Audiotuts+ in October
October has been a big month. Envato’s long-standing Flash tutorial site has had its name changed to Activetuts (and the marketplace to ActiveDen), we participated in Blog Action Day with a focus on climate change, and the world remembers Michael Jackson with the movie, This Is It.
At Audiotuts we’ve seen the return of the Workshops (keep them coming, guys), and enthusiastic support for our weekly competition. And you’ve continued to ask for more tutorials on music theory. We’ve heard you. Finally, a new, exciting Tuts+ initiative is just around the corner. Stay tuned.
Audio Plus
Our Plus Program offers tutorials that go into even more detail than our freebies, spilling the beans on the techniques used by professionals in the field. We also give subscribers exclusively commissioned sample and loop packs which you can use freely in your commercial compositions.
Subscribing to Audio Plus you’ll also get access to exclusive Plus content from all other participating Tuts+ sites, now including Ae Plus. $19 will unlock the doors to high-end video training, tutorials, source files and sample, brush and vector packs worth hundreds of dollars.
Interested in winning yourself a Plus subscription? Stay tuned for an announcement in the near future.
Plus Members Now Have Access to Ae Plus
Now that we’ve added Aetuts+ to our Plus family, Plus members will begin to receive weekly bonus tutorials and AE project files for Aetuts+. We hope you’ve also been enjoying your access to exclusive tutorials, video lessons, source files, brushes, audio samples and vector packs from Nettuts+, Psdtuts+, Audiotuts+ and Vectortuts+. Thank you so much for supporting the sites and helping us to cover costs – with mounting bandwidth, content and management expenses, these sites would not exist without their Plus members!
The Recording Artist’s Workflow: From Writing to Mastering – Audio Plus
In this week’s Audio Plus content, Joel Falconer teaches you how to optimize the process and flow of a recording project, enabling you to use your time in the studio more effectively.
How to Create the Elements of a Drum ‘n’ Bass Track – Audio Plus
In this week’s Audio Plus content, Andy Slatter shows you how to design a reese bass sound from scratch, how to make a custom drum kit and program a classic D’n’B drum pattern, and edit some vocals to produce a cool timestretched effect. While the screenshots of this tutorial are taken in Cubase 5, the techniques are transferable to other DAWs. The emphasis is more about the plugin synths and effects, which are all freeware.
An Introduction to Creating Beats – Audio Plus
In this week’s Audio Plus content, Ryan Leach teaches you how to put a good beat together by use of two examples—one using regular kit sounds, and the other with electronic sounds.
The Secret Of Recording Great Sounds – Audio Plus
In this week’s Audio Plus content, Bobby Owsinski texplains how technique trumps equipment when it comes to capturing great sounds.
Workshops
Workshop #8: Galactic Love by NewNobility
At Audiotuts+ we irregularly put up a reader track for workshopping and critique (find out how to submit a track). This is how it works: you upload your song, and every couple of weeks we’ll publish one here and step away from the podium. The floor is yours to talk about the track and how the artist can fix problems in and improve upon the mix and the song.
Workshop #9: Desire by Dave White
At Audiotuts+ we irregularly put up a reader track for workshopping and critique (find out how to submit a track). This is how it works: you upload your song, and every couple of weeks we’ll publish one here and step away from the podium. The floor is yours to talk about the track and how the artist can fix problems in and improve upon the mix and the song.
Open Mic
Open Mic: Tell Us About Your Rhythm Track Techniques
The rhythm track gives life to a song, and hours and days can vanish trying to tweak them just right. There are a bunch of ways to produce rhythm tracks. What is your favorite?
Open Mic: Tell Us About Your DAW of Choice
Digital audio workstation software is the central hub of music production. Which program do you use?
Open Mic: Tell Us About the Music-related Sites You Regularly Visit
The Internet is a great place to keep up-to-date, learn and network. If you’re reading this you probably visit the Audiotuts site regularly. What other music-related sites do you find helpful?
Open Mic: Tell Us About the Monitor Speakers You Use
Music only sounds as good as the speakers you play it through. What monitor speakers do you use?
Better Rhythm Tracks
How to Create Grooves with Edited Drum Loops
It’s often pretty straight forward to create and program a basic beat. The real challenge comes when we try to introduce a groove that gives our track soul and character. This tutorial looks at how we can build a groove using existing loops in our library without using them in their entirety. The result is an original groove that often feel as if they have been ‘played’.
How to Create the Elements of a Drum ‘n’ Bass Track – Audio Plus
In this week’s Audio Plus content, Andy Slatter shows you how to design a reese bass sound from scratch, how to make a custom drum kit and program a classic D’n’B drum pattern, and edit some vocals to produce a cool timestretched effect. While the screenshots of this tutorial are taken in Cubase 5, the techniques are transferable to other DAWs. The emphasis is more about the plugin synths and effects, which are all freeware.
