Archives for July 2018

Ambient music has historically appealed to easy-listening fans due to how relaxing and soothing it’s nature is. There are many forms of ambient music such as lounge and electronica, and an avid enthusiast has presented a list of tracks to look into if you’re a fan. For instance, “serenity” is a royalty-free track that is available for anyone to download, and it is a great example of an ambient piece in the lounge sub-genre that listeners absolutely love.

Key Takeaways:

• The music that you here playing softly in the background at restaurants, bars, or hotel lobbies is typically referred to as, “lounge” music.
• When digital and electronic instruments are the main contributors to an ambient track, they are usually referred to as electronica pieces.
• Each ambient sub-genre has several royalty-free pieces available that fans can download with no cost to them.

“In this tutorial, I’ve compiled a list of the 20 best royalty-free ambient music tracks to be found at AudioJungle. For convenience, they’re grouped in five categories: lounge, electronica, chill, atmospheric soundscapes and New Age.”

Read more: https://music.tutsplus.com/articles/20-best-royalty-free-ambient-music-tracks–cms-30868

Editing MIDI is an essential component in producing attention-grabbing material that will appeal to a large audience. There are a lot of techniques experts advise for and against when using MIDI editing methods in your work. A good example is to be extra cautious when copying and pasting material, due to how easy it is to leave certain notes behind. This can cause a whole track to have offbeat instrumentation due to one small editing mishap.

Key Takeaways:

• It is important to make sure that the audio components stay in sync with the tempo of the song when engaging in the MIDI editing process.
• When copying and pasting during the editing process, it is important to ensure that everything stays on track, as it is common for many attributes to be left behind.
• Do not try to aim for perfection. You don’t want the timing to be so perfect that it does not give listener’s a natural sound.

“MIDI editing is generally a pretty straightforward task. The variety of editors available in most DAWS—piano roll, score display, event list—usually make it fairly easy to visually move around notes and phrases, and automatic MIDI commands like Quantization allow for quickly implementing what would otherwise be somewhat tedious operations.”

Read more: https://ask.audio/articles/5-mistakes-to-avoid-when-editing-midi

Many musicians focus on acquiring top of the line hardware when it comes to audio cables for their equipment. However, purchasing the most adequate XLR cable won’t mean much if you don’t know how to test and maneuver them properly. Knowing how to interconnect each cable in the most efficient way is imperative when it comes to ensuring that your hardware will produce the best sound as possible on stage or during the overall production process.

Key Takeaways:

• In order to interconnect pieces of audio gear properly, their input and output voltage levels have to be matched correctly.
• If the voltage level is off for any one piece of equipment, it can result in signal clipping, an increased noise floor, and damage to the console preamps.
• Be sure to carry a gig box that includes different DIs, adapter cables, and line level shifters, in order to manage stray processors and stage amps.

“So it’s important to understand what voltage level each piece of equipment needs in order to function properly. Getting it wrong can result in things like an increased noise floor, signal clipping, and even electrical damage to console preamps.”

Read more: https://www.prosoundweb.com/channels/live-sound/properly-matched-key-factors-in-interconnecting-sound-system-components/

Before plug-in effects were introduced into the music production industry back in the early 1990’s, musicians and producers had to rely on excessive amounts of hardware such as synthesizers in order to create the musical effects they wanted. Thankfully, plug-ins have mastered the ability to provide musicians and producers with the best media effects that the industry has to offer, without having to lug around excessive amounts of hardware. It promotes a much more convenient and efficient way to produce successful tracks.

Key Takeaways:

• One of the main characteristics of plug-in effects is how they are able to give tracks a softer touch instead of the harsh persona that outdated hardware used to result in.
• When it comes to DAWs, you have the ability to have complete control over what you want to mix and master with the plug-in effects.
• There are hundreds and hundreds of plug-in effects available so that they can conform to the specific mastering goals you have set in place.

“At every stage of the production process – and for a lot of applications outside of standard music production – there is a plug-in effect. Actually, there are hundreds of plug-in effects for every stage of music making, the sheer number of which we will deal with later.”

Read more: http://www.musictech.net/2018/04/essential-guide-plug-in-effects/

BandLab has now released the newest version of CakeWalk which provides musicians and producers with the highest quality tools in the production industry right at their fingertips. Not only can musicians collaborate with other professionals in the industry, but they can access the necessary resources to effectively edit and refine their tracks in a user-friendly setting. The software is able for anyone who has access to a Windows computer or other compatible device that operates on Windows 64-bit.

Key Takeaways:

• Meng Ru Kuok, CEO of BandLab Technologies recently expressed his excitement at the company’s continued development of SONAR software.
• Cakewalk by BandLab can be downloaded by all users, for free, with unlimited access to the full feature set.
• It’s important to BandLab that anyone at any stage in their career have access to the professional music production tools that they provide.

“The relaunched DAW includes all core premium features of SONAR Platinum such as the award-winning Skylight user interface, flexible ProChannel modules, and powerful end-to-end 64-bit mix engine.”

Read more: http://www.musictech.net/2018/04/cakewalk-by-bandlab-download-free-now/