand build your own synths
effects at the macro level. Even create graphics/custom panels
for synths. It is very powerful engine.
Do you still play? Have an electric violin perhaps? You can get your toe in the door very inexpensively. I bought one of the old M-Audio Jamlab boxes, for a whole $20 off ebay, intending to use it for amplifier measurements. It works under W10 and works with the REW measurement system. I assume the rest of their "guitar lab" package works as well as the driver for the hardware.
At a minimum, this would give you a feel for computer generated music and provide some useful processing of an analog input; intended for guitar, some stuff would certainly work for electric violin. Particularly any envelope controlled effect, like the "auto-wah".
Back in the early 80s I knew how to build a envelope follower from scratch and could use it to drive VCAs, VCFs - the building blocks of analog sound synthesis. It is from this experience that I have at least some idea of what krivium is trying to explain; modification of one sound's shape in time and/or amplitude via another sound. Done digitally within an audio workstation, versus in op-amps, resistors and capacitors back in the 80s...
Back when I actually played bass in bands, I always seemed to be tight with the drummer, because doing that seemed to be more fun. I actually did propose mic'ing the drummers bass drum, putting an VC envelope around that pulse and using that to modify the dynamics of my bass. Either compression or expansion was possible. The other members of the band, other bass player friends better than me, all thought my idea was crazy. So I let it go unrealized.
Maybe it wouldnt have done much, on 70's rock song covers. Very different stuff than this type of "trance" music. Lucky for humans sounds that seem to paralyze can be arrived at along so many dimensions there will always be something coming along that does it for somebody. These days, I want a stereo that when you walk into the room (while its playing, obviously) you dont want to leave. Just another form of how it sounds paralysis.
Correct, I agree.
2 step and Reggae influences date back to 1980's
The actual term " Dubstep"
dates back to....I would say around 2001 / 2002
from UK label Big Apple.
But mainly used to describe the more aggressive
2step/ Grime tracks being released at the time.
As far as most fans or ravers.
Actual hardcore "Dubstep' that
took over the planet in 2008/12
Which most consider Dubstep.
Because really around 2008/09
Is when it actually picked up on BBC radio
then spread to the states.
Basically all the essential tracks that started the
big explosion. Was basically created around 2008/12
Every producer named off Massive
released 2007
really picked up 2008/09
with updated preset library
yes yes also the analog part can interest me, because I would have more control over the wave
Jjasnew,
You was into modular synth in the 80's? These is a whole addictive domain within electronic music. Such powerful and endless instruments.
Violin offer a huge amount of possibility of treatments: from distortion, reverbs, delay to vocoder and other extreme digital processing it works mainly ok.
It's very versatile as you can play leads, pads, whatever.
Rerecording and layering offer an infinite range of exploration by themself... add to it effects and it became mind boggling...
Even if acoustic the instrument can easily be captured: a cardioid mic, mic cable and speaker stand is all what is needed once you have a semi pro soundcard ( and no need to spend a huge amount on it).
There is dedicated 'spot mic' which exist too ( Lavalier mic shaped mics) if one like to move when playing.
All this you can do within your DAW Farble. And of course you can sequence and play any VSTI with it at the same time.
And all this relatively quick ( if you go this way try to find a dedicated forum in your native language to understand the basis requirement and how to setup things).
About sequencer/DAW,
I'm not as enthusiast as WhiteDragon about Cubase. I use and used it a lot but i can't get used with the workflow it impose for composing.
I like it for mixing and audio to video work though ( with Nuendo).
Ablton Live suit better my way of doing things and the remote capability free from looking at a screen.
And i recently decided to grab some hardware sequencer ( Yamaha RS7000) as i would like to keep computer for sound treatments/generation only or at least not it to be my main instrument for composing.
Despite the power i don't find computers to be inspiring instruments to me.
You was into modular synth in the 80's? These is a whole addictive domain within electronic music. Such powerful and endless instruments.
Violin offer a huge amount of possibility of treatments: from distortion, reverbs, delay to vocoder and other extreme digital processing it works mainly ok.
It's very versatile as you can play leads, pads, whatever.
Rerecording and layering offer an infinite range of exploration by themself... add to it effects and it became mind boggling...
Even if acoustic the instrument can easily be captured: a cardioid mic, mic cable and speaker stand is all what is needed once you have a semi pro soundcard ( and no need to spend a huge amount on it).
There is dedicated 'spot mic' which exist too ( Lavalier mic shaped mics) if one like to move when playing.
All this you can do within your DAW Farble. And of course you can sequence and play any VSTI with it at the same time.
And all this relatively quick ( if you go this way try to find a dedicated forum in your native language to understand the basis requirement and how to setup things).
About sequencer/DAW,
I'm not as enthusiast as WhiteDragon about Cubase. I use and used it a lot but i can't get used with the workflow it impose for composing.
I like it for mixing and audio to video work though ( with Nuendo).
Ablton Live suit better my way of doing things and the remote capability free from looking at a screen.
And i recently decided to grab some hardware sequencer ( Yamaha RS7000) as i would like to keep computer for sound treatments/generation only or at least not it to be my main instrument for composing.
Despite the power i don't find computers to be inspiring instruments to me.
Yes, I had the extreme fortune at the time as a freshman in college, to have access to a full moog studio. Something like Keith Emerson would have, but without the oscilloscope. Ribbon controller, sequencer, two tape RTR decks with control amplifiers whose tape speed could be driven by the moog oscillator, a Dynaco 400 amp and two KEF speakers with the racetrack woofers, whose tweeters were blown by the time I got to it. (I dont know who would specify a Dynaco 400, in connection with voltage controlled oscillators - and students...)
