Well.. here is the beginning :P

[Tothecore92]

I am almost ready to drop a good bit of money, to say the least, on my studio.. which will in time make me money for college, and have plenty of personal use damn you education and your extortionate fees

anyways, these purchases will consist of pro tools, waves, etc.. and unfortunately i am expecting to devote many hours to learning how to efficiently use everything, pass the knowledge that i have already gained from months of research hands on If anyone has any advice, or pointers, or anything for a total n00bzor, please feel free to lay it on me and wish me luck, i will most definitely need it.

 

[ForgotenWarrior6]

Good luck man.

And screw funds for school. I hate paying for this shit.

 

[Zack Uidl]

Honestly dude, you would be better off buying cheaper plug ins, or free ones, that getting waves. Save the money and learn. You do not need waves to get awesome results.

Search the forum, there are tons of threads involving free plugins or plugins you buy that are great

Since you said you are looking to use this as a way to raise $ for college, that is your best bet in my opinion

 

[digitaldeathsquad]

The best advice i was ever given was to buy things as you learn that you need them. Get a basic setup and learn to use it to its fullest. When you learn where it is limiting you then buy an upgrade or more gear. There's no use in a bunch of gear that you never really learned how to use and stringing it all together doesn't automatically give pro results. A few nice pieces of gear that you know the workings of is better than 20 pieces you barely understand. Learn how a compressor works. Learn how to eq things (and not just so they sound good soloed but so they sound good in the mix). Listen to everything you can (even outside of your preferred genre) and learn to pick it apart from a production stand point. Beg or pay for a day observing a real pro in their studio - you'll learn more in a day of watching and listening than you will in months of reading and guessing.

Always remember why you got into this game. Do it because you love it and take pride in the work you do whether its a free demo for your friends or a client that's paying you thousands of dollars. You're gonna mess up and you're gonna make mistakes. Own up to them and most importantly learn from them. Record everything you can and be sure you learn something from every session. It takes years to learn this stuff and even then there's still surprises and headaches.

Have Fun!

-dds

 

[Tothecore92]

The best advice i was ever given was to buy things as you learn that you need them. Get a basic setup and learn to use it to its fullest. When you learn where it is limiting you then buy an upgrade or more gear. There's no use in a bunch of gear that you never really learned how to use and stringing it all together doesn't automatically give pro results. A few nice pieces of gear that you know the workings of is better than 20 pieces you barely understand. Learn how a compressor works. Learn how to eq things (and not just so they sound good soloed but so they sound good in the mix). Listen to everything you can (even outside of your preferred genre) and learn to pick it apart from a production stand point. Beg or pay for a day observing a real pro in their studio - you'll learn more in a day of watching and listening than you will in months of reading and guessing.

Always remember why you got into this game. Do it because you love it and take pride in the work you do whether its a free demo for your friends or a client that's paying you thousands of dollars. You're gonna mess up and you're gonna make mistakes. Own up to them and most importantly learn from them. Record everything you can and be sure you learn something from every session. It takes years to learn this stuff and even then there's still surprises and headaches.

Have Fun!

-dds

That was actually very helpful and inspiring. thanks man :]

 

[Erkan]

To me, it sounds like a really stupid idea to drop a ton of cash in something you have no idea of how to do. It sounds as if you have only been "theorizing" about audio production up until now when you have finally decided to practise it. Well, I sure as hell would NOT start by getting all the pro stuff, that's just insanity. Choose whatever DAW you want, but you'll come a LONG way with free plugins. The free REAPER plugins will help you out, the GVST kit is also just pure awesome (<3 GMulti) and there are tons of other ones as well. One tip though... if you plan on surfing the web and stocking up on free plugins, use http://pagesperso-orange.fr/vb-audio/us/resources/vst_scanner/vst_scanner.htm to filter out any bad plugins that would make your DAW crash This is a side effect of free plugins... but most of them are very good, you just have to spend time and look for them.

 

[P-E]

To me, it sounds like a really stupid idea to drop a ton of cash in something you have no idea of how to do. It sounds as if you have only been "theorizing" about audio production up until now when you have finally decided to practise it. Well, I sure as hell would NOT start by getting all the pro stuff, that's just insanity. Choose whatever DAW you want, but you'll come a LONG way with free plugins. The free REAPER plugins will help you out, the GVST kit is also just pure awesome (<3 GMulti) and there are tons of other ones as well. One tip though... if you plan on surfing the web and stocking up on free plugins, use http://pagesperso-orange.fr/vb-audio/us/resources/vst_scanner/vst_scanner.htm to filter out any bad plugins that would make your DAW crash This is a side effect of free plugins... but most of them are very good, you just have to spend time and look for them.

Thanks for that VST Scanner, Erkan!

 

[Fox Mulder]

+1 to everything mentioned above.

1. Get reaper, an interface with several inputs (preferably 8 mic pres), and a computer with lots n lots of juice.
2. Get loads of free plugs, check out gvst.co.uk
3. A few mics
4. Some acoustic treatment
5. Decent monitors and headphones.
6. Learn.

 

[Erkan]

Thanks for that VST Scanner, Erkan!

No problem! I'm not sure how accurate it is but it did detect a few bad plugins that made the scanner itself crash while scanning them. In that case, the scanner saves the list of plugins so that when you open the scanner again, you can check the bottom of the list and see which plugin crashed it. From then, it's up to you to delete it or take it into your DAW for further testing. I deleted every single plugin that gave me the slightest error though... I prefer stability over a couple more random delay plugins and whatever

Keep in mind it only tests VST, not VSTi.

 

[GarethSE]

Honestly dude, you would be better off buying cheaper plug ins, or free ones, that getting waves. Save the money and learn. You do not need waves to get awesome results.

Search the forum, there are tons of threads involving free plugins or plugins you buy that are great

Since you said you are looking to use this as a way to raise $ for college, that is your best bet in my opinion

This
Reaper
rea-eq and reacomp

all you could ever need to make a really fucking good metal mix and fuck anyone who says otherwise

 

[P-E]

This
Reaper
rea-eq and reacomp

all you could ever need to make a really fucking good metal mix and fuck anyone who says otherwise

This is mostly the way I mix, + a little saturation here and there.
I use reaxcomp too.

 

[Tothecore92]

Thanks for the advice :] I may just go reaper.. does reaper have a 32 bit version? and is reaper waves compatible? I will most likely not start out with waves, but just wondering down the road.

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

I learn a lot better when i am in over my head, i know that sounds kinda crazy..

Having lots of expensive gear doesn't change where you start with this stuff - you always start in the same place, and having lots of toys won't change that. What it does mean is that if something doesn't work how you want, you'll be inclined to throw a different plug-in on it, then another, and so on - rather than learning how to use that original one properly.

I know people always talk about using certain things because they're familiar etc. but personally I think that's total bullshit. All DAWs do the same thing, and they do it in pretty much the same way - therefore they all look and work in pretty much the same way too. Changing from one to another is not difficult.

Learning the fundamentals of audio engineering has nothing at all to do with what software you use, and once you've got them sorted they're completely transferable. Learn what you're doing before you develop habits based on your platform. If you learn the basics in Reaper, you'll be able to do exactly the same things in Pro Tools, it'll just take a few days to adapt.

Like everyone has already said, get Reaper, get a couple of decent preamps and a couple of good mics, and that's all the gear you need to learn. Sticking a mic in front of an amp and learning what affect moving it has on the sound is more useful than having 2 dozen EQ plug-ins that you have to use because your mic'ed tone sound terrible, and learning how (and why) a compressor does what it does will drastically improve the mileage you get from the standard Reaper one.

Steve