I'd like a good read

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Engineers-Handbook-Mix-Audio/dp/0872887235[/ame]

LIVES next to my toilet. Great book that helped a ton in the beginning. Nothing beats getting your hands dirty though.
 
The StabbinCabin said:
Posts to threads just to be sarcastic retards should have your account bannded. Anyone can spend their time trolling going HURRRR DURRR, not accomplishing anything except showing others that you deserve no respect and have no life.

A shitty sarcastic response and a reenforcing "lol" doesn't put my request anywhere close to a noob posting literally above a thread answering their question asked millions of times before or TheJoker or NSGUITAR status thread beating a dead horse.

I'm not making an outrageously stupid statement. I'm not even asking how to do anything. I'm asking for some fucking perspective and nothing else- not some fucking instant-fame sauce cheat codes.

@everybody and if6was9 seemed to get it. I don't know how more specific I could have been.

If me asking how succesful engineers felt as they developed and budgeted living/school/recording is so fucking confusing- tell me to clarify, and end it right there.

If you want to start shit with people you don't even know, you're going to be known for being disrespectful and get nothing but that in return. You're doing nothing but making yourself look like a jackass and wasting all of our time.

That being said... If I'm being such a stupid whiny bitch asking such idiotic questions- be the bigger person and don't even respond to this thread. I'm sure you fucking rule at whatever instruments you play and are way better at recording than I could possibly comprehend and are genuinely good people that are REALLY going somewhere in life- Judging by my computer screen, you know. Like you did me.

By all means though keep the sarcastic comments and whitty avatar obsevations coming.
Click to expand...

Man, showing butthurtedness this badly is not the way to get what you want here, which you should know considering how long you've been here

just chill
 
Your question is very broad. You may well be asking someone to describe in detail how 10 years of their life was lived out. In this industry it's usually best to keep your focus narrow, keyed in to whatever is a relevant question to you at that point. Over time the wider perspective develops on its own. I wanted to know it all once, but nobody is going to sit down and explain it all to you. There is so much involved that they themselves likely don't remember all the ingredients that went into forming their own careers. A lot of it is circumstance-driven, and in essence only a small percentage would ever be relevant to you.

Don't get what's with the rampant trolling here lately. The question was legit, even though the fundamental point may have been obscured in too much pot.
 
I am in no was a success story, but just to add somethin to the thread ill just post (what I can remember) of my story thus far.

I was in a band for a few years, and we went to this same guy for recording our demo and our ep. he just had a cool little setup at his parents house.

for some reason i was really intruiged with how he could make everything sound so good! I would always watch over his shoulder and ask him what he was doing and what not. (i was 15 at the time, 3 years ago)

So that was the little seed that got planted in my head about recording, it was possible to do it in your home and get good results. It didnt sprout until later on tho

Towards the end of my band splitting up, i bought a couple sm57s and a D112to mic up a new band i was about to start. i used my dads tascam 8 track and acid pro to record my friends mesa. then i threw up a couple sm57s and the d112, and my dad had a couple cheap MXL condensers i used as overheads. the whole thing was garbage lol, but it was fun tinkering and recording sounds.

fastforward a year of not really doin much with recording after that. I dont remember what caused this, maybe it was just a buildup of getting close to recording but never really starting...but i went to one of my friends house and told him i wanted to start a studio. hes a jew (in the stereotype sense of the word) so i told him the money he fronted we could make back quickly. (LOL if only i knew..) so we figured out what we needed, whos house to do it at, how much itd cost etc. A week later we bought tascam vla5 monitors, mogami gold/monster cables, $50 desk from office depot, 22in acer monitor, built a custom computer, presonus firestudio project, and some audix overhead mics and sennheiser e604s?. we used the cubase le that came with the firestudio, torrented waves, drumagog, etc.

then we had to learn how to use all this stuff we bought. well he didnt really wanna learn, (and still to this day only knows how to track haha) so i spent a lot of time watching colin richardson how to mic amps videos, taking notes. asking that friend that had a home studio what stuff he did. It took a lot of time just to even learn how to move around cubase, let alone make things sound good.

after a lot of recording me and my friend jamming. we finally after maybe 3 months? got okay at it and wanted to start recording bands to 1. see how wed do on another band and 2. make some money back.

we charged my other friends band i think $25 for a song, and man we thought we did a killer job on it...but it sucked hard. the band did really dig it tho since it was their first recording, and we liked it cause it was our first real recording, all around we were so happy haha.

