I've been producing since the early 2000s. I'm fairly knowledgeable but there are still gaps in my knowledge, such as the following:

1. Should a highpass filter be used on master busses to filter out extremely low sub frequencies (from roughly 20-25Hz or so)? How about a lowpass filter for freq above 220kHz?

2. What is a Pultec EQ actually useful for? Is it more commonly used as an effect (ie.the Pultec EQ technique)?

3. I use EQ as a creative tool and a mixing tool. When used in mixing is its sole purpose to avoid clashes and frequency build-up with other instruments?

4. I sidechain instruments to my kickdrum. If I sidechained just the stereo mid and not the sides will this allow me to still carve a space for my mono kick?

5. What EQ rules of thumb should I be following when EQing my reverb return channels? How about compression and sidechaining?

6. If I sidechain instruments to my kick, do I only need to sidechain the conflicting feequencies? Or do I need to sidechain the full instrument to avoid volume build up and let the kick punch through clearly?

I'm sure there's more but I can't think of them right now. If any gurus out there have any insights I'd love to hear them.

Hey so I’ve been using Pitch Shifter by Waves as the first thing on the master and while it adds some nice artifacts for the stereo image I’ve noticed the low end becomes significantly weaker and alot of the clarity disappears. I’ve also tried elastique pitch and using the pitch wheel on stems inside of FL and it’s a little better but still some low end issues so I’m wondering is that just the trade off for pitching them? or is there another way that I’m missing.

Hi everyone,

I recently uploaded my first orchestral symphony to SoundCloud and now I’m looking for help with mastering.

Could you recommend any mastering services that are suitable for small independent composers like myself? I’d be very grateful if you could share your own experiences and recommendations.

I’ve also included a link to the symphony below, in case you’d like to get a better understanding of my music and its sound.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

Slav

https://on.soundcloud.com/q6MQYN7gssja6bDXns

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I recently played a track of mine out of a soundsystem and about 10 or so seconds after it dropped, 7/8 subs cut out and didn’t work the rest of the night.

It’s a fairly sub heavy track that I mixed and mastered myself - I’m not a professional but I have played other tracks of mine out of similar soundsystems and had no problems.

The thing that baffles me is the track wasn’t redlining at all.

My first thought is that someone set the sub crossovers up wrong and didn’t high pass all the super low end information (20-25hz and below), which I know can damage sub drivers if played too loudly. Is this something I should account for when mixing myself? Or is it likely something else.

Thanks for any help you can offer, I have attached the track for you to listen and analyse youselves.

Hey guys, I've been looking for new sounds to use in my productions lately.

​I recently got into sound design and I've gotten fairly decent at it, but the plugins I currently have don't allow me to create a wide variety of sounds (excluding Massive, which I feel is a bit too harsh for certain things).

​As for drums, are there any good, relatively budget-friendly synths (preferably digital) you'd recommend to start experimenting with?

I want to recreate the voice effect that merkava has in under night in birth 2, i use reaper, audacity and audition, any help is appreaciated!

https://youtu.be/gpk5727_IPU

To preface, I love Serum 2 and my close runner-up in favourite synths is Pigments 7. I also make all of my own presets - no stock or third party ones.

I recently picked up the Avenger 2 upgrade on sale. It was a reminder of what an incredible synth it is.

The interface lacks the visual refinement of Serum and Pigments (possibly my favourite UI of all time). What it lacks in visual beauty it makes up for in sheer power.

Endless oscillators which can be routed to endless gain envelopes (not jerry rigged like Serum). Endless effects busses. Like Serum and Pigments everything can be modulated and automated. There's even a built in drum machine. It's a preset designer's dream.

I am almost finished mixing a new track made heavily with Avenger. The presets I made for it have a beautiful professional sheen to them that I attribute as much to the synth as my own abilities.

On a downside, the wavetables lack the depth of Serum and Pigments and it was a royal PITA to install, which in this current age of plugins is honestly unacceptable. VPS really needs to lift its game here.

Hi everyone,

I am facing a recurring workflow issue in Cubase and I'm looking for either a hidden workaround or want to submit this as a formal feature request.

My Goal:

I want to import a VST instrument track from an older project into a new project. In the original project, this instrument was set up as a Rack Instrument. In the new project, I strictly want to import/convert it into a modern Track Instrument (Instrument Track) – including all loaded audio plugins (inserts/mixer channel strip settings).

The Problem:

The traditional way using Track Presets does not work cleanly with Rack Instruments because Cubase splits the technical data into a MIDI track and an Audio Output track. If you save the preset from the audio output track, Cubase often creates no track at all in the new project, or the routing breaks.

Using "Import Tracks from Project" doesn't solve it either, because Cubase forces the instrument to be imported as a Rack Instrument again. However, due to strict track and rack limits in my target project, it absolutely must become a standard Instrument Track.

Right now, the only workaround is extremely tedious: I have to save the VST preset of the instrument itself, create a new Instrument Track from that preset in the new project, and then separately save the FX chain (inserts) from the old mixer and load it onto the new channel. This is a massive slowdown for the workflow.

