#123: How to make Budget-Friendly Synthwave; Practical Music Production Tips with Reagan Ramm

Ever found yourself wondering what software is used to make synthwave music? Maybe you're knee-deep in questions like Do DAWs sound different, is synthwave music hard to make, or even What is synthwave?  Then check out EP 123 of the Inside The Mix podcast.

Ring in the New Year with a fresh batch of sonic wisdom on Inside the Mix Podcast! As I unwrap the secrets of synthwave production on a tight budget, audio maestro Reagan Ramm joins me to set the record straight on his name and offers an arsenal of cost-effective tips. Discover the essentials of a good computer setup and how to choose the perfect DAW for your workflow. Reagan's pragmatic approach, honed on a budget, proves that passion and expertise can triumph over dollar signs in the pursuit of crisp, retro beats.

Finally, we tackle the myths around DAWs and the real deal behind music quality—it's less about the software and more about your input. I share my experience on how upgrading my gear revolutionised my recording sessions, and we discuss the power of mentorship and education in music production. Whether mixing on basic headphones or crafting the next chart-topper with stock plugins, this episode is packed with practical tips, including a spotlight on Reagan's Orpheus Audio Academy, to help you hit all the right notes in your musical journey.

Watch my interview with Orpheus Audio Academy: https://youtu.be/zyVAscQKORI?si=UNhMZvHib44_1n4n
Grab Reagan's mixing checklist: https://reagan-ramm.mykajabi.com/mixing-checklist
Follow Reagan and Orpheus Audio Academy: https://orpheusaudioacademy.com/

Roots Music Rambler
Hear great conversations with the artists behind the music you love, new music and more!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews.

Speaker 2: 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you want to know more about your favourite synth music artists, music engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years and I want to share what I've learnt with you. Hello, folks, and welcome back to the Inside the Mix podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:33

This episode is going out the day after New Year's Day, 2024. So a big happy New Year to you, the listener. I hope you had an amazing New Year and Christmas as well, and you are ready to kick start your musical journey in 2024, because I know I am. So. Just before Christmas, you'll probably know, if you are a regular listener, that I released an EP, lost and Found, and it's done really well, considering I released it during December, which is when most people listen to Christmas music. The response has been really really good, so a big thank you to everybody who's listened, shared, liked, commented, etc. Lost and Found.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Also just before Christmas, I put out a communication asking for your successes of 2023, and I've got a couple that I'm going to share with you today, and the first one is from an individual who was on the podcast in the first series. I cannot remember the podcast number, but it's an artist called 90s Maze and a gentleman called Fed. So let's have a listen to the success, and there's also a question involved as well that I'm going to answer afterwards. So here we go.

Speaker 3: 1:38

Hi guys, 90s Maze is here. Thank you so much for the opportunity, and my biggest music we know for 2023 is the release of my second EP starring number two Confession, that you can find on every digital platform. And also I had the pleasure to collaborate with a mythic rhythmic blog for an article of my career. So, mark, here's my question have you found some difficult to produce song for other artists? Have you left your comfort zone or do you prefer stick on your style? I wish happy holiday to everyone and see you in 2024 with new music.

Speaker 2: 2:17

So this is a really good question and I think it comes down to this really. I think if someone's paying me to produce, mix or Master their music and it's outside of my wheelhouse, so they've. They've approached me and they asked if, if I would be able to work with them on their project, I would be honest and just say, look this, this isn't for me. I would be doing you a disservice if I attempted to work on you with this, knowing that there's going to be a monetary transaction involved and what I generally do is then refer them on to someone that I trust and know who would do their music service in that particular genre. And I think if it's my own music, then I'm very much open to working in different genres.

Speaker 2: 3:02

For example, three years ago I released an R&B track. I've done house, I've done metal, I've done rock and I kind of know, having done all that, it's now led me down this pathway of I know where my sort of sound is going. It's kind of this retro wave, synth, indie pop with a bit of 80s rock in there as well. So, having done all these different genres in my own music, it's helped me now hone in and decide on where I want to take my own music but, to summarize, if someone was approaching me with a project and I felt that it was outside of my wheelhouse, I would refer them on to someone I know and trust who would do justice to their project. If it were my own music, then yeah, by all means, I would try all these different sounds and sonic soundscapes to see what I could come up with. So the next success is from an artist called Valley Lights, and this is Kai of Valley Lights describing his success of 2023. And there's also another question that I'm going to answer thereafter.

Speaker 1: 3:59

Hey, this is Kai from Valley Lights. My biggest music win of 2023 was releasing my debut album, two Lane Highway through Outland Recordings. My music question for Mark is how do you maintain a strong social media presence after the release of a large project like an album? Happy 2024, everybody.