If I had any musical talent, I could have made a song like the above U tube link on that equipment. Unfortunately, I never took up an instrument when that was offered in grammar school and consequently went into 4 years of college not being able to play a thing. So, I fooled around with the sequencer some and got the tape decks speed to follow notes on the keyboard. My quad mate at the time played keyboard - we had a Rhodes, Organ and Leslie speaker along with two stereos in the room. It didnt occur to me to get him to play something for me on the moog, because he could and had club performance experience. He learned classical piano from his youth; used to tell how he'd jump up his practice clock to cheat on his practice time.
I was going to school for electrical engineering. I was fooling around with the CD4046 PLL at the time, trying to get it to phase lock on this guys Rhodes piano. The electronic music course and the PLL circuitry eventually landed me two As, which helped my GPA considerably. The electronic music course was literally punching up a deck of Hollerith cards, handing that to the kid in cohort with the teacher, who'd run them on the campus mainframe. This would spit out a tape, which he'd then run through this big rackmount A-D converter. "The kid" was somebody you'd dread to have for a roommate. He told me mine didnt compile / decode. Another guy's did and it sounded like a true early computer music composition. Everyone who took the course got an A.
I liked Jerry Goodman and Jan Hammer at the time. Mostly people who's playing was light-years ahead of anything I could ever dream of achieving. I guess I just wasnt interested in creating something so far beneath what my favorite stuff to listen to was. It didnt occur to me that others would actually like anything less than jazz rock fusion, even as I plodded along learning bass and eventually some guitar for my own amusement and to be social with others who played. The first place I worked for, DEC, had internal forums like "Music", "Computer Music" and "Audio" - along with every other topic you could think of. People who hung out there collaborated, held exhibition concerts of pickup bands, which I got to participate in on at least 3 occasions. You always sound better when getting to play with people better than you. Keyboardist in one band could play Emerson no problem. Those were the days!
65 now, I realize I come from a background rich in opportunity and at some of the best of times. Stuff that seems so simple now - Am -> F#m "You know that it would be untrue" - I just couldnt wrap my head around then, at all. Like trying to jam a potatoe through a french fry cutter that just wont go. A pretty girl you just dont know what to do with, but the next guy knows exactly what to do. Anyway, that's the background that allows me to get what sidechain modulation of one sound with another is. Push up the Wah on that violin with the bass notes' envelope.
Glad you guys are discussing this. I have a alot on my plate right now time wise.
Sidechaining and ducking are a staple of modern music production, getting the most volume out of a track without aid of a "maximizer" plug in. Excessive use is of this is the classic EDM sound used to death. A little goes a long way. Some compressors had faster responding VCAs than others and in VSTs you can have infinite modulation response capability, whereas in older hardware comps it was limited by the attack of the VCA input. Either way, in a mastered track with alot of compression (to the point of hard limiting), you had to use sidechaining to get the most volume possible from a finished track.
In addition there is lots of phasing tricks going on ie. highpassing and time delaying one channel to achieve a distant sound on either side. Modern delays and reverbs are good for this, allowing you to literally draw the room and graphically place the sound sources in a 3d space. Lexicon and TC both have the edge with this technology in the VST domain as well as hands on hardware.
There are a few weird things going on in those tracks above. Some of it may never be deciphered based on the signal chain drawn out in a DAW patchbay, most of it often figured out by accident from the producer or engineer (often the guy creating the track).
Sidechaining and ducking are a staple of modern music production, getting the most volume out of a track without aid of a "maximizer" plug in. Excessive use is of this is the classic EDM sound used to death. A little goes a long way. Some compressors had faster responding VCAs than others and in VSTs you can have infinite modulation response capability, whereas in older hardware comps it was limited by the attack of the VCA input. Either way, in a mastered track with alot of compression (to the point of hard limiting), you had to use sidechaining to get the most volume possible from a finished track.
In addition there is lots of phasing tricks going on ie. highpassing and time delaying one channel to achieve a distant sound on either side. Modern delays and reverbs are good for this, allowing you to literally draw the room and graphically place the sound sources in a 3d space. Lexicon and TC both have the edge with this technology in the VST domain as well as hands on hardware.
There are a few weird things going on in those tracks above. Some of it may never be deciphered based on the signal chain drawn out in a DAW patchbay, most of it often figured out by accident from the producer or engineer (often the guy creating the track).
ok kirivo I understand, last question, after creating the melody, what do you recommend to play it, I mean which Hi-fi device? I'm not interested in a too powerful speaker, but something that is as realistic as possible, since the target, that is, I have to hear, will be 1 meter away from the speaker. I had thought of those bluetooth battery-powered speakers from bose, what do you think?
I downloaded Cakewalk by Bandlab and installed it in my Garage PC. (Yeah, I have a Garage PC...) It's free.
Idea being I get to play down there sometimes late at night; maybe if I just push record I'll get a few good bars of something I could loop. Not much hope making it through an entire song at performance level. I sometimes dream of doing an open mic this year, but scared to death of c-vid. Upgraded the PC to 8GB in hopes of giving the app a little elbow room. An old firewire M-Audio NRV10 is the I/O board for that idea. It records and plays back, tracks.
Idea being I get to play down there sometimes late at night; maybe if I just push record I'll get a few good bars of something I could loop. Not much hope making it through an entire song at performance level. I sometimes dream of doing an open mic this year, but scared to death of c-vid. Upgraded the PC to 8GB in hopes of giving the app a little elbow room. An old firewire M-Audio NRV10 is the I/O board for that idea. It records and plays back, tracks.
If you can learn how to use it to get the effect you want. That learning curve is doable, but not trivial. When its main panel opens up, I'm in instant overwhelm. I can find the record button...