How to Use Logic Pro 9’s Drum Replacer
Drum replacement is a tool that comes in handy when recorded drums just won’t work with the rest of the track. Whether that’s because of a badly placed mic or the wrong kit was recorded, technology has made it easy to swap in some more appropriate samples while retaining the dynamic characteristics of the original recording. I’ve long wished that Logic would adopt drum replacement abilities like those Pro Tools has, and with Logic Pro 9 it did — and it does it much better, too.
An Introduction to Creating Beats – Audio Plus
In this week’s Audio Plus content, Ryan Leach teaches you how to put a good beat together by use of two examples—one using regular kit sounds, and the other with electronic sounds.
Drum Replacement in Logic
The basic rhythm track drives the song forward, and everything else
builds upon it. You may have written your song on an acoustic
guitar and laid that down first, but drums are usually the backbone
of a song, keeping everything well structured and grooving. But what
if you don’t know how to record drums? Or you end up with
someone’s recording that’s so bad that you’d rather tap pencils
on your desk. Drum replacement may be an option.
Using Synthesizers
11 Soft Synths to Add to Your Rack
Synthesizers are amazing instruments. I used to love watching videos of Vangelis, Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson and Jean Michel Jarre play their racks of synths in the 70s and 80s. Their arms would jump from keyboard to keyboard with practiced precision, their fingers hitting buttons, moving sliders and changing patches between phrases.
How to Make a Trance Lead Synth in Reason 4
Reason 4 is a brilliant synth-creating tool. The Thor Polysonic Synthesizer is one of the most powerful synths about and this tutorial will explain the basics of using it to create a massive trance lead synth patch.
A Basic Guide to Subtractive Synthesis (Part 2)
This is the second part in a series of screencasts about subtractive synthesis. In this part we take a close look at modulators, LFOs and external controllers. Hope fully these two tutorials will give you a basic all round knowledge of a standard subtractive synthesiser.
DAW Techniques
Using Automation in Pro Tools 8
Automation is an important tool for creating polished mixes. You can use it to fix problems, introduce and enhance effects, and to vary the mix levels throughout different sections of a song. If you haven’t learned to use automation in Pro Tools 8, you’re missing out on a lot of functionality.
How to Layer Sequences to Create Depth and Pace
A simple pattern can sometimes sound a little dry and clinical. The answer often doesn’t lie in reprogramming the sequence or using heavy effects processing. A more simple approach can be using one or two extra synths layered with your original pattern. This can add depth and pace to the whole piece and often make the part more exciting.
How to Group Tracks in Pro Tools 8
Dealing with sessions that are fairly track-heavy can be a difficult process — even a song with as few as ten tracks gets a little tough to manage. Grouping is a feature of Pro Tools 8 that makes it easier to deal with sections of your project in bulk, saving you time and yielding more accurate results.
Quantizing Audio with Logic Pro 9’s Flex Time
Logic Pro 9 introduced the “Flex Time” feature which is a set of tools for manipulating audio rhythm and timing data the way you would edit MIDI. I’m going to be covering Flex Time in detail and how you can use it in detail, but in this tutorial we’ll get our feet wet with some basic audio quantization.
And More
Secondary Dominants and How to Use Them
For this tutorial we’re going to explore the idea of Secondary Dominants and how they can be used to create tension and release in more harmonically complex and interesting ways. We’ll discuss what they are, some of the different ways they can be used, and then show some examples from real music.
How to Use the Pioneer SVM-1000 Audio-Video Mixer Part 1
In this video tutorial Johnathan Lewis shows us what the Pioneer SVM-1000 mixer can do and how it works.
Top 8 Songs about Climate Change
“Climate change is now widely recognized as the major environmental problem facing the globe.” (UNEP) Global warming and climate change are an important and controversial topics. They have raised strong feelings on both sides of the debate. Where do you stand?
iTunes for Composers
iTunes is a straightforward and simple application for organizing and listening to music. You probably don’t need someone to explain to you how it works. But there are a few unique features of iTunes that a lot people don’t take advantage of. If you’re a composer/producer/songwriter with a lot of music to keep track of, getting the most out of iTunes can vastly improve your workflow.
Will Online Music Production Ever Take Off?
I spend more of my time working online every year. I communicate through Gmail, Twitter and Facebook online. I write documents and balance spreadsheets online. I take notes and highlight important information online. I keep my appointments, tasks and contacts lists online. And I can access them from any computer I happen to be using – as long as it’s online. Will I ever be able to do that when producing music?
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By Adrian Try
- Esben Lorenzen