Yo many ofyou are saying goood things about this topic. I think the key doen't just lie in one aspect of the studio though. Its all the inter-related things that inpact the final result. 1. Speakers 2. Room 3. Experience 4. Hardware 5. Processing So yes TO ME!! Pro Tools Hardware is extremely important to my sound. The reason is because it sounds fat (24 bit converters) But the fatness comes from the extremely well coded plug-ins. Typically inside the computer I use MCDSP FIlterbank for my eq and MCDSP Compressorbank for my compression. But without good speakers sitting in a good room I wouldnt be able to use those tools to thier capabilities because I wouldn't be able to hear the resulting subleties as well. Before things go into the computer I typically run them through either a pair of Avalon 737sp's or a pair of Vintech X73 (neve 1073 modules) and I have a Crane Song STC8 compressor (extremely high end mastering type transparent compressor) Now, when I am sampling something from a record I have a cheap ass radio shack mixer that I run it through. Simply cause I had it lieing a round years ago and have just kept it in there ever since. But what I do is run the outputs from the mixer into a balance box to make the signal a +4 balanced signal then I patch straight into the 888/24 Audio interface. This helps make the mixer sound a little cleaner and much louder so when I start to process the sample there is not a ton of extra noise. I have my studio set up as a +4 balanced environment (My Pre's, compressors, interface ins and outs all operate at that "Pro standard" level). So in addition to running the TT's through a balance box all the keyboards get run through one first as well. Then I patch the keyboards into the pre-amps mentioned earlier. This process is no secret as pro studios either do this or use a direct box and patch the keyboards into the Mic inputs (either on the console or outboard pre-amp). Either way high end studios don't just take the crappy sounding outputs of -10dbu keyboards and run them into consoles or computers. Drums, Drums Drums. . . well First off check out the Dance Mega Drums CD. . . smokin!!!! Lots of fat sounds. But they are just a bunch of good sounding samples that some people toook off records so you can do it as well. Yes I do have a masssive library of sample cd's (over 120) and CD's designed for Sample Cell about 50 ro so (Sample Cell is the sampler I used untill I recently switched to Emagic EXS) OK here are a couple Drum tricks that will help. 1. EQ Take out the lows of the kick, snare, hats so as to leave room for the bass. I use a high pass filter and many times I take out up to70-80 htz. This leaves room for the Bass to be big boomy fat and not have to compete with the kick (the next biggest inst.) So as your working up the frequency specrum take out the extra lows of all those instruments. Snare- usually out up to 160 or higher and maybe boost a little at 250-350htz to give it some richness. At this point usually nothing else has any of those low frequencies left in it as all the remaining sounds are high pass filtered to at least 200-300 and sometimes more if its competing with the snare. But mainly this helps to create space for the Kick and Bass and as a result those elements can be Loud!!!! 2. Compression (old School Mix technique) OK now see if you follow this. Make 2 identical drum busses. (on a console output all the drum channels to both busses 1-2 and 3-4) So now there are 2 stereo busses. (In Logic with Pro Tools I tell each drum track to output to buss 32-33 then make 2 aux channels set to recieve that same input) So now there are 2 stereo busses with the same drum information. Compress the shit out of one pair. The fastest attack you have and the fastest release with the lowest threshhold and the most amount of compression. Now with one channel being clean mix the other one underneath slightly. Now just adjust the level of the compressed buss with the main buss till you have the desired amount of thickness in the drums. REMEMBER IF YOU DO THIS WITH COMPUTER COMPRESSION you have to also put the same processors on the the clean channel just don't have them doing any prcessing so this way the plug in delay is the same. If you don't do this the two will be somewhat out of phase and sound like crap and you'll think this technique sucks. Sometimes the compressed channel gets a little low and high shelf eq to bring out the fatness (bottom) and the crunchiness (top) at the same time. and aggain if you add eq to the compressed channel ad the same eq plug-in to the uncompresswed channel but don't set any of the parameters or have it bybassed. I learned about ths trick about a year ago and I love it!! It basically brings out all this noise and crunchiness so even with real clean samples It can sound like a loop really quikly. Hope this helps. Alright, well I have to get to the studio (talking bout this get me excited to go make some music). I was thinking of adding some of these studio thoughts on the Moulton Studios Web site and so I might have Olivier get that all set up and post here so maybe you might find some of the other things usefull. Jay-J Moulton Studios ------ Oh and for Monitors. Well I used the Mackie HR 824's for several years and for the money I can't believe there is a better studio monitor!!! The