Good books?

[Apex Beat]

Any good books which explain compression/ eq-ing/ freq's etc etc etc - basically the ins and outs of good production? I know you can download them, but I want one I can read on the bus !!! Cheersx

[John Ferraris]

"Mixing, Mastering and Production" by Waves (the plug-in people) is excellent. Its about £50 but extremely useful. I dunno about everything they say but on the whole an interesting take on the whole thing. It helps if ur a little bit down the productional path so u can put the knowledge into context, but still good for intermediates. Covers mixing and mastering a trance tune, a rap tune, a rock tune and a country tune (I think).

Its a big book (approx 200 pages) and comes with 5 cds, including the finished tunes and screenshots of EQ, comp, fx, etc. Basically walks u through the mixdown process explaining what was used and why.

[Basil Rush]

That sounds cool, not got that one. Got a few others though, including the wacky "Mixing with your Mind" by some aussie dude and "Mastering Audio" by Bob Katz which is a wicked book.

There's another overview of everything called "The Mixing Engineers Handbook".

[Jimfish]

You got mixing with you mind then baz?

im quite up for reading that, is the only place you can get it from his website?

Whats the wackyness about?

Hows about a swapsies for my original copy of 'the joy of sex'?

[Jimfish]

whats the meaning of life?

where do babies come from?

whats with all the f.cking questions?

[sash]

'the dance music manual' by Rick Snoman.

[curly]

'the dance music manual' by Rick Snoman.

Just got that book and i can't put it down, defo recomend this.

[po]

dance music production by Rick Snoman. Ive done the bob katz etc...etc...visual mixing etc...etc.. and this is the best book by a very, very, very big margin in my view.

[memoid]

I'd like to double Jimfish's question about whether Mixing With Your Mind is any good? I thought the Dance Music Manual was good on some detail, but a bit depressing in some ways (talks about specific bits of hardware almost like you MUST have them) - MWYM looks really interesting :)

[Basil Rush]

You got mixing with you mind then baz?

im quite up for reading that, is the only place you can get it from his website?

Whats the wackyness about?

Hows about a swapsies for my original copy of 'the joy of sex'?

You can borrow it mate. I think it's only available from his web site. He is fantastically wacky. You wait till you get to the bit about phone directories.

[Basil Rush]

I'd like to double Jimfish's question about whether Mixing With Your Mind is any good? I thought the Dance Music Manual was good on some detail, but a bit depressing in some ways (talks about specific bits of hardware almost like you MUST have them) - MWYM looks really interesting :)

Yeah and if you hear Snoman's production - I think it came with a CD - you have to question some of the techniques - he's not got it all down - but there's some solid stuff in there too I think. And he goes on and on about his PSP vintage warmer ... anyone tried it?

[memoid]

LOL - that's my beef with the Snoman book: there's a really interesting chapter on Making Techno or whatever where he basically says "um, techno musicians break all the rules of traditional production" but the rest of the book seems to be based on the trad recording studio model: WRITE TUNE -> PROGRAM SOUNDS -> RECORD SOUNDS CLEAN -> MIX DOWN WITH MINIMAL EQ/EFFECTS.

To me that's kind of old-school now people are making whole tracks in one program on a PC - I know a bunch of producers (including myself) who are mashing that model up a bit - like... using effects on the whole mix to generate new sounds that you can then drop back in as samples, that kind of thing.

So yeh, I'm interested to know about alternative approaches like the Mixing With Your Mind thing :)

[Basil Rush]

Mixing with your mind doesn't really touch on mashed up dance techniques ... more like basic solid stuff like compression, eq, delay and real microphone recording technique. And how to listen to stuff ...

[memoid]

How to listen to stuff? :love:

[Basil Rush]

I'll go through it and wack a summary of the chapters up so you know if it's worth ordering in tonight if I get a chance

[memoid]

That'd be amazing mate - don't kill yourself doing it but I'd be really interested to maybe get a hint of the flavour :)

[Jimfish]

well im gonna borrow it off you, i might have an old copy of razzle i can leave in its place next time im up ;)

[Basil Rush]

That'd be amazing mate - don't kill yourself doing it but I'd be really interested to maybe get a hint of the flavour :)

I got pissed last night and didn't make it home.

I'll try again tonight :)

[memoid]

lol - yeh, try to make it home tonight :)

[Basil Rush]

yeah, one night out is just a dirty stop out, two is positively filthy.

[memoid]

Three is practically Brandon Block. Weirdly enough though, 12 is nearly Jack Kerouac and over 1000, the Buddha.

[Jimfish]

:lol:

[sash]

Yeah and if you hear Snoman's production - I think it came with a CD - you have to question some of the techniques - he's not got it all down - but there's some solid stuff in there too I think. And he goes on and on about his PSP vintage warmer ... anyone tried it?

U'd almost think that someone was paying him to endorse some of the products he talks about. On page 201 when he's talking about Native Instruments Pro-53 he says "and of course, it sounds just like the original Prophet Five!".
I don't own a Prophet 5 but i seriously doubt the software version sounds just like the original.

The book is very good if u can just avoid the 'promote a product' aspect of it.

Another thing that had me scratching my head is that he says most techno tracks don't have a bassline as the bass just comes from the kicks. Maybe im just not listening properly.....

Yeah i use the vintage warmer. It's very nice though i'd still like to have a good hardware compressor and use both.

[Basil Rush]

As promised.

Summary of Mixing with your mind

1 - Keep Your Distance
2 - Mid Tuning Your Loudspeakers
3 - Advanced Microphone Techniques
4 - That killer drum sound
5- Electric Guitar Magic
6 - Piano Techniques
7 - Superstar Lead Vocal Sounds
8 - Cracking Compressors
9 - Analogue vs Digital
10 - Mixing and Meditation
11 - The Art of Mixing
(this page has some tobacco on it, i think someone was rolling up on my book).
12 - Your Reference CD
13 - Doorway to Heaven
14 - Vocals to Hot to Handle
15 - No Cans Do
16 - Backwards Mixing
17 - Time Machine
18 - Gravity and it's effect on Music
19 - Ear Care
20 - Hit Record Formula
(this chapter rather disappointingly doesn't actually give you the formula, he just says to look for it ... yawn!)
21 - About the Author
22 - FAQ


Anyway so that's the chapters dealt with. I should do a proper summary really, but enough to say that the foreward is by George Martin and it's focused on band production but at least half of it is worth reading for dancy stufff ... any questions?

[memoid]

Sounds good, and it's getting more interesting the more I find out... :) Thanks mate

[Basil Rush]

dance music production by Rick Snoman. Ive done the bob katz etc...etc...visual mixing etc...etc.. and this is the best book by a very, very, very big margin in my view.

See now I've just read this again and I'm currently under the impression it's the worst book ever, it's woefully inaccurate in places, poorly edited, has an amazingly narrow focus and sometimes it's just plain factually wrong.

Am I alone in this?

And who the **** is Rick Snoman ... I'm prepared to be shot down on this and proved wrong, but where are his credits on tracks? Where on earth did he get the PhD in audio engineering that's mentioned on the Internet in several places and where are his legendary remixes!

Rant over.

[rounser]

According to interweb rumour:

Rick Snoman was Future Music's in-house engineer, from what I gather. Wrote a lot of articles. He was also responsible for a lot of plagiarising from Sound on Sound, which eventually got found out (at which point he began to be referred to as a "freelancer" who won't be working for them again).

After that it appears he began writing the manual.