Speaker 2: 4:23

So this is a really, really good question, and it's something that I certainly haven't got cracked myself, having released the EP Lost and Found. I've been on the promo train and whatnot and, to be honest with you, as Christmas approached, the I fell off the wagon. The wheels fell off a bit in terms of my promotion. I stopped being so promo marketing heavy on social media. But I think the key thing really is is you need to be posting a lot, and as much as that begrudging beguiles me to say that. But I think it's also important to, if you are posting, to make sure it's of good quality as well, which is probably one of the reasons why I stopped posting so much, because I wanted it, I wanted the post to be of a certain quality and I didn't want to rush them. So I thought I'd rather just not put anything out rather than just put something out for the sake of it. And I think, having sort of studied what people are doing and what is successful, it's doing something that sort of engages the listener, the viewer as well, and gets them to stop and interact with what you're doing. It sort of evokes an emotion or there's a question involved, rather than just saying here's my song. Listen to it. You're asking like polls questions, getting them involved in what you're doing, and there's a, there's an artist who's really really good at doing this and it's Synth Principle. And I speak to Synth Principle. Dan a lot on social media and he's got it down. So I strongly recommend the audience listening to go and check out Dan Synth Principle on social media because he's very, very good at what he's doing and if you follow his sort of ethos and what he's doing, you'll see some success. And if you follow him on threads as well, there's some really really good tips that he's putting out there to help grow your social media presence, and it's probably something I need to do in 2024. I think, from what I've read, responding to comments that people post on your posts is pivotal as well, and engaging and also posting on other people's releases as well and sharing them, and it's something I'm going to do more of in 2024. I do do it, but I do need to do more of it. So I don't really have any tips per se on how to stay relevant, but I think it's social media, isn't it? You just need to be social, but throughout 2024, if I come up with any other ideas etc. I will be sure to put them in the podcast. If I hit something that wins, then I will post it and do an episode on it, maybe, and share it with you all. So, again, I don't really have the answer to that question, unfortunately, but what I would say is just look at artists that are doing it right, look at the successful engagement they're having and think, actually, how could I do that with my own content and then put your own spin on it. So there we go Two great questions and two great successes from a couple artists in 2023. So a big thank you to Valley Lights and 90s Maze for sharing their successes and questions on the podcast.

Speaker 2: 7:14

So let's actually now dive into this episode, episode 123. And this centers around making synth music on a budget, and I had the pleasure of chatting with Reagan Ram of Orpheus Academy and we discussed topics such as starting simple, so essential equipment he would recommend for someone wanting to start mixing and producing synthwave. Then we talk about maximizing minimal gear, once again working on a budget and then we have the classic discussion surrounding education versus equipment and portfolio. Should you invest time in education or should you go out there and invest time in gathering experience and also that sort of education, as I say, versus equipment debate, and then we talk about software selection at the end. So there's a lot in here for you if you're interested in getting started with synth music and how you can do it on a budget, and also just working with what you have and getting the most of the tools, techniques and equipment that you already have.

Speaker 2: 8:13

So let's dive into this episode, hello folks, and then this episode. I'm very excited to welcome our guest today, reagan Ram. Now, reagan has been writing, recording and mixing music since 2011 and received a degree in audio engineering in 2019 from Unity Game Recording Institute. A fellow academic, it's his mission to help fellow musicians and producers improve their art and make a living doing the work that they love. Hello, reagan, thanks for joining me today. And how?

Speaker 4: 8:45

are you? I am fantastic, so happy to be here, mark of your episodes. I've learned so much listening to them, so it's really exciting being on here with you. And probably should clarify this my name is actually pronounced Reagan, but that's totally fine. A lot of people pronounce it wrong. It's a little confusing, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:03

Yeah, you know what? Now, looking at it, reagan and the exorcist is like one of my favorite movies, and that is exactly how it's spouting in the exorcist is pronounced.

Speaker 4: 9:11

I haven't seen that, I just know, have you not? I was named after the great American president, ronald Reagan.

Speaker 2: 9:19

All right. Yeah, I was gonna say I think it'd be surprising, if I mean it might be that people named their child after Reagan from the exorcist. Yeah, I imagine it probably would be be more out to be Ronald Reagan rather than yeah, that did I pronounce your surname correctly as well. I didn't check off air, if that's correct.

Speaker 4: 9:33

Yeah, it's Ram is. But I mean with your yeah, you're on your wonderful English accent there, it's fine.

Speaker 2: 9:40

So yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's one of those I always check off air and I forgot to, but I got half of it right, so at least we got somewhere there. So for the audience listening, I did actually appear on Reagan's podcast a few months ago. I don't know if you want to give a quick shout out to that before we dive into some questions. Yeah, that was a really great show. Yeah, I should have.

Speaker 4: 9:58

I should have looked up the link off the top. I don't remember what that was, but you can find it on my YouTube channel or if you look up any podcasting platform you can find it. And we had a great discussion and we talked a lot about production and songwriting and got even into some synthwave specific tips, so that was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Just for the audience listening. What was the name of it? The name of the episode.

Speaker 4: 10:22

The podcast itself is just called the musicians Odyssey podcast, so you can look that up to or to search for Orpheus Audio Academy on YouTube.