first mix I did on those sounded way better than after working with the same tannoy monitors for years. Used you can snag them for around $900 I know that is a lot of money but it will be worth it cause I am not sure what would impact the end result more than good monitors. I use the genelec 1032's with a 1092a subwoofer. Amazing but very pricey. It took me over 4 years of putting out records and running the studio to be able to upgrade from the mackies. In addition to the monitors the room is a factor as well because soundwaves travel through space and time and interact with the envoronment like walls. floor, ceiling, carpet, wood and all things in the room like cabinets racks and consoles. some good obsorption (no less than 2 inch thick) and some good diffusion (to spread the sound round the room) and some bass trapping (in corners to smooth the bass response around the whole room) will help trmemdously. Last but not least even with those acoustic treatments the room itself will impact the sound so having someone "tune" the room helps in the ability to get repeatable results with songs in different keys and ith different bass and kick tones. (to tune the room you adjusts an eq that is placed in line right before your speakers or amp to smooth out the fruequncies that have a tendancy to build up in your room) There is a lot of information out ther on the internet about acoustic design and treatment. (that is where I learned about it). More coming soon ---------- Oh Yah I forgot. .. One guy was saying how its just house music and no Celine Dion album and what not.. . .Well either way if you are working in a computer you will need some sort of monitoring device or mixer if you want to do any live recording. If you just do samples then who cares and you could probably get a way without pro tools but as soon as you want to record some Vocals, Guitar, Percussion of whatever well the computer itself has to much latncy to do that. So to do a real recording studio its got to be Pro Tools (If you want it all in the computer with Automation, Recall, TDM Plugins) If you notice a lot of these new boxes are marketing no latency monitoring and that might help but you cant monitor any of the effects from the computer like say reverb on the vocals you are trying to record. BUT Pro Tools is Expensive for the full blown stuff. Older used systems can be a great way to get into it and see the power and sound quality. I helped on of my interns design a system around some used Pro Tools gear and he has been amazeed at the difference. Even on a small pro tools system its noticable. Now if you are talking about having a Neve, Amek, MTA or some other $30,000 and up board then the difference is not very noticable cause great records can be done on both. But I am pretty sure you will notice a difference from a mackie 32 and pro tools. Adding a board to the Mix then its a different story. But look for a board that has the most band of sweepable EQ (ability to choose the frequency you are cuting or boosting) If there is just a bass and trable eq you gonna have ahard time getting things to bedefined and fat caue you end up boosting the same bass frequencies on a bunch of tracks. So boards with 2-3 bands of sweepable eq will help you in sculpting the sound to your liking. If you have both a computer and a board the watch as you start to boost several channels with the bass pot. Then maybe do some eq in the computer and pick frequencies that way then try to back off of the boards low freq shelf eq. I still am trying to improve on what I do and one thing that helps me with that is listeneng to record that I think sound good in the club on my studio monitors and in my room. This helps me get a better idea of how what I am doing will translate to the place that my records are played. . . CLUBS. But the most important thing to all this is that if you know your gear really well you can make good sounding records. It just might take more tweeking and more time to get it but there are amazing sounding records done on way less gear than I use. And if you do what I do then who cares all that much. . . If you have a good Hook then its a good hook and people will love the record!!!!! Hook can be vocal, sample, guitar or whatever just some hook that people remember. When It comes to making tracks that people will like and buy thats very important!!! I am still learning that one as well!!!! If it sounds great on top of that then thats even better!! Jay-J --------- One of two questions from DHS 1. Mastering for vinyl Well there are a couple things I have learned when it comes to the physics of vinyl and the resulting mastering for it. The most important thing is the length per side!!!!!!! A shorter side cut on a bad lathe will sound better than a long side on a good one. Now mastering engineers will disagree with me but I would say not to go over 10 minutes in order to compete with many of the better sounding masters of today. In that case I try to just to a track per side and make really long DJ friendly outros cause even trying to fit 2 songs on a side can be tedious as a 5 minute house track is hard to do for me. In addition to the time per side the highs and lows are important as well. Cutting (making a master laquer) requires a lot more energy for the highs than the lows. but he lows require