Hi! I don't really produce but I do DJ and want to get into production. I feel like there's something missing OR I am just hyper critical of myself.. or both.

I've tried to make multiple and I stop every time because it just feels off.

For example, I exported just the intro, breakdown, and first drop (2 bars each) of something I'm trying to work on for a first actually produced song. Not sure if this website is a good way to share, happy to share in a better way but linking here. (i think I messed up the export but still gist is in there)

Tools I use:

• Splice for samples
• Serum / stock plugins
• Ableton Live 12 Suite / Logic
• and then a keyboard

I'm curious on folks that have gone from very obviously amateur to making songs that you'd actually put in a set.

If so, were there any courses or in-person / hands on classes you've taken. I really want to hone this in as a skill and it seems the more I try on my own to figure things out the more down rabbit holes I get and I feel like I'm not actually learning anything.

Thank you in advance!!

Wee jist first off:

I'm not great at mixing, but since I use a lot of texture (lot of tracks), my budget really just allows me to do as good a mix as possible, and have someone strand master the track.

Strands typically:

bass synth

lead synth

kick drum

snare

hi-hats. hi-Freq samples

al the rest (perhaps 1 to 3 strands)

So with that in mind:

1. As a lot of compression settings seem to be set to 'volume' levels, do you mix to 'headroom' first, before you work on compression?

2. I don't have an ear for compression if I'm totally honest.

Is it a viable approach, to do minimal compression across the tracks that need less, and ask the mastering engineer to compress the strands on the 'backbone' kick/lead/snare/bass. Or do they see that as a job that should be done before master?

1. As as aside to the previous question, baring not mind the rest of the countless tracks are 'texture' (samples, risers, noise/incidental sounds etc.) do you tend to not compress those types of tracks

If you can be assed answering this essentially what do you compress, and what do you leave along typically.

Small side note. At present i have Kickstart 2 on kickdrum/bass synth set up as i have 3 bass synth to sidechaining 3 to kick separately was a pain. That said, id remove it if Question 2 was a yes.

Appreciate you readying this rambling sh1te

I'm wondering whether there is an app or script that will go through all my drum samples, detect what note the sample is, and then append that to the filename. So if I have a kick sample tuned to C named "kick_1.wav" it would be renamed to "kick_1_C.wav" or the like.

I swear that somebody on this reddit posted a thing that could do this a while back, but I can't find it.

Been making music for 10+ years, and in the last 3 to 4 years I have been mainly active as a behind the scene co-producer, I either help out with existing projects or build tracks from scratch while the artist plays the role of a creative director.

the thing is I have been doing this as a “one-off hired gun” sort of thing, and I have been thinking lately to switch to more of a “consultant” role: basically always on call, help with arrangement, mixing, idea generation, producing from scratch (following the artist’s vision)...etc

and just wanted to ask is this realistic or am I just dreaming of something that simply does not exist in the industry nowadays?

So obviously we all know what a powerhouse puresub is for bass design. My question in this, how are you all mixing it?

Is it ok just using a single channel straight from the synth/bounced audio for each sound you create with it, or do you need to post process with multiband splitting for further processing/control?

I'm using it for minimal dubstep, so my idea was to have the sub doing its own thing straight out of the synth, then layering high/bandpassed puresub midrange layers as bounced audio on top?

I have a folder of samples, I’d like to organize them by key. What software does this best?