Speaker 2: 10:34

Marvelous. I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes and audience obviously listen to this one first, but then you can go and have a listen to that episode. So today we are looking at synthwave music production. That's what we're diving into do to today now. Obviously, that can then extend to synth music and other forms of synth in general as well, but I thought it would be quite cool to start with sort of the this particular question line of questioning is starting simple. So, reagan, for those new to the genre genre who might not have a lot of gear, can you tell our audience what's the essential equipment you'd recommend for someone wanted to mix or produce, let's say, music, synthwave music, on a budget?

Speaker 4: 11:13

Great question and definitely relevant. And also I could include myself here because I don't have a lot of fancy equipment as of right now either, so I'm definitely getting getting by with the bear essentials here. So yeah, for what? First off, what I recommend is you know, I seem obvious, but you need to have a decent computer. So, as far as like specific, like specs for that, having like at least like 16 gigabytes of Ram the more Ram, the better, because that's what is the muscle of the computer, not a computer person, but this is kind of what I've learned and then also a good website is CPU benchmark net. You can go to and you can put in your, your CPU and like test it and you want to have a score that's above 7000, if you can for music production. And so then, just for reference, my computer, what I'm using right now is a MacBook Pro with the M one pro Apple chip, and so I have 16 gigabytes of Ram and my CPU benchmark score came out to be 21000. So quite a bit higher than that, but definitely not like super computer, definitely something that's affordable and, I think, in most people's price range. As I waited for Black Friday to get a nice deal on it you can always find you know used equipment, use computers on different marketplaces so you don't need, like one of those super computers.

Speaker 4: 12:33

And then, as far as a dog goes, this is interesting. Actually, my most popular video on my YouTube channel is a clip I did from an interview with my mentor where we talked about what's the most popular dog and I think that's you know, everyone's so passionate about all their, their, their specific dog that I think that's why it's become so popular, because I get comments every, multiple comments a day on that video. People say, no, this, this star, no, my dollar this month. And that's kind of the point of that video. If you go and watch it it's like whatever their, their, all kind of similar that there no one is like better quality than another dog, just whatever you're familiar with.

Speaker 4: 13:08

It really just comes down to workflow preference. For example, I started with Cubase. I really loved it and I was really familiar with that, but then as I got Mac, I started learning logic. I just found I like the workflow flow preference better. I thought it's built in sounds a little bit better, which was good for me as just a producer and a songwriter. But it all whatever doll you choose. If you let. If you have a dog and you really like it, just go with that one. If you don't have a doll, I really recommend logic if you are on Mac, because it does. It's really geared towards the songwriter, the, the music producer person like the solo music producer. And, right, some people like my mentor who uses digital performance he used to recording bands if you're recording bands maybe want something different because there's logic does take some like shortcuts, which I think is good, because it's assuming that maybe you're not used to the actual studio environment. So if you're more used to the computer world, I really like logic. But if you're on like a PC or something you know, cubase is great. I heard a lot of good things about able to have a lot of people in my audience really like Studio one. So dog isn't really important, I would say for for some flavor, any genre, just whatever you're comfortable with.

Speaker 4: 14:21

And then from there we're talking about just you know budget, you know bare essentials. Get the best pair of open backed linear headphones that you can get. So for me I got these headphones right here, which are the Sennheiser HT 600s. They're really great. They're kind of been a standard for a long time because they are very linear. That means the frequency response is very flat across the spectrum. You don't have any too many dips or peaks. There's a little bit of a roll off and on the low end I'll talk about why that's important in a second. I don't know if you have any comments on that mark as well.

Speaker 4: 14:59

But you want to have linear headphones is because you want to hear it, you know, as accurately as possible, right, if you're using consumer headphones a lot of times they they have big, you know peaks and and and cuts because they want to, you know, sound the best. Like you know, if it's like I'm like beats by Dre, they'll have like huge boost in the base end because they think that's a really you know people will listen to that huge base and stuff. But then if you were listening to those while mixing and you're going to be uninvertedly removing base from your mix because you're hearing so much base in your headphones, you want to get something that's as flat as possible as you can look up the frequency curve of whatever headphones you're looking into and that way you can get the most accurate picture picture when you're mixing. And that's also going to be, you know cheaper than getting an actual pair of monitors. Also, there's some disadvantages to using monitors if you don't have an acoustically treated room. So get the best pair of open backed headphones you can, and open backed because that allows a little bit of bleed between the left and the right, so they're not going to be quite as isolated, because when people are listening to your music they're not I mean, people listen to headphones, but a lot of times they're people listening on speakers in different rooms. There's going to be some crossover between left and right. You're not going to be completely isolated if you have closed backed headphones. So a little bit, a little bit of bleed allows you to make a little bit more accurate mixing decisions as well. And the final tool this is a big one that I'll not only anyone really talking about very often is you want to get some kind of software that tunes your room and that would include your headphones as well. So even if you are just using headphones, this is still good to have, because even these, these are really good headphones, but they still have a little bit of a dip in the low end. So that means I'm not hearing quite as much bass as there actually is, and I found before I got this tool I want.

Speaker 4: 16:45

My mixes were too muddy and too basic, and so this tool you want to get is there's a couple different ones out there.

