Social sample library and beat workshop; learning music production

deficiT

deficiT

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I wanted to make a thread specifically to talk about music production, sampling, and sound design, for anyone that finds interest in the topic.

Right now, I am learning the timeless art of sampling, and it's honestly some of the most fun I've ever had in my life, but I still am definitely a novice when it comes to it, and was kind of hoping to find others that may be more knowledgeable than myself.

I'm building something of a massive ass collection of sounds, of both premium samples made by professional sound designers, as well as good resources to find sounds you can flip into whatever the hell you want. So I'll update this OP as I go with links to free sounds, and I'm going to build a pack of my own eventually of the best drum kits, 808 sounds, melodies, etc. that I have access to, and get them out to people that want premium sounds for free.

I'm gonna post some various works in progress in this thread, with BPM and key as well if anyone wants to mess around with any of these ideas (you can take em if you credit me and make it good lol), and I invite others to upload whatever it is you're working on and I'll definitely check it out!

Typically my music falls into one of these categories, rock, hip hop, dubstep, drum and bass, industrial, stuff like that I guess, but I'm really not bound by any genres, and I wish more people felt that way, there'd be a hell of a lot more original music.

Really just post whatever u want about music, and I'll post tips/tricks good YouTube videos for learning, and yeah will refine this as I go. Shit I'll take requests, if you think something I post would sound better with a fuckin Tuba, shit I'll try it.

________________

#1 first rule for sampling: if you're using a melody, whether vocal, instrumental, or even bass, you need to make sure you alter the pitch of the sample, sometimes the timing, and chop it up how you can. If you just use a loop straight with no alterations, this is how the copyright algorithms will strike you, so play it smart.

Drums typically never fall under any kind of copyright laws, as they don't consider percussive elements "songwriting" ---- layman's analysis but yeah, something like that
 
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Just off the jump tho this is my favorite channel for music production tutorials:

youtube.com

In The Mix

Hi, I'm Michael Wynne, an audio engineer based in Scotland. In The Mix is all about simplifying the recording, production, mixing and mastering process. No matter which DAW you use or what equipment you have, I'm determined to help you succeed and unlock your creativity. I started In The Mix...
youtube.com youtube.com

Guy is straightforward and puts things simply, he also doesn't just give you half the information like he's trying to sell you something, which is rare in the yt tutorial world.

Especially for FL studio he's great, but he does general sound design and synth videos too.
 
Excellent idea for a thread, I have recently started playing around with different daws trying to work out which one I feel most comfortable in but recently changed from windows to ubuntu so need to reinstall some. I was mainly playing around with LMMS but am going to try audacity and reaper next. I didn't get quite as far as you but made some pretty average techno tracks, LMMS had alot of good plugins and mods which is what I mainly spent my time mucking around with.
 
ImperialTyranny said:
Excellent idea for a thread, I have recently started playing around with different daws trying to work out which one I feel most comfortable in but recently changed from windows to ubuntu so need to reinstall some. I was mainly playing around with LMMS but am going to try audacity and reaper next. I didn't get quite as far as you but made some pretty average techno tracks, LMMS had alot of good plugins and mods which is what I mainly spent my time mucking around with.
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Oh that's awesome! Feel free to post em, id love to check em out, doesn't have to be perfect or anything. I am not familiar with LMMS, it's a DAW?

I've been playing instruments and doing music for a really long time, but have only got into production more heavily in the last year or two, but am finally a little more self sufficient. I tried several different daws but never really felt comfortable with one until I really sat down with FL Studio, it finally made sense. Plus there's just a wealth of good tutorials online for it, so it's pretty easy to learn the basics on.

Reaper is really great for a free daw too, it's really customizable. You can basically do anything with it once you learn it, I just don't know it well.

Learning music theory and piano is definitely a huge thing to make improvements for songs, if you don't already know much about those things.