so they would come back to do 2 more songs, and we got a little better each time. I switched to a pod after hearing about joey using one. (yea yea) much better tone then i could ever get out of the line 6 combos i was micing up. and i also sold my drum mics, and got ddrum triggers. god between the new pod and the triggers with dumagog, it was like a whole new road, it sounded so much better!

so a couple more bands, a few more dollars, more experience. kinda plateuing a little. I got in a little routine...drums all one take, guitar all one take, bass all one take, vocals punch in/out, izotope ozone, done. =/

BUT THENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

I met on here, the best thing that has happened to my audio journey.

THE RYAN MOTHER FUCKING HARVEY!

I saw a post by him, listened to his mix, and died. I had to know how he did it. so i messaged him, and what do you know, nicest guy ever, even to a guy that asked things like how do i sound like oceano mix, a plea for purging mix, i have a pod and triggers but it doesnt sound as good...you see where im going with this. he didnt care, he didnt give me shit, he just helped me.

from this point on, i accelled quicker than ever, and i honestly dont know where i would be if it werent for him. I probably would still suck, or would have quit by now.

he gave me presets, told me why they had certain settings, how to adjust it for my own taste and situation, he helped me swtich to reaper and use it very well. he sent me complete mixes of bands in a reaper file so i could open and see it. just loads of stuff.

fastforward again about 6 months.

After getting "lessons" from ryan for about 3 months and getting quite good (from where i started) I drifted off into other things, and havent really progressed since.

The only major thing ive learned is adam wathans quantizing method in reaper, and i use that on guitars and bass. which helped immensly cause now everything can be perfect!!!!

I switched to programming drums which is fun and different. upgraded my monitors to krk rp8s, got stands for them, mopads, new studio rta desk (that i dont even like now hah but still looks good) and a couple other upgrades and keeps burnin a whole in my pocket.

All in all I started it because I love music and i wanted to record it. Then with a friends help it was possible. Then another friends help made it sound worth a damn. Dont start a studio to make money, you spend 10x more than you earn. Dont ever lose sight of what youre doing. Have fun, dont try to be the best, dont give up, just have fun, click everything, record everything. Looking back, the most fun and best recording I ever did was the first one, since then, Im constantly self concious about everything, found a bunch of people that are really judgemental, and am worried to try anything new just in case it doesnt sound "as good" as what I usually do.

You asked for a read!
 
Oh Jeez.... it was just a fucking harmless prod, get a grip.

You want to know some shit?? Okay... taken from a post I made on another forum:

Well...

It's taken me a long time to get to the point where I'm now willing to call myself a guitarist. I started out when I was 14 with music software. It was my birthday and I bought a used copy of a program called Acid Style - which is now a very old program. It was a budget copy of Acid Pro, before Sony bought it and the owners were called Sonic Foundry.

This got me into making beats. At first just taking premade loop material and organising them together into a collection of songs. Then when I was 15, my dad died of a heart attack and this obviously completely fucked my world up. I sort of became a hermit and a bookworm, and basically stayed at home making music and reading. I probably spent 20% of the time during my final two years of school actually at school - most of the time I stayed at home, and the school seemed to have turned a blind eye (or failed at helping me through the rough time I was going through - you decide!)

Anyway: all this led on to a craving for musical expression. I discovered Propellerheads' Reason (version 1 at that time), FruityLoops (the old precursor to FLstudio), and Cubase VST5 (a very old and ugly version of Cubase!)

I started getting into synthesis and drum programming and basically went from there. I was listening to a lot of breakbeat, trance, drum and bass, and other electronic music at the time. I started off making trance and drum and bass. Eventually I moved on from that. My inspirations were definitely limited to only a few - Aphex Twin specifically. I basically got to the point where I wanted to make ugly distorted electronic music. I released several albums online to various internet communities over the years... all through this point I was getting into guitar based bands. The ones I remember discovering and loving were Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Slipknot, and shitloads more that I've probably forgotten by now. By this point I was 16/17 and I was definitely going through a teenage rebellion phase. I started getting into metal and rock, and some pretty raunchy hip-hop too!

I did own a guitar at some point, but never played it or bothered to learn.