Speaker 4: 16:51

When I use is sound ID reference by sonar works, and so what this does is you get a little microphone that comes with it, or it just knows, if you have like, if you have monitors. Otherwise, it like has the frequency profiles and many different of the most popular mixing headphones out there. So it has these sanitizer headphones in there already. It knows what the frequency curve is and then applies a correction over your whole mix. So it's a plug in, I put it on my stereo out and it kind of corrects in real time what I'm hearing. So then when I make mixing decisions I can make accurate decisions and then I just turn that off when I bounce the track or export the track. So you want to get some kind of tuning software. Even if you, especially if you have like cheaper headphones, you can get this tool and it can make those headphones more accurate. If you have monitors, it can also help correct your monitors based on how your room is. So that's a really important tool to get and a lot of people don't talk about it.

Speaker 2: 19:05

Yeah, some fantastic advice in there. There's a lot to unpack in there as well. As soon as you mentioned there about tuning your headphones in your monitor systems, immediately Sonore works sprung to mind, because I remember using that a while back. I know waves. It doesn't necessarily tune your headphones but it can put you in artificial environments. You've got the waves NX range I think a while ago I was using the waves NX Abbey Road setup emulation when I was auditioning mixes. And then you've got things like VSX. But obviously, if we're on a budget, I think the slate digital VXX headphones will be as good as they are.

Speaker 4: 19:42

Yeah, another good one is the Arc system by IK Multimedia. I think that's in a similar price range to Sonore works. By the way I think I forgot to mention I actually have a complete gear guide that has links to everything I just mentioned. Plus, if you're wanting to maybe upgrade something, I've got some other recommendations in there. So if you want to get that gear guide, you can go to Orpheus Audio Academycom slash gear guide all one word and that has completely free, and it has a whole bunch of my gear recommendations in it.

Speaker 2: 20:09

Lovely stuff, our audience listening. I'll put a link to that in the episode show notes. Another one that I think is worth mentioning now this is free and this moves really into tuning your room. So if you have got loudspeakers, there's a program and I've used it a while back, and it's free and it's called REW and you can actually use it. You can download it and all you need is a measurement mic, and you can buy a measurement mic, for I think if you get sort of like a Bayer dynamic one or even a Beringer one actually might be Beringer and you can pick those up for about 30, 40 quid and then you can use this free software and it'll give you the frequency response of your room and then you can start to tune your rooms. Audience listening that's another really good one to look out for as well. So obviously you're tuning your headphones. You've got Sonore works and the IK Multimedia one, but the free REW what that stands for I don't know, but you can actually tune your room, or actually you can look at the frequency response of your room, and that's really, really cool. Openback headphones as well is another great one, something that I don't use. I've been meaning to get myself a really good pair of openback headphones, but I keep getting.

Speaker 2: 21:10

Maybe it's Black Friday at the time of recording this episode, so Black Friday has just gone and I picked up and I've got this my notes here. So this is another good tip, because you mentioned there about buying a computer on Black Friday etc. To look out for plugins. If you're new to music production, wait for Black Friday deals. I picked up the Devil Lock Sound Toys Devil Lock plugin and the day before it was 80 and I picked it up for 20, just in the Black Friday deal. So that's another really good one.

Speaker 2: 21:37

I love what you said there about DAWs as well and that video you have where people are saying that's sort of campaigning for their favorite DAW. Because I noticed when I put tips online for a particular feature of Logic because I'm a Logic user as well more often than not I get at least one person say I can do that for you. It's like this with one key command and like they really love to champion their DAW and they'll be like, yeah, I can do that, I can do that in Ableton really easy. I'm like, yeah, that's great.

Speaker 4: 22:02

But not everybody's using that. I have a suspicion too. Maybe this is off base, but I wonder if, deep down, a lot of people are insecure about their DAW because they do see other people saying look, how amazing this DAW is. Or just the fact that there's so many DAWs out there there's kind of FOMO or the fear of missing out, and so you wonder is my DAW really good enough? And so then that makes people, when they hear someone else recommending a DAW, they feel like they need to defend their DAW and stuff. And there's no need for that. Every DAW is great, it's just whatever you prefer.

Speaker 2: 22:35

Yeah, I was recording some content the other day and one of them was centered around it I don't think I've put it out yet which was about selecting a door, and I remember years ago I had this conversation with someone. They were trying to convince me that a DAW has a sound.

Speaker 4: 22:50

Oh my gosh, yes I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:55

And there may be some real like really good ears out there who can pick that out, but most people, when they're consuming your music, I don't think they're thinking hmm, that sounds like Cubase to me. They're enjoying the music. No one really cares, you know.

Speaker 4: 23:10

Yeah, I've had some people leave comments trying to convince me that I can't remember what DAW it was, some DAW I hadn't even heard of, and they were like it's a treat. Like the waveforms in this DAW, the WAV files are better than in logic or whatever, and like a WAV file is a WAV file though. So yeah, it's ones and zeros.

Speaker 2: 23:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't buy into that.

Speaker 4: 23:32

I mean, I've never heard anyone any pro mention a DAW has better audio quality than another DAW. Never heard that. I've never experienced that.

