What is your weakest skill as a producer?

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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby FlyingNinjaBannanas » 29 Jun 2012 23:18

Producing.

Besides that, I would say working with drums. I'm getting decent with synths, but I can't back it up with a beat that doesn't sound like crap with the synth.
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Flutter Rex » 30 Jun 2012 08:09

Kyoga wrote:(...) in comparison with tracks (profesional OR by other bronies) it's just a whisper.

You need a proper, loud mixing. Mastering is mostly about slight changes. I made my new track as loud, as some professional productions, but mastering made my mix only a liiitle bit louder.

MEANWHILE IN THE TOPIC!

Since my productions sound good enough to publish them without a shame, my weakest points are patience and standards of work. In whole composition process I'm getting bored all the time, so my tracks almost stand still without progress for some quite long time. And I'm making tons of patterns without a names, skipping between them is serious pain in the plot. I'm definitely too chaotic these days, this must be changed.

And I've got problem with mid range. Almost every producer do this properely or too loud, but not me... Mine is quiet, standing back there near the door, trying to escape from the mix. Argh.
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Pickslide1992 » 30 Jun 2012 08:50

Let's see....

Mixing is probably one of my weak points. I'm getting better with each song I do, but it's still not up to my standards.

Self confidence is the big one. I know you're your own worst critic and especially with me, I sometimes look at something I released and think "Why do people listen to this, it sucks!" but there are people out there who genuinely like what I put out and good for them. I'd like to be proud of what I make, and I am...for the first week until I go back and it sounds like garbage. I keep thinking of what I could have done differently (Like adding a more varied drum line or a better solo).

Writing melodies is another biggie, but it might be the low self confidence again. I just tend to think every melody I come up with is generic and uninspired or a rip-off of another song.
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby SpyPie » 30 Jun 2012 23:10

Vacations. Can't take them. I need to produce music. I'm on vacation right now. My head is starting to hurt from the withdrawl T-T
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby SpyPie » 30 Jun 2012 23:31

Exactly
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby vladnuke » 01 Jul 2012 00:18

Satyr'Henge wrote:Vacations. Can't take them. I need to produce music. I'm on vacation right now. My head is starting to hurt from the withdrawl T-T



You should be like me, and take the studio with you. I made my whole new EP on vacation in Russia.
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby SpyPie » 01 Jul 2012 01:08

I don't have a laptop, I have a box attached to dual monitors
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby itroitnyah » 01 Jul 2012 20:30

> Build ups that lead to the drop
> The actual drop itself
> Lyrics and vocals

I suppose a lot of this has to do with me using trial version software =\ NI Massive won't run in LMMS. That, and LMMS doesn't come with any of the awesome tools like Soundgoodizer or proper EQing tools (just basics for LMMS). And I have no money, so I can't buy the full version of FLS10 =\. Although I am going to a family reunion, so someone there might buy it for me.

Any suggestions?
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Stratum » 02 Jul 2012 01:12

My drums... I suck at drums. I either make the patterns too simple or far too complex... My drum EQing is half decent, but the patterns themselves...

Oh, and BUILD UPS! I SUCK at build ups...
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby SpyPie » 02 Jul 2012 02:32

Believing that i'm a horrible singer :l
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Captain Ironhelm » 02 Jul 2012 14:02

chording
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby XXDarkShadow79XX » 02 Jul 2012 20:29

Kyoga wrote:
Stratum wrote:My drums... I suck at drums. I either make the patterns too simple or far too complex... My drum EQing is half decent, but the patterns themselves...

Oh, and BUILD UPS! I SUCK at build ups...



you need dr drum.