I had a few years of this. Just kind of drifting really. Went to college to study music, dropped out. Went back to study design. Dropped out. Basically... you know that scene in interview with the vampire, where Louis is walking through the streets in immense distress, grabbing rats and biting their heads off... well I was doing a similar sort of thing with life - but always there was the new discoveries to make. By this time I'd discovered Tool, one of my all time favourite bands. I discovered more 'academic' electronic music too, and was reading a lot on a variety of subjects. Anyway... I managed to reach 18 and I moved to London to study at Middlesex University. Of course I had pretty poor grades from school, but because I could demonstrate understanding of music technology, and had a portfolio of music I'd created... the course leader let me on. I did a BA in Sonic Arts... and the course went someway to disillusioning me with the whole electronic music field.

Which is why I started to dedicate myself to guitar. I saw it as more human, and having more of a grounding in reality - a stupid notion now that I think back on it. It happened gradually, but over the course of almost six years, I've become a proficient guitarist, bassist, and sometime drummer. I still have a major affinity with synthesis and electronic music, but I spend most of my time playing guitar and writing songs for the band.

I'm 26 now, and I'm less partisan than I used to be. I've experienced an evolutionary change if you will - from the world of electronic glitches and noize, to more traditional forms of expression through rock music.

So I've been doing music since I was 14. But the confidence to actually call myself a musician has only come to me in the last three or four years. That's a long time to take to get over your confidence issues!!

TNBD has a lot to do with that. Playing with these guys has really shown me what I value in music, and has helped me separate what is merely entertaining, from what I consider the spiritual/healing power of music. I don't mean that in a wishy-washy new-age way... I mean it in a practical way.

So I hope that was an entertaining read for you.
 
Thank you for the last three responses. Drewdrummer I really didn't mean for the hostility, that response is all I really wanted- I am sorry if I came off as an asshole to you because I was being one.

I've just seen where threads go when sarcasm is thrown into it- which is nowhere at all... so I responded in a pretty shitty way

Doped out ideas usually don't make the most sense, that was my failed attempt at putting that idea together in words

@Everybody that's pretty much what I'm looking for- your story, anyone’s story to, just like I said, to give perspective and put things at more of personal level rather than kind of just wondering and assuming how people got to where they are now- I'd honestly just like to hear the story behind it, and if there happened to be a book that a lot of you guys may have read, then that would rule.

Ermin, that is what I'm asking for. Pretty much if there is anything like that documenting 10+ years of experiences in detail. But your response makes sense. Just watching your home studio vids or reading your posts makes me curious how you handled and felt piecing that all together.

I started off somewhere at 13-14 going back and forth between recording little acoustic things directly into the sound card and using some old Magix program, making electonic music like drewdrummer. Then onto using a Yamaha 4-track to use more microphones that I had borrowed from school just to record my friends and I dicking around. I started a shitty metalcore band that I played drums in. We played a handful of local shows which was totally awesome- we finally had enough money to record. There was one affordable studio in Sacramento, but we would only be able to record one song since that would be all we could afford. I ended up pressuring everyone into recording with a friend that had a digi002 board (which I had no idea what protools or any of that was at the time) and we came out with 4 shitty recordings. We thought is sounded good because we didn't know any better- but after listening to it months after the band was over I started wondering why it sounded so bad. I started thinking how a whole kit could be miced of and not have bleed in the other mics and had no idea what hi-passing and low-passing was. I remember looking at Fostex 8 tracks and thinking $500 or whatever was so far away. I just kept working and saving up. I remember seeing those Roland mulitrack recorders that you could plug in the monitor and thinking how the hell am I going to drop 2 grand on something like that. Working with my eyes was something I had to do so anything that could be displayed on a screen was what I was looking for. That's when I started reading about DAWs and interfaces and was set on a Presonus Firepod. By the time I had enough money for that I had read every single review and feature and realized I would need a Firestudio if I wanted to use the lightpipe to expand, and I assumed the pre’s would be a little better. I waited past getting a Firepod and the 3 sm57 beta52 package and got myself just the Firestudio. During this time I was working at Sonic and finishing my senior year at an independent study. I had gotten into my fair share of troublemaking and like everyone else, had things that needed to be worked out with family during all of this. I was over-demanding of myself and still am to this day, which sucks. But I saved up and got some Perception 150s at a good deal, and used mics from school for everything else. The more I bought- the more I realized I needed to spend even MORE money to get something else that I needed. Eventually I had saved up enough money and bought and Audix dp5a and I just remember freaking out about sending that order in. But when I got that package in the mail oh my god, it was awesome. I got in another band and recorded that for about a year. I took on recording bands after that, bought a Eureka Channel strip and found myself on this forum. I joined another band, and in the process of recording our demo- I had all of the microphones stolen from me. Somewhere around 1200, being so early on that was like everything I had to my name. I managed to get a job at my local Guitar Center for about six months and worked my ass off with a second job and going to school and was able to order the dp5a again and the nt5 pair. Got myself monitors and a case to put everything for more mobility. Within a matter of weeks I lost both my jobs, my high school sweetheart, got fucked over by her family and my own into a pretty large sum of dept for a 19 year old kid… and due to family issues- ended up being homeless from the end of 08-09. Literally sleeping on park benches and slumming around while my friends let me couch hop and let me use their printers for my shit resume. I was able to find myself a job after riding my bike all over the fucking city and have worked my way up to stability, an apartment, and a few months from getting back into school- all I could think of was recording. I’m now at this point where I have a pretty large sum of money- but since all this has happened… Everything has been put on the back burner while I just get the most out of what I currently own… I’d just like something to relate to, or just to get things on a personal level. Like and autobiography to read I guess- I come on here to learn something new and get a good laugh at some of the shit posted here. It is just unfair when people are forced to be defensive to people that have no business but to antagonize. The hostility is just bullshit, you know
So Ermin- I TOTALLY get the circumstance point you made all too well. And Drewdrummer I cannot comprehend losing a father, but I did lose three close friends during that year of being homeless. I’m glad you took lime to post that though man
I got so critical and retarded because I want to learn- I didn’t mean to focus on the avatar comment at all man I could give less of a shit lol I got it that you were joking. I was just trying to get my point across so no one would feed the fire