Speaker 2: 23:42

It's what you put into it. Ultimately, for one of the better, like you put shit into it, you're probably going to get that out of it. You know you've got to put something good into it Right.

Speaker 4: 23:49

they're all blank canvases. If your painting doesn't turn out right, it's not the canvas's fault.

Speaker 2: 23:55

The canvas isn't going to make your painting better.

Speaker 4: 23:57

That's what DAWs are. They're a canvas, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:00

Bad workman blames his tools, as we say over here. I don't know if that's a phrase in the US, but it's certainly what we say over here, you know. And then CPU benchmark I've been meaning to do that with, because I've got a Mac Studio. Now I branched out and got one of those and upgraded for my old MacBook Pro. I'd love to know what that is.

Speaker 1: 24:16

So I think in between this.

Speaker 2: 24:19

Yeah, yeah, I'm so glad I've got it. I used to record the podcast. This is going off the total tangent now. I used to record the podcast episodes using this MacBook Pro and it would sit there and then you would just hear this as it was just rinsing the CPU. But now I've got this Mac Studio and it's much better. There is one question I was going to ask you actually this is a bit of a tangent from the questions that I've got lined up here, but you mentioned a mentor, which I thought is really cool, and I've asked this a few times on the podcast. I remember having this conversation with Dan Fer earlier in the year and, regarding a mentor, how important do you think it is to have a mentor in the or coach or something like that, or coach or something along those lines, in those early stages of product? I think it's vital.

Speaker 4: 24:59

It's so important. Yeah, I think we're actually. We're going to talk about that a little later. Something I like to say is like education is gold, but school is a scam. It's a little controversial because now I went to school, I got a degree, but what was so powerful about the school that I went to is it was more like an apprenticeship.

Speaker 4: 25:21

I think that's a lost art that doesn't really exist so much anymore because of the higher education big business kind of model that's taken over. That's the way it used to be Like. If you want to be a blacksmith, right, you go train under a blacksmith, an expert, and become a blacksmith, right. Benjamin Franklin, he was famous for you know he was an apprentice first. So there's a lot more common back in the day, and today everything's been kind of turned over to this education system.

Speaker 4: 25:50

But I think that's the best way to learn as actually more so having a mentor than these school models. And so the way the college I went to was. It was a college, it was accredited, I got a degree, but it was running out of a actual commercial recording studio. So, and the instructor was actually owner of the studio, he built the studio, he actually recorded real bands. So I got the experience recording real bands and mixing them and actually learn on a real console and using real equipment In a real world environment, not a classroom, and so that was really invaluable and so right, that's, you know, not something that you can replicate, right, it might be hard to find something similar to that, but I definitely think mentorship is really invaluable and can definitely speed up your learning curve and get you to where you want to go a whole lot faster and really solve a lot of frustration for me, because before then I was like trying to do stuff on my own, watching tutorials, and just wasn't quite getting there, and so actually being able to go in person to talk to an expert and asking questions like we only met once a week in the class was only like me plus like four or five other guys and they're supposed to like three hour classes, but a lot of times like we would be an hour late because, like I would just spend like the first hour just asking instructor questions like what about this or what about this, and then, like the other classmates, would kind of get annoyed.

Speaker 4: 27:12

But I learned a lot from being able to do that and ask a lot of questions.

Speaker 2: 27:17

Yeah, I would agree, and it mirrors something that I experienced and it's slightly different, I guess, in that I remember when I was in the band years ago in the audience listening will know this because I've mentioned it numerous times when I was in this metal band and I was a self taught guitarist and, like that, I was using total guitar at the time and I was downloading tabs from Ultimate Guitar and trying to sort of make my way through all this information, trying to make myself a better guitarist. And I went into a studio and it really highlighted the flaws in my technical ability in that I wasn't able to cleanly record a riff or something like that, and it's not until then. I went and had a lesson and actually reached out and got someone to show me and I could ask questions that I really then managed to actually go up another level and quicker. So it totally mirrors what you said there about if you do have that mentorship and that coaching, that you can make those strides quicker and also you're learning from somebody else's mistakes that they've probably made, or somebody has told them about the mistakes they've made, and then you can get rid of those and that's huge, I think.

Speaker 2: 28:15

I think that's incredibly important. So what I mean you mentioned I was going to ask you about this later, so it's kind of like nicely segues into that. Not that I plan that Education versus equipment, which I mean in my notes I put high end equipment, so which do you think is has played more of a role in, in your sort of professional quality, your music, would you say? Education, coaching, mentorship is more important than having this high absolutely or just access to loads and abundance of equipment.

Speaker 4: 28:46

Yeah for sure, education far, far outweighs equipment. And going back to being working in the studio, that's where you can really see it. Because, like a lot of times we would have these assignments where myself and a few other students in my class we'd have to take a song that we recorded from an actual artist and we have to mix it. And you know, we'd go and we'd we'd mix it together, we'd take turns on the console like e queuing and adding some compressing, compressing from like the dollar, whatever, and we do like the best we could. And then the instructor his name is Anthony he'd come in and be like you know, you're really, really happy with that, you think you think that's good. And we were like yes, and then he like what don't you hear? You know this, you know a little bit of resonance over the, you know this or that, and then like stuff we couldn't really even hear, and he'd go in and he'd mix it and be like night and day using the same equipment right in a professional studio, using a mixing console. So, even if you have the best equipment, if you don't know how to use it or you just haven't developed your critical listening, you haven't developed those skills, it's not going to be as good a quality it's not going to be. You know that professional quality. And then converse, you know, on the flip side of that, the budget gear today is so good. Right, the budget gear we have today was is like better than Some of the. You know thousands, you know tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment they had.