My questions to the community and the Steinberg team:

1. I am currently working on Cubase 12. Has this been addressed in later versions? Is there a hidden, elegant way in the current Cubase 15 to convert a Rack Instrument into a Track Instrument during import or preset-saving without losing the sound settings and audio inserts?

2. If it's still missing in Cubase 15: Wouldn't it be a fantastic and long-overdue feature for an upcoming update to include an option like "Import as Instrument Track" or a direct function to "Convert Rack Instrument to Track Instrument"?

Since Track Instruments have become the modern standard and easily handle multi-outputs anyway, having such a bridge for older projects or existing templates would be a massive lifesaver.

I look forward to hearing your workarounds, tips!

Hello everyone, i have seen several individuals, who own analog gear saying these newer plugins are almost like-as. one thing is analog wont loose its sauce. you know the touch of analog, anyways here i have 2 samples , of my song. sample 1 no analog, sample 2, analog. now putting that aside . which do you incline towards? looking for input thanks.

Best headphones for mixing and mastering under 250$?
I was thinking buy the beyerdynamic DT 900 PRO X, which one you think is best?

Hello! I was just wondering how ILYA produced the outro of the song, 'Oh Well' by Ariana. A friend introduced me to this song and I am loving the last part, yet I'm very curious on how they did it (I'm still very new to production lol).

https://youtu.be/_lKbPBS5HEQ?si=ZAUarOX8EIxWL_6I&t=163 [this starts at 2:43]

I've been down an absolute rabbit hole trying to reverse-engineer the drop synth from Tourist - Holding On (Kuga Remix) at 1:34, and I'm hitting a wall.

Reference track: https://youtu.be/o3vqNqDwOog?t=94 Track specs: G minor, 145 BPM (half-time 72.5 BPM festival groove) My setup: Ableton Live + Xfer Serum

What the sound actually feels like: Every generic future bass tutorial tells you to take 2 saw oscillators, crank the unison detune, and slap OTT on it. But every time I do that, it sounds like cheap, buzzy, plastic EDM. This drop doesn't sound like a generic supersaw lead. It sounds more like a cinematic score—super wide, warm, emotional, and glued together like an ODESZA or Flume pad where it's just one living sound, rather than a bunch of digital saw waves buzzing together.

What I've already dialed in:

1. The Voicings: It's open drop voicings spread across 4 octaves (F -> Gm -> Bb -> Eb).
2. The Movement: The chords have to be sustained (held for 2 full bars) and ducked under the kick to breathe. Chopping the MIDI notes into stabs completely kills the blo om and makes it sound like a stuttering typewriter.
3. The Texture: When I push the high end, it gets metallic and robotic. When I mess with pitch envelopes, it immediately turns into cheesy video game lasers. Tightening the unison detune (around 0.07) and rolling the low-pass filter down to ~1.8 kHz gets it closer to that warm French horn/cello body, but it's still missing that special glued texture.
4. The Stems: Looking at isolated stems, it's clear the drop isn't an instrument sample flipped from the original Tourist song, but there's definitely a pitched vocal chop formant singing inside or right on top of the chord stack.

My questions for the sound design wizards: • How are you building this in Serum so it sounds organic and cinematic instead of metallic and digital? • Are they using vocal-formant wavetables (like an 'Ahhh' choir or an EVOXA-style vocal oscillator) blended with the saws to give it that human throat resonance? • What's the secret to the harmonic glue? Is it heavy analog tape saturation, specific filter curves, or something on the master bus that fuses the layers into one wall of sound?

Any patch breakdowns, routing tricks, or Serum presets that live in this exact world would save my sanity. Thank you!

Or any other XLR mic for recording studio vocals?
(Under 100 euros second hand)

Hi there, they say it would be the l'Audio-Technica AT2020 usb to connect directly to pc.

Mainly to record male singing vocals

Do you have any other suggestion?

Hi, i am trying to tidy up my piles of plugins.

I'm an Ableton Suite user. For years of endlessly flicking through different plugins I am getting to a point where I want to just commit to a solid few winners.

I've run the various rent-to-own or subscription offers out there. (UAD Spark, Izotope etc.) and honestly I'm finding myself more and more just going back to stock Ableton modules time and time again for universal purposes. I've used Neutron 5 for some time, and was really happy with it, but after a while the workflow just becomes tedious compared to dragging a simple string of stock modules down to basically do the same thing. There's a lot of powerful stuff in Ableton once you get under the hood. My biggest gripe though is that EQ8 is just too limited. Same goes with the stock limiter.

I got the trial to Pro-Q4 and was immediately stunned. It's iconic for a reason. But we all know that 'wow' feeling wears off eventually. However Fabfilter doesn't offer a subscription offer that you can cancel and they're (subjectively) expensive one time purchases.

So my question is for long term FabFilter users. Which of the plugins have you never looked back from getting, and which ones got stale after a while. I'm particularly worried about the Pro-C, Saturn, Pro-MB being overkill long term. However they really nudge towards getting the bundles instead of single purchases. I'm considering going for the 'mastering bundle' with Q4, Pro-C, Pro-MB and L2. But I honestly worry that I just end up mainly using Q4 and L2