a lot more space across the record. Think about Dance records. . . Hats a plenty and Kicks every beat many times with bass note there as well. This by nature makes an even harder time of cutting masters for dance. Bass takes up more space than highs and stereo stuff takes up more space than mono so imagine a stereo bass. Well there is another problem. So 2 key element to mastering from Vinyl 1. Mono the bass 2. Cut the highs Mono the bass well most of the time it is already but when I am mastering some audio knowing it is going to be cut for vinyl I mono the bass up to about 250 or 300 htz. When I produce and mix I just do this in my records as I go. If a synth has a cool bass tone but has some LFO modulating the panning or something I just track one side or bring them both in in Mono and leave them like that. Same with Kicks. I always use or create a mono Kick. It just will sound better on vinyl in a club that way. And for the highs. Low pass filter the highs from about 16K or 15 K (some times lower like 14) This way the cutting system will not need to use as much energy to cut clean highs!!! WATCH YOUR CRASHES!!!! Many mastering engineere (guys who cut master Laquers) have had mumerous problems with to many and too loud crashes. Listen to some of your recordsd and you will notice records don't distort on the bass they distort on the highs und upper mids. . . Crashes and hats. Again this is something that I just have incorporated into my mixin and producing so as I go I am carefull not to add too much high frequencies. I try to focus the hats around 10k to 12K and not much higher. I have done a lot of research with a friend of mine who owned a lathe for a few years as a hobby (you think Pro tools is expensive) anyway he spent a lot of time talking to several of the top House Music Mastering Houses and here is the basic approach: 1. Keep the sides short, Under 10 Minutes or so 2. Roll off above 14 or 15K (mostly a 12 or 24 db slope so its pretty harshly cutting the high end) 3. Boost at 10-12K to bring back the "aparent" loudness of the high end. 4. Mono up to 200 or 300 depending whats in those frequencies. Now I get my vinyl masters cut at Heathmans in the UK (Chris is the man) and he knows how I produce and so he does'nt neccesarily do those things cause I take some precautions during mixing and overall producing the records. These are just basics but you get the idea. Bass takes more space, Stereo takes more space, highs need more energy and are harder to cut than lows. Hope this helps. . . it helped me. --------------- Hey There. Interesting questions I will try to shed some light and its ok to post it if you like. ------------------------------------ Exactly how much has your input shaped what is considered Miguel Migs Petalpusher sound? ------------------------------------ Well Miguel has worked with me for about 4 years now and all but maybe 2-4 projects were done with me running the computer and engineering his work. Miguel is extremely talented and he is also smart. He's smart cause he knows that I take his productions to another level in terms of sound quality. The gear in my studio and my extreme commitment to understanding how to make records sound good added to the attention to detail I brought to the construction and tuning of my room make my studio a great place to produce. Then add to that the fact that I have been producing house records for years before Migs and I hooked up and who would want to work anywhere else. I can't imagine a better place to do a house record. Like Bass Hit studios where guys like Masters at Work, Todd Terry, Roger S, used to fork back in the day. All you need is good gear, good engineer, and good musicians. In fact that team has made good music in all generes. So how much of me is in his sound? Well its a good partner ship. He definately makes the decision on how his records turn out. The process works like this: 1. I pull up some basic drum banks (kick, snare, hats, percussion) 2. He then starts to go through them and do some simple programing. He is at the keyboard I am at the computer. 3. He then might ask for more percussion banks or different banks of drums if there is nothing he wants. 4. While this is going on I might jump in and say "That sounds Good" while he's programing and I'll quikly grab it, loop it, and let it play for a second. If he likes it then we move on. Other times he'll either try again or he will say take the last couple bars of what I just did. Then I again grab it, loop it, and play it back. 5. This process starts with the drums and continues all the way through till the end. Him at the keys me at the computer. 6. The we go on to the keys. Now remember Migs has worked in my room almost 2 days a week if not more for over 4 years. So he knows the sounds in my room as good as I do. So he'll say give me the JV or the Triton or whatever and I set him up and let him play. He might then say get that last part or I might say that sounds good. Most of the time its him stating which part he likes. 7. After each part is chosen I route the keyboard through a particular pre-amp and set a little eq and make it sound dope then record it into the computer. note: The key here is how fast we go throught this process. 8. Then after tracking in all the keys and bass and maybe a percussion element or two from the keyboards then the song starts to get arranged. 