Speaker 4: 30:08

You know, back when the Beatles are recording, right, you listen to, you know Beatles recordings and productions and you know it pales in comparison. Quality, like just production, quality wise to today. And some people would say there's, you know, there's a charm to that, right, and of course songwriting trumps production every time. But you can just, you can just see that what we have today, what you have in your computer, is better than what they had in like entire recording studios, you know, several decades ago. So same thing with, like microphones are really good. It's funny too, because, like back in the analog days, like they were always fighting noise, like get noise removed, how we remove noise, because every microphone, every piece of equipment Introduce some kind of noise to the recording. But now you have all these plugins coming out trying to add noise back in, because that had a character, a charm to it that you kind of things can kind of feel a little dull or stale without it. So it's kind of funny how you know things have come full circle a little bit there.

Speaker 4: 31:29

But I guess, just to sum that up, yeah, definitely education is far more important than the gear you have. So I think I have a blog post on my blog where I talk about like how to become a music producer and I walk through several steps and then the very last step is investing in like pro quality gear. So that's definitely can make a difference. So, but you can get like 80% of the way to pro quality just with budget gear and education, maybe even, maybe even 90%, and then that pro gear is what's going to get you maybe from like 90 to 100%. But the thing is like for the casual listener out there, they're not going to really notice 80, you know, or 90% to 100%. They're not going to really notice the extra 10%. Maybe, you know, maybe some will, but you can still get really good quality music without that professional quality equipment.

Speaker 2: 32:21

Yeah, I totally agree, and I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before and I think I've put it in post for those of the audience that follow on social media, which echoes this in that I think it's important to learn how to use the tools that you have to hand. If you're, if you're not able to get a specific outcome using the tools that you have, don't necessarily think, okay, I need to go and buy xyz plugin to solve this problem. Maybe you need to look a bit deeper and think, actually, do I really understand how a compressor works? Do I really understand what this compress is doing? Or do I really understand frequency and tonal balance? Have I got that quite right using the EQs that I have? Because you could do all that in logic.

Speaker 2: 32:58

The compress is in logic, fantastic, as is the EQ and logic as well, and I'm sure it is another DAWs too. So it's not and I think I've mentioned this before like you and when, if you sign up to, I'm not going to name any particular sort of plug in manufacturers or third party plugins, but there everybody seems to have the invoking the air quotes silver bullet. That's going to solve a specific problem, but if you don't know how that problem is created. In the first instance. You probably need to go back and sort of and learn the tools of the trade, as it were. You mentioned there about critical listening. Have you got any sort of tips for our audience and how to improve, or rather any critical listening tips? Let's say that's probably a better way of putting it.

Speaker 4: 33:42

Yeah, I mean it just comes down to listening intentionally and spending a lot of time doing that. So listening to and using references is a big one as well as part of that. So when you're are creating a mix, comparing it to like a pro mix that you like and then listening to, how do certain specific instruments show up in the mix, how do certain frequencies show up, how does your low end compare to the low end of the reference track? And just kind of being that as a starting point, my instructor actually created a program. I don't know if he has it for sale, but I know there's other programs out there that can help you train your ears.

Speaker 4: 34:24

So what that would do is it will like play a frequency and then you're supposed to guess what frequency is just on that sound, that tone you heard, or how many DBs it is based on, how loud, or it'll play the tone at one volume level than a lower volume level and you have to guess how, what the DB differences, and so that was really humbling. My first day going through that I was like way off, and so there's tools like that. But you don't have to get something like that again. It's just if you have references, that can really help because you're that's what you're aiming for. If you have that reference track and you can just know what to listen for, listen to those different frequencies, listen to the different instruments, and get you know a match to that, that can really help you learn over time, to help you develop your critical listening.

Speaker 2: 35:10

Yes, reference tracks. I've banged on about that before in the podcast as well and I use references in songwriting, I use a reference mixing and I use a reference in mastering. Mastering I use I'm using references all the time, specifically as well. This is really important for the audience If you've got, if your room isn't treated or you're using headphones specifically, specifically in that low end, because you can see if you've got your reference, you can compare the low end response, as you mentioned. Then the frequency response to a reference track. One tool I like to use it's not free, unfortunately, it's tonal balance, the isotype tonal balance. I think it's fantastic, or be it. It's one of those ones whereby they've just got a load of data and they put it together and they've come up with this frequency curve that they think represents pop, rock, reggae, rap, hip hop, whatever.

Speaker 4: 35:57

You can also add your own reference tracks if you're trying to mimic the frequency of the reference into tonal balance.

Speaker 2: 36:04

And I think as well EQ. Sorry, logic has EQ match. Now, I didn't dive into this the other day, but it does have you recently at. This is tangent once again. Have you recently updated? Logic is now got a master. I did update logic.

Speaker 4: 36:18

But I have not used the new mastering tool yet. I've been curious to try it out because it looks kind of like ozone, like ozone light. Maybe I have ozone. So I've thought about doing like a video comparing the two and seeing how they, how they shake out.

Speaker 2: 36:31

It's really useful.

Speaker 2: 36:32

I tried it a couple days ago because I'm mastering some tracks for my EP and I think it's a really good tool to use for referencing, but in a different way, in that for the audience listening If you want to hear what your songs could sound like when it's mastered, it's a really cool tool to have at the end because it will do what logic does it will analyze the track and then it will come up with an EQ frequency curve and you can then tailor it whether you want it to be sort of like anywhere from zero to percent to 100%, what it thinks it should sound like.

Speaker 2: 37:05

It's really really good. It's a really nice addition. And also one other thing as well which I'm so glad they brought out in logic is in when you bounce a track now and it says in there you can compress command and full start period, whatever you want to call it, and it will stop the bounce halfway through or whenever you want, which I've wanted for so long. The amount of times with a podcast as well, you've got a 40 minute podcast and I've got to go all the way through to the end. There probably was a key command, but I didn't know what it was.

Speaker 4: 37:32

Yeah, that's happened before. I left something on the master on the mix bus I didn't want on there, or sometimes I'll put a limiter on mixing just to kind of see what would sound like with limiting. But then I turned it off to go to mastering. I left it on and I had to wait for it to bounce the whole way. So that's really nice. I didn't know they introduced that.

Speaker 2: 37:51

Yeah, it's really good, it's really helpful. I've done that before. I bounced it and I look at the chain at the end I'm like I've left the gain, plug it on there.

Speaker 2: 37:59

Yeah, it's about the whole thing in mono because I was checking. I love what you said there as well about with the critical listening and that plug in whereby you're picking up frequencies. I used to do this with an RTA when I was doing a bit of live sound, a real time analyzer and when I had some time to myself I would just sit there and whistle and try and whistle certain frequencies. I think I got one K down and 500 hertz and I was just, and then I would just whistle into my fight and then it would just peak at a particular frequency and that that's all.

Speaker 4: 38:26

I learned. Yeah, I definitely should be a master at one K right now, because I have four children Apparently. The cry of an infant is right around one K because that's like what we hear the best, so I should have that frequency down right now. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:38

Or maybe, maybe I've lost some conversely.

Speaker 2: 38:42

Yeah, you just tuned it out. You tuned it out. All your songs now are your productions are going to have this huge dip around one K. You just tuned that sound out Fantastic. So a lot of questions are moving on slightly now. So give me your sort of expertise and experience since 2011. Maybe you could share some tips for the audience and how to get the most out of sort of a limited or budget equipment. So maybe we're thinking, actually we're using the stock plugins in in our DAW. How can we get the most out of those when recording or mixing synth way?

Speaker 4: 39:12

Yeah, so a big thing is just knowing how to use the tools Right. Maybe maybe it means diving into the manual. I've done that. So really understanding how to use the tools for one thing, and really just understanding mixing right Doesn't really matter the tool right, because all compressors are more or less the same Same thing with EQs. So if you really get good at compression, eq, that's like 80% of the battle, and so if you just really learn that, then the tools don't really matter as much. And then again you have to then learning. Then you learn the tools themselves right, and what different right in logic there's a lot of ways to add saturation that you might not know about, because a lot of saturation is kind of hidden within their different plugins, like, for example, the compressors. You can actually add some saturation using the compressors If you turn up the what's like I can't remember what's called now the clipper or the distortion. I think it's called distortion in the logic compressors.

Speaker 2: 40:08

And they have different levels. You can add right.

Speaker 4: 40:10

And same thing with, like, the vintage EQs. You can turn up the gain on there if you want to add some saturation, and that is a big part specifically for synth wave. If you're mixing in the box is you're going to be wanting to use a lot of saturation to get that richer, more vintage sound. So, understanding your tools, understanding what your options are when you're using that budget equipment inside of your DAW, your stock plugins, so you know what tool to turn to in a specific situation.

Speaker 2: 40:43

Yeah, I think it goes back to what I said earlier about like knowing your tools, isn't it? And knowing the fundamentals, because the idea of an EQ is the same across an EQ, really, it's just you have things like fab filter, where you've just got more bells and whistles. The fab filter crowd are probably going to come to you now with the Pro-Q3 when I say that. But once again, go back to the EQ and order it.

Speaker 2: 41:08

Yeah, it's only recently actually that I know. It says it's got like HQ at the bottom, which I'm assuming maybe puts in linear phase.

Speaker 4: 41:15

There is a linear phase version of it I've used when mastering, but I don't know you can switch the default one, so it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 41:25

Yeah, have a look at the bottom. I think it says HQ and it did. Anyway, it did. It's the last time I looked, but yeah, I think that's right, I think. Have you ever used Alchemy in any of the tracks? Oh, yeah, I use.

