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StarLeaf
Starting Member
United States
6 posts
Joined: Dec, 2006
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 Posted - 2006/12/22 : 09:09:58
...start producing hardcore!!! I looked around a little and I didn't find any sticky newbie topics, Soooo...I'm really hoping there's somebody here still willing to answer a few of the same old questions.
Anyways, a little about myself. I've been on piano for 10+ years so theory is no issue. A while I dumped my life savings into a Roland Fantom X8...maybe not the best choice but a wicked midi controller at least...Stumbled upon a copy of Bonkers 13 Dougal's mix about a year ago, and now HHC has pretty much phased out all my other hobbies...ATM I'm reading whatever I can get my hands on about electronic music. I have a decent knowledge base concerning midi, some of the basic effects, analogue synthesis, etc... I'm saving to put together a DAW...right now I've got Pentium III/933 that honestly can't run fruity loops demo. I've got the damn music in my head but I've had next to no luck making the real hardcore sounds with my existing setup. I'm a Second year student at an engineering college so money is tight, but I'll eat ramen for a month if there is something I've gotta have before I can make this amazing music.
So what I would really like is any vst's that I've gotta have for the bright leads or phat basses...honestly though the drums are by far my biggest problem...the kick and the snare rolls and the breakbeats, pretty much everything. ANY info or websites on programming or what sort of samples to layer or some special compressor to use to get that insane punch would be greatly appreciated.
Last thing, I'm also wondering about the sweeps that sit in the background of most tracks that I hear. My best guess is something on either a pitch shift or BP filter but beyond that I can't figure anything out.
Sorry that is so long...any help is greatly appreciated.
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-Eric
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MegaJynx
Junior Member
United States
85 posts
Joined: Oct, 2005
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Posted - 2006/12/22 : 19:41:28
Well it's good to know that your interested, and the 10+ years on a piano will help you GREATLY. (where as my 2 years on a clarinet does nothing for me :p) Although money is tight, if your going to do any form of music production on a computer, a P3 is NOT going to cut it, even more so if it's not even near the gigahertz, so enjoy your ramen X_X. As for VST's, I haven't played around with any that go beyond FL Studio, but if I find any that seem good, I'll mention them. As for the actual "hardcore" sounds, well thats the area I have trouble with too, most my work sounds like Hard Trance :p If I come across anything worth mentioning, I'll post it.
EDIT: check out http://www.hardcoreproducer.com/ sometime. It's undergoing massive changes or something, seeing about a week ago it was a forum, a few days ago it said it was going down, and now its back to something different, but either way, its a good site.
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Edited by - MegaJynx on 2006/12/22 20:02:53 |
Underloop
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
3,895 posts
Joined: Mar, 2002
91 hardcore releases
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Posted - 2006/12/22 : 23:57:45
quote:
Originally posted by MegaJynx:
a P3 is NOT going to cut it, even more so if it's not even near the gigahertz
My first few tunes were done on a 700MHz with 128MB Ram. You work with what you've got, you just need to learn that bouncing basslines can have 2 meanings ;-)
__________________________________
"We don't stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Brian K
Advanced Member
United States
8,663 posts
Joined: Sep, 2001
528 hardcore releases
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Posted - 2006/12/23 : 01:26:25
pffft whatever a p3 works fine, just make sure you have lots of ram
I used to try to write music on a 486 when trackers were in =P
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"we'll delete the weak"
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MegaJynx
Junior Member
United States
85 posts
Joined: Oct, 2005
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Posted - 2006/12/23 : 01:56:35
P3 would work, but trust me, when you start adding effects and other fun stuff, it will quickly show its age.
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Brian K
Advanced Member
United States
8,663 posts
Joined: Sep, 2001
528 hardcore releases
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Posted - 2006/12/23 : 03:53:46
some people still use those things called hardware =P
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"we'll delete the weak"
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StarLeaf
Starting Member
United States
6 posts
Joined: Dec, 2006
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Posted - 2006/12/23 : 07:31:21
PIII/933 + 384mb sdram...soon I will replace the creative card I dug out of my closet with an Audiophile 24/96. Hopefully this frees up enough resources for Fruity Loops to play the demo song without 100000 buffer underruns in a minute.
Thanks for the tips; once again I am a drum programming idiot, any suggestions there would be really nice.
__________________________________
-Eric
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Underloop
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
3,895 posts
Joined: Mar, 2002
91 hardcore releases
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Posted - 2006/12/23 : 13:59:09
Breakbeats - says it all here:
http://breakbeat.hattrixx.co.uk/
Audio editor:
I use Soundforge, but it comes at a price. A good free alternative is Audacity.
Sequencer-wise I use Reason these days, so everything is built in, and before that I used Logic Audio on the PC. This is now discontinued by Emagic (now Apple) so I guess its classed as abandonware. I used to use the sampler that came with this (EXS-24 I think it was called). Tried Kontakt out at one point, quite liked that!