If you need a free synth, I would definitely recommend Vital:

vital.audio

Vital - Spectral Warping Wavetable Synth

Vital - Spectral Warping Wavetable Synth
vital.audio vital.audio

As well, here's a link to some free downloads for all sorts of presets for the Vital synth, as well as samples, all which are great for all sorts of EDM. It's a lot of shit but if you don't have these it can definitely help you get started:

blacklotusaudio.com

300+ Free Vital Presets, Serum Presets, MIDI Files, and Samples | Free Downloads

blacklotusaudio.com blacklotusaudio.com
 
Here's another one I'm working on, it's definitely missing something, but it's got the vibes for sure and I think it's a good start to something

 
Yea learning music theory is on my list of things to do but been pretty busy diving into linux/command line and programming languages lately which as a shitload of stuff to learn haha might take a break and give music theory a shot.
I'll find the files, nothing special but I found when you hit the right zone after being up for a little and getting really stoned and are in almost a trance like state from techno/trance I'd much around with the drumpad and accidentally make cool beats haha
LMMS is lets make music, not sure what the second m is hah but its completely free and open source I believe so has a lot of plugins and from the bit of research into daws I did is almost on par with reaper and ableton with range of things you can do with it. Worth checking out I'd say but I have only got minimal experience with fruity loops from like 15 years ago and bandlab on phone which is also pretty cool and worth checking out.
I went down a samples and plugin wormhole one night and downloaded alot if you want any sample packs too, I can upload them on a cloud or something if you want. Maybe get a communal mega or something for samples and plugins?

Music wise I'm mainly into DnB, techno (mostly older 90s kinda acid techno, german bunker rave stuff), little bit of goa and trance and hip hop (mostly 90s/2000s boombap and that aswell not so much the newer drill stuff and that)
Watched a cool doco recently on this genre of hip hop from detroit or somewhere I think, prob way off my memories a seive n im not from the us but they just used mpcs and samples to make these cool ghetto sounded techy fast hip hop beats to do footwork too haha think the genre was called footwork and I'll try and find the doco but it was interesting

LMMS | Home

LMMS is a free, open source, multiplatform digital audio workstation.
lmms.io lmms.io
 
while reading up on daws alot of people were recomending audacity for sampling specifically then taking the sample and sticking it in your preferred daw btw, apparently its got a fairly good but simple and easy to learn layout
 
ImperialTyranny said:
Yea learning music theory is on my list of things to do but been pretty busy diving into linux/command line and programming languages lately which as a shitload of stuff to learn haha might take a break and give music theory a shot.
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Shit dude, I feel like learning all of those things is like learning new languages, so either way you're learning and improving, that's all good shit to be focused on 🤟 Music theory is definitely the best foundation you can have for making any kind of song. If you're new to music theory, id definitely suggest not to get bogged down in like learning sheet music or anything like that. Really the main terms you want to understand are notes, keys, tones/semitones, chords, octaves, and scale.

scales-chords.com is a great tool for referencing different keys, you can pretty much figure what key any chords or set of notes is in, although the UI is a little clunky, but it's better than most of these types of websites.

Here's a decent guide I found on how to EQ drums if anyone is interested:

www.musicguymixing.com

How to EQ Drums - EQing Every Piece in Your Kit - Music Guy Mixing

I break down everything you need to know on how to EQ drums to get the kit in YOUR mix sounding like the pros.
www.musicguymixing.com www.musicguymixing.com
 
distAnTKarmA said:
Shit dude, I feel like learning all of those things is like learning new languages, so either way you're learning and improving, that's all good shit to be focused on 🤟 Music theory is definitely the best foundation you can have for making any kind of song. If you're new to music theory, id definitely suggest not to get bogged down in like learning sheet music or anything like that. Really the main terms you want to understand are notes, keys, tones/semitones, chords, octaves, and scale.

scales-chords.com is a great tool for referencing different keys, you can pretty much figure what key any chords or set of notes is in, although the UI is a little clunky, but it's better than most of these types of websites.

Here's a decent guide I found on how to EQ drums if anyone is interested:

www.musicguymixing.com

How to EQ Drums - EQing Every Piece in Your Kit - Music Guy Mixing

I break down everything you need to know on how to EQ drums to get the kit in YOUR mix sounding like the pros.
www.musicguymixing.com www.musicguymixing.com
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Ah right yea I learnt scales and chords in school somewhat when I was paying attention n tried picking up guitar for abit but will need a refresher. I was under the impression learning to read music revolved mainly around sheet music haha my brothers a genius with that stuff too so can prob ask him.
I just wonder if once you learn that the brain will develop a pattern to making beats that's similar to everyone else that knows how to read it but when you hear bands like Sabbath who just taught themselves in a garage and were way ahead of their time doing something new if that is cause they didn't learn to follow the "rules" per say and tried something new until it sounded alright. I bet at first they sounded like absolute crap n prob for 5 years or more haha
 
Funnily enough computer languages I can understand kinda and work out except my memories abit cooked from killing to many brain cells over the years but other actual languages I am terrible at learning, did 9 years of French, my dad speaks it fluently and would when I was a kid but I can barely count to 10 n only remember how to say fish and don't touch haha
 
I've been getting a lot of samples from cymatics.fm and producergrind.com. As far as royalty free samples go, they do seem to be the best. They also have a ton of free downloads on their websites.