Speaker 4: 41:35

Alchemy a ton. Yeah there's. The Retro synth is good. Alchemy has a lot of good sounds in it. They have different banks. I really like the Prismatica bank, which is actually really small. There's only like maybe like 10 sounds in there, but I've used those a lot. The classic synth Logic still has a lot of good sounds for synthwave.

Speaker 2: 41:57

It's got. I think once again, this is a Salica salesman here for Logic and Apple, but I'm sure there was an update. There was also a sound bank that was for Alchemy as well, which I think is really interesting.

Speaker 4: 42:08

Yeah, I'll try that out. They also have the Lindrum drum kit in there, so that's great for synthwave yeah they've got that for yeah, that came out with a 10.0 update. You got the Lindrum kit. They've also got like some 8-bit drum sounds in there. Yeah, they got a lot of good drum sounds, the drummer plug-ins fantastic. Now I think now, or not plug-in but tool. I think now you can take that the drummer data, and you can use that with third-party tools. Now I think with the recent update.

Speaker 2: 42:37

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned about Lindrum now because I'm going to look into that, Because previously I've always been creating my own software instruments and importing my own Lindrum samples.

Speaker 4: 42:44

Yeah, I do have my own free synthwave drum sample pack that has a bunch of Lindrum sounds. So if you do want some extra sounds, you can check that out. That's at OrpheusAudioAcademycom slash starter pack. It's got a bunch of other synthwave guides in it and some free serum preset packs you can check out too.

Speaker 2: 43:04

Nice, nice. This kind of like moves on nicely to my final question here, which is to do with software selection. So we've mentioned about Logic DAW and we've mentioned about third-party plug-ins. So maybe you think a bit wider now. So if our audience is just getting started, maybe they've got a bit of money, let's say, to invest in a third-party plug-in. Can you tell our audience which sort of plug-ins you find are the best for creating that classic synthwave sound without breaking the bank, for sure, without breaking, without having access?

Speaker 4: 43:32

to the bank. I mean, if you're looking for software that mimics vintage equipment, I really like waves and IK Multimedia. Those are plug-ins that I bought in the past that are really good. But I also am increasingly becoming a big fan of tools that are more made for the computer musician in mind, because in a lot of ways, a lot of that vintage equipment is great but it's made for with a physical environment in mind. So, but there's a lot of great tools coming out.

Speaker 4: 44:05

A couple of my favorite companies are UJam and Baby Audio. Baby Auto creates a lot of really great and interesting tools for mixing. For the most part they just created a synth as well. That was really good. But I really like their like super VHS tool. It's kind of a multi-effect. It has saturation built in, it has a chorus built in, bit crushing, you can add in some like VHS hits and all our tools are really really easy to use. They're really great transition tools came out with. So they have a really I really love their tools and you can actually get.

Speaker 4: 44:40

I actually have discounts that you can use in my code at checkout for both Baby Audio and UJam to get discounts. So if you want to save some extra money. That's great as well. So for Baby Audio the discount code is OAA and you get 10% off, and then for UJam it's OAA-20. You can get 20% off. And then UJam is great because especially like their beat maker tools, because they have like there's basically these drum synths and so they have loops inside of them. They've got really great samples If you want to just use the samples. Really great customization and so it's kind of like everything's already mixed for you for your specific genre. So, for example, synth wave, they have a vice plug and that's really good. And they also have like a pop drummer called Candy and those are probably I use those like on almost every track I create. So those are really amazing tools that I really like to use Fantastic.

Speaker 2: 45:31

Thank you for sharing those with the audience. Yes, the Baby Audio synth. I've been meaning to try that out or maybe take a demo of it, Because I think it's their first synth, If I'm not mistaken. I know it's not that way.

Speaker 4: 45:42

Yeah, I've got really a lot of great synth wave sounds in there, including there's. It comes with a stock preset pack by Michael Oakley, who's a great synth wave artist. I know you've had him on your show, I have indeed, yes so you can use a bunch of sounds by Michael Oakley if you want it, right out of that synth.

Speaker 2: 46:00

Yes, I wish I knew what episode that was, but it was about this time last year, so I'm going to say it's in the 40s or 50s audience listening. If you go back you'll find it. I think there were two episodes actually in total with Michael Oakley yeah, great producer, and I know he's always releasing sample packs as well. For Nexus. Did you do zero? I'm not entirely sure, but no, fantastic Lots of stuff to unpack there. Lots of great advice as well, reagan. So thank you very much. I know our audience is going to take lots away. So you've mentioned a few different freebies that you've got going. That I'll put in the episode show notes. But where can our audience, where's the best place to go to find more about you and what you're doing?

Speaker 4: 46:35

Yeah, well, my home base is my website, so that's just OrpheusAudioAcademycom, and then these days I'm mostly creating content on YouTube, so you can just search for OrpheusAudioAcademy on YouTube and that's where you can find me. I don't do too much on social media, so probably my website and my YouTube are the best places to find me.

Speaker 2: 46:56

Fantastic audience