As far as sounds go, its all about layering. When picking your sounds, don't just use the most awesome, phattest sounding preset you can find as it won't work in the mix. Pick 2 average sounding sounds and layer them (one high, one low). Its all about filling as much of the frequency range as possible without overlapping frequencies - at least thats the way I work
__________________________________
"We don't stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Edited by - Underloop on 2006/12/23 14:01:24 |
Pope C XXIII
Advanced Member
United States
1,935 posts
Joined: Oct, 2006
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Posted - 2006/12/23 : 18:52:57
I'm a total newbie when it comes to making music, and I hate using FL 6 for some reason, but I use Acid for all my needs. It's great for sampling and works nicely as a program to use any other softsynth. I'm using the MinimogueVA (a freeware emulator of the original Minimoog) a lot these days. It's great for acid, VGM, and analog sounds.
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www.myspace.com/djtaumi
Hardcore & trance inna oldskool style
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Hard2Get
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
12,837 posts
Joined: Jun, 2001
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Posted - 2006/12/24 : 13:00:49
When i first started making tunes in 2002, i was using a P2 400 mhz processor, with 96 meg of ram, and a 1.58 gig hard drive, and i was using that up to around Christmas time last year. I now have a 700 mhz CPU with 256 meg of ram. I've never had any problems, you just need to be more conservative with regards to CPU power.
Producers were using computers many times slower than what we use now in the early 90's, and it didn't stop them, so the same applies now really. They used all hardware back then, which dosn't use any cpu power, but you can do essentially the same now but doing what underloop said and bouncing all midi tracks to audio files. If you were using hardware synths you would have to do this anyway.
quote:
some people still use those things called hardware =P
Sadly not enough :P
I'm not a genious or anything, but i can assist you with some basics, so if you want (and if you use MSN) you can add me on MSN. My address is: [email protected] :)
With your experiance with the piano, and knowledge on the things you've mentioned, your already way ahead of most people, and i would have thought that the Fantom has alot of very nice sounds on it. So already you have an expensive midi device in your setup.
If Fruity is running slow, then (assuming you haven't already) go to 'Options', then 'Audio Settings' and turn the buffer length up (i have it as high as possible, the only time this is a real problem is when your using midi keybourd (in which case you would turn it down for recording midi input, then turn it back up again after), because there the longer you have the buffer length the more latency there is. If your interested, the ideal buffer length for use with a midi keybourd is 64 ms), because my computer is quite abit slower than yours and i have no real problems :)
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Edited by - Hard2Get on 2006/12/24 13:23:15 |
StarLeaf
Starting Member
United States
6 posts
Joined: Dec, 2006
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Posted - 2006/12/24 : 20:11:27
Sounds like a good day to dig up that hotmail account :P
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-Eric
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Dalton_Man321
Starting Member
United States
5 posts
Joined: Dec, 2006
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Posted - 2007/01/02 : 08:14:21
I am a fairly experienced producer of Electronica (Hardcore included), so I think this might be of some use.
I have a Photon X25 (I use the ASIO4ALL driver because the built-in one is shit). Your keyboard is obviously not a Photon X25, but it's a MIDI keyboard. If you want a lag-free experience, I recommend you get ASIO4ALL (www.asio4all.com). It works with all sound cards, and it's probably the best choice for owners of MIDI keyboards.
OK, so you want to get started with Hardcore? I recommend you start out with Reason 3.0. It's a little pricey, but it's easy to get the hang of. One major con of Reason is that everything (Synths, effects, etc.) are all built in. No VSTs, DXIs, nothing. Which brings me to my next paragraph...
When you get the hang of Reason, and start to get tired of it's limited synths (besides the endless Refills which contains more samples and presets than you can imagine), then it would be a good time to move on to Cubase. If you get the hang of Reason, Cubase will be a cinch to master. Think of it as a more advanced version of Reason with all the bells and whistles. Of course, you can always use FLStudio which is like Reason and Cubase combined from what I heard. I personally prefer Reason and Cubase in a ReWire setup, but that's just me.
FLStudio is a quality piece of software for people new to producing music, or just want an all-in-one setup (that's cheap), but I just don't like it, so I can't help you with that. :(
Sometimes, especially if you're using VSTs or a ReWire setup, a Pentium III just can't cut it. Get a good sound card and upgrade your Processor. Maybe some more ram if you have less than 256 MB. Overall, they're all pretty cheap for decent ones.
To my knowledge, the MINIMUM for quality audio producing is the following:
Any sound card NOT built in your computer (I use my Photon X25's built in sound)
1.2 GHz processor.
256MB of RAM.
Quality speakers. The best for audio producing are monitor speakers, but they're pretty expensive...
For VSTs, I recommend z3ta for the kickass leads and arps, and Vanguard for bass and pads. If you end up getting Reason, put it in ReWire so that you can use it for a sampler/drum machine/effects. Trust me, it's great for those things. The problem is that there aren't that much quality VSTs that are free. You can always pirate them though, but it wouldn't be nice unless 1. you're extremely desperate for a good sound, or 2. you think it's way overpriced. If you need a link, AIM me (look at my profile).
Hardcore Producer used to have awesome samples, but it's down now. I think it's for sale actually, last time I checked. You're better off making an account at http://drumnbass.be/ and downloading samples from there.
If you need help with anything, you can AIM me. Look at my profile for the address. :)
Hope my advice helps!
-Dalton
(Phew that was long)
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