9. Lately Miguel can navigate around logic enough to cut and paste the arrangement from the elements we recorded. I basically set all the elements to loop from the begining, name all the audio files, give them a color and let him go. 10. At this point I usually go check my email and he messes with the arrangement. After a while I'll go in and he'll say lets do some automation or can you fix this here or whatever. note: after 4 years Migs is a pretty low maintenence client. 11. After a while more I 'll go back in and help with some more complicated edits since he is still learning Logic. Then I work on the mix. 12. Now this is where I add eq and compression to many of the sounds. Sometimes he adds some eq while he's arranging and I'll adjust it. After a few minutes of that he might suggest a couple elements come up or down in the mix but he pretty much is just patient and lets me get busy wiith the Mixing (in a traditional studio way ie. adjusting gain, eq, compression, effects) 13. A few more tweeks with us both listening and suggesting and we're done. 14. I then put it on CD. He then takes the cd and goes over it and makes notes as to what needs to be done to the mix, arrangement, sounds or whatever. This is a tip I suggested to him in one of our first sessions together and he whole heartly utilizes this suggestion. He willl then come back into the studio for our next session with a scrap of paper with some notes on it. We pull up the song make the changes and burn another cd. 15. Usually thats it. Some tracks have been revised many times and a couple have been revised into different songs but all in all by revision 1 or 2 the song is done. ------------------------ As you're no doubt aware San Fran or West Coast house is huge at the moment and your name seems to be on the credits for 50% of the music released. So basically what I'm asking is how much of the "West Coast" sound is actually the "Jay-J" sound? And do you mind me placing this on the forum? -------------------------- Now with some other collaborators they might bring in some ideas for samples and I just start getting busy programing and stuff every once in a while asking, "Does that sound good?" usually I just keep plugging away and eventually were done. A lot of times with these other collaborators whey might not necessarliy say play this or that but they will occasionally say "no" to an idea and so I keep messing around to come up with some thing else. Chris Lum and I work differently in that we both can run the computer and program and everything so we just take turns running the computer and programing. That is cool for me cause I am used to being the only one at the computer. Each producer I work with brings an element to the equation which enhances the outcome. Anyway, with people who work with me then I have quite a bit of control over the sound. Certainly the sound quality is all up to me and the sounds mostly come from my library of samples or keyboard modules. It is my responsibility and I take pride in making everything sound like great records. Hope this all makes sense. ------------------------------------------------------------------ DRUMS Try EQing the kick - large cut (maybe -15dB) around 250Hz. This cuts out a lot of the wooliness and helps it cut through, but without being boomy. Maybe add a little top end boost around 5-8KHz, but watch out for increased noise if you're going to compress the kick individually. If you're using a snare as opposed to a clap (very now) then compress it fairly hard with a fairly quick attack (but slow enough to let the initial snap through) and slow release, high ratio and adjust the threshold to taste. Same trick can be used on open hats to give them bite. You need to EQ all (or at least most) the low out of hats too, to keep them out of the way of the kick and snare I tend to layer up heavily processed loops, chopped to fit my groove and EQed dramatically (losing all the low and most of the high), and put them very quietly over over my kick, hat and clap/snare. You shouldn't be able to pick them out when it's all playing, but they add to the whole groove. Then compress these elements together with a fast attack (usually minimum but making it slightly slower can give you a nice "smack" on the beat) a mediumish release and a high ratio (16:1 is a good starting point). Adjust the threshold down to where it starts to pump nicely, but not too heavy! You may have to drop the level of the open hat at this point, 'cos the kick will pull the level of the sounds that occur on the beat down and will make the off beat hats jump out. If I've got extra percussion playing (and I usually have!) ie congas, bongos, shakers then I buss these seperately to the kick/hat etc group and compress these together (but not as hard as the kick group) and then add them to the mix. Sometimes I'll gently compress both groups together, but usually the mix compression takes care of that. If you want to dirty up a bit, try sticking the whole sub mix through some gentle (valve-ish?) distortion, but be gentle (unless you're making gabba! You'll find that sounds of dedicated house sample cds have already been processed heavily, but you can still make them gel better by doing some of the above. ------------------------------------