I'm starting to really organize my files now too. I've got a good amount of EDM, Dubstep, and Trap in particular, but also Soul & RnB samples + anything else, and I'm going to start making some loops of my own soon, I think I'd be good at that, just spittin out 8 bar ideas lol.

If anyone is interested I can throw together a little free pack of anything they'd like, just comment here or message me, I can put it together in a zip file and give you access on my Google Drive.
 
The real problem is greed and laziness that killed music. No cds anymore. Vinyl is out selling cds which are rare. Taylor swift sold the most cds last year or the year before and didn't go gold.

It is sad all forms of music are in trouble. No cd players in new cars for the past several model years or at least 3 years.

No cassettes or cd's = no demos or mix tapes.

Dumbass musicians and greedy stupid lazy record companies. Almost no decent music anymore. How can there be, when no one buys new albums and no new music. Any genre, and all are in a free fall. They have almost stopped manufacturing any solid recordings. All streaming and many places cheat the musicians and no future. Just what we have in the past, almost. I miss record stores.

Sad that people with talent who didn't make a name for themselves; can't break into music and make a living. Only established acts, that have a loyal fan base and can tour.
 
Jnowhere said:
The real problem is greed and laziness that killed music. No cds anymore. Vinyl is out selling cds which are rare. Taylor swift sold the most cds last year or the year before and didn't go gold.

It is sad all forms of music are in trouble. No cd players in new cars for the past several model years or at least 3 years.

No cassettes or cd's = no demos or mix tapes.

Dumbass musicians and greedy stupid lazy record companies. Almost no decent music anymore. How can there be, when no one buys new albums and no new music. Any genre, and all are in a free fall. They have almost stopped manufacturing any solid recordings. All streaming and many places cheat the musicians and no future. Just what we have in the past, almost. I miss record stores.

Sad that people with talent who didn't make a name for themselves; can't break into music and make a living. Only established acts, that have a loyal fan base and can tour.
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Yeah, it's pretty tough to make a real living out there, record labels do suck, but there's still creative ways to make a living, for sure. The quality of the mainstream music has definitely gone done, even since the 90s,
but there's a ton of great underground music out there. It's not being blasted on the radio, you might have to seek it out. But it's actually never been easier for a regular person to just produce great music, there's tons of free lessons and resources, and you can pretty much learn how to produce on a DAW with enough effort.

But this is why I'm trying to broaden my horizon, learn a ton about sound design, and not just pour everything into writing my own solo music ya know and trying to release it. I am planning on making an LLC and a website, give away a ton of free content for producers, and start making some more premium shit as I get better and build a team. Maybe start some kind of music collective where people can network with each other, release music, learn, share resources and collab, etc.

It's definitely a solid idea I just have to put all the framework together and it will definitely take some time, but I think that is the best way to leverage my skills, get better at music, while also hopefully making a small bit of money. Who knows where it'll go, but all I can do is try, and I've got a good day job to hold me down, so we'll see.
 
Here's a long form lesson on the Vital synth I posted earlier, it's broken into sections conveniently... Going to watch it slowly. It's definitely the best free Synth, and the premium version is only like 80 bucks. Not sure it's really different, I think you just get a lot of new presets with it, I think it's functionally the same.

 
Free EQ Class... This shit is 9 hours long... This is like a premium tutorial, but thankfully it's free
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And yeah, I'm posting all this shit here for my own benefit as much as anyone else's... As a reference to refer back to of things to watch.

My hope is that one day someone will be passing through the ruins of Bluelight, that's interested in music production and has just the best resources in one neat lil spot
 
Here is the Compression course from the same guys as the equalizer one... Mastering.com

It is also 10 hours. So, yeah they really go into everything, but these concepts are basically fundamental for learning how to mix sounds

 
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