*cuts hair* *cries* *cries*
 
dude, a little piece of advice. break your paragraphs. i bet there was not one person who read through that. cheers
 
I was just going through my web space, stumbled upon this picture, and then noticed this thread title. Sorry, but I absolutely had to.

howdomix.jpg
 
So here's my little story.

My interest in music has always been there, since I was 6 years old I started playing piano, but never got great at it, because I was a kid and only went to piano lessons because my parents said it was a good idea to play a musical instrument. Then I forgot about music for years.
When I was about 12, I started taking violin lessons, but couldn't do it as my left arm can't rotate more than 90º outwards, so it was absolutely impossible for me to get the lower strings. By then I started listening to Rammstein because my cousin introduced me to it. Loved it, I was absolutely amazed by the sound of guitars, drums, Till's unique voice and all together with some synths it was perfect for me back then.
A couple of years later I got my parents buy me a basic drumkit, so I started practising day and night in the basement. My parents got really bored of the constant noise I was producing 24/7 :lol:, so my dad got me a guitar. An Ibanez SA lowend.
Then suddenly I started a band based on Epica, Nightwish, Within Temptation (guess which band I'm talking about :p), and the most important thing: I started to write music, which had to be recorded somehow:
That's how I started recording stuff. I had a Pentium III computer, with stock soundcard, Cool Edit and Fruity Loops. I sampled a kick and a snare from a Rammstein song, before actually knowing that there were drum samplers out there :lol: and used it in FL to program my drums, along with the default FL samples and Soundfonts.
It was a beautiful time when I first started learning what it has become my actual profession.
I started using more and more new plugins and libraries that I got from torrent, until my mixes sounded less terrible than you can imagine.

Around 2005 I got a guy who wanted some songs mixed by me, so I started charging 20€ per song. Then I kept improving my own band mixes, released a couple instrumental CDs all over internet forums until I got the attention of some local bands.

At the age of 19 I produced and mixed the first full-length album, and it got released by a Spanish important label (hell, even got mentioned in the Spanish Metal Hammer magazine and Blabbermouth). Then I did a couple EPs that never got released by a label until last year, that I mixed my second full-length (released by the same label, and with another mention in MH and BM).
This year I got two more albums and about 3 EPs to mix (albums released by another Spanish label), so I can finally pay my rent with saved money from my new, almost stable AE job.

Still can't make money to live from, but at least I can help my parents paying my rents here in Hungary, food, bills... (no scholarship, so they have to pay around 12.000USD per year tuition fees for Medical school...)

It's still a developing story, so I might put more stuff as events happen :p

Cheers!
 
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