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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby KillerAmp » 02 Jul 2012 20:33

Flowing drops with the rest of the song
i have a habit where when im trying to make a track, my drop really just sounds like i cropped it off a different song ;_;
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Habanc » 02 Jul 2012 22:40

Fleshing out songs is probably a big one. I can make pretty good melodies if I put my mind to it, and my synths aren't half bad (atleast nowadays, now looking through my old projects, maybe not back then). But, when I set everything up and listen to it at once, it sounds hollow and bland, even though I use stereo separation, reeverb, panning and delays whenever it can be used. I don't overdo it, but it seems like I try so much to give a large soundscape, and once I play it all through it sounds like there is still much to be desired. By hollow I mean just like something HUGE is not there, and yet I can't find out what I don't have.

I've noticed the few moments where it does sound alright is when I use atmospheric vocal samples in the background... But that'd get repetitive.

Besides that, self-confidence. I've started perhaps five-dozen songs and finished... Umm, six? Seven? Since school has ended, I am 0-9 (Tracks completed to started). It's always that "stay up until two working on a track I think is awesome... Wake up the next morning and listen to it, then throw it away being disgusted at what I just heard."

I enjoy mixing, alot. It's like a big puzzle, so much fun to work out and tinker with. I may not be very talented at it, but it's one of my most favorite parts of the production process. Mastering could use some work though. Since I hardly finish any songs... It's hard to practice.
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Meelz » 03 Jul 2012 01:04

easily mixing and mastering
oh man
you have absolutely no idea how often i've gotten into trouble for that
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby StormWolf » 03 Jul 2012 01:06

It used to be sound design, strong point being melodies.
Now it's melodies, but I'm getting good at sound design...
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby HMage » 03 Jul 2012 03:16

Melodies and variety.

I can only dream of doing layers and layers and layers of things going on in the music I love to listen to.
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Big AppleDoom » 03 Jul 2012 06:01

EQ:ing - I haven't done it until now!

My ideas are just small extractions of a full song. Many things revolve around a small idea and I often doubt if the song is worth making.

I also am not too motivated. I sometimes work long on some song and then have weeks without doing anything.
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Dooks » 03 Jul 2012 22:26

Creating melodies is a big problem for me.

Oh, and mastering/EQ'ing.
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby MrCrackles » 04 Jul 2012 13:25

definitely creating bridges between the individual parts of a song. This is where my motivation is lacking the most ><
On second place is mastering or especially making the sound less muddy and more "in-your-face"...
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby BlackElectric » 04 Jul 2012 13:41

My weakest skill would be to be melodies for sure.

I can make some pretty good rhythm guitar riffs, and then I get to the melody and it tends to ruin it. I'm getting much better though!
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby CWeissRun » 04 Jul 2012 16:11

Many things, but attention span & finickiness stand out. I'll keep a finished song, but no one gets to hear it but me. When I feel musical, I work on about 5 songs for 5 or 10 minutes each, jumping from one to the next (but made some half-decent progress on two of them today).
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Matthew N. » 04 Jul 2012 16:13

Finding a good way to fill some empty spaces would be my issue. It might coincide with temporal lack of ideas, but yeah...
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby icedog25 » 04 Jul 2012 17:52

I lack powerful plugins... or more likely, the knowledge to fully take advantage of the ones I have.

My chords are great, my melodies are great, my transitions are good, and my mixing is decent enough... but if I more precisely knew what I was doing with 3xOsc, my music would likely see major improvement.

Because of this problem, when I come up with ideas for sounds in my head, I rarely ever get it completely correctly written into FL Studio. Yeah, it usually sounds good the way I put it down, too, but in most cases I feel it would be better if I had more knowledge.

I had to completely give up on a cover of "Spin That Record Vinyl Scratch" solely because I couldn't figure out how to get the main swoops and screeches to sound even remotely similar to the original.

This is a hurdle that could likely be overcome by finding some good tutorials as opposed to trying to figure everything out myself. In fact, this hurdle is one of the main reasons I joined these forums in the first place.
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Re: What is your weakest skill as a producer?

Postby Magnitude Zero » 04 Jul 2012 17:56

icedog25 wrote:This is a hurdle that could likely be overcome by finding some good tutorials as opposed to trying to figure everything out myself.

Here you go!

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