It's very complex, difficult, expensive, interesting and fun to be an independent music producer. And when you restart your music career again at the age of 50 people look at you sideways. O.k., maybe I AM nuts but I am having fun.
Volume three star...
I'm starting off this new Autumn season with continuing to educate myself about the latest version on Logic Pro and learning how to master. Becoming more secure in my roll as an audio engineer is vital to be able to create music of higher quality faster. My hope is to be able to mix and master for others. I can already edit well and get by with mixing but now I am striving to become more efficient in my mixing and add mastering.
NoizReduction's Logic Pro 10.5 intro
I have followed MusicTechHelpGuy on YouTube for quite some time for all tutorial learning of my DAW, Logic Pro. I came across this amazing teacher , Booker Edwards Jr. at NoizReduction.com, yesterday. I like the fact that he is a bit more detailed and goes forward slowly than MTHG. His tutorial is easy to digest and just as informative as <MTHG> if not more so. Both are great for helping you get started. If you have the money, you can take one of their courses. I don't. But I have learned that if I can just find my way around within the new plugins and windows, I can play around and adapt them to what I am doing over time.
Yesterday
I drove to my in-laws house, 40 minutes away and helped them with their shopping (they are grounded because of COVID-19), and then returned back home at about 12:00. On the way back home I took some time to think about a song I am writing, I meditated by a lake and took a walk. It's getting colder now and soon those beautiful, Fall days will be arriving with crisp air and vibrant colour. Still, there are a few days left to gets some rays if you find a wind free spot! After I got back, I made food boxes for two days and practiced guitar. Went for a long walk and the outdoor gym. Sat at the computer to watch the above video and after ten minutes I felt I had to take a power nap. Woke up to a call from a friend.Not much time left for music creation....
Today:
QT (quiet time); breakfast; washed clothes; did a quick guitar set 1 (15 min); wrote on Wattpad & watched the video above; checked emails; washed clothes again; booked a cleanup of my Mac at NDnet Skåne in Lomma (it has never been cleaned internally since I bought it 5 years ago); went down again to the washroom; watched more video on Logic News to kickstart me.
ProSoundFormula.com
Then, I went back to the original (fantastic) online course that got me into mixing years ago to refresh my memory specifically how to prepare a song for mastering. (I haven't been mixing for a few months and need to quickly get back into the mentality of the process again. I'm going to dive down into the main points and Reverb and Compression sections specifically. I signed in (I have a lifetime membership in ProsoundFormula) and refreshed my memory.
Repetition of Live loops
Then I dove down into Loops again. Repetition is gold. This one!
Now, if you watch this video and compare it to the NiozReduction video, you see that Music Tech Help Guy is in turbo mode. He uses Splice samples.* No problems, though. All you have to do is stop the video and try to do he does.
*Splice:
For about 8$/mo. you can get great samples from Splice. I don't use others samples unless they are a part of Logic. I create many all by myself. I have tight resources right now, but I just wanted to tell you about it, MTHG names it in his video, above.
As you can see it is very hard to stuff all that needs to get done in one single day.
Organisation makes life easier
I took some time today to sort out all of my notes and tips for mixing and put them in an orderly fashion in a ring binder. This way, if I am looking for a special tip or trick, let's say, parallel compression on a mixed bus, then I can quickly find it in the right place. A lot of what I do is in-learned from practice but there are some great tips and checklists that are handy to have and I am very glad that they are no in order.
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This Fall I intend to (music-wise):
1. Get the Change My Mind Book Done
2. Release two singles if not more
3. Get into Logic 10.5 - be able to do all the updated stuff
4. Learn more about mastering, meta tagging and
5. Become more efficient in mixing
But more than that I hope to keep my head above the water and my heart pure in this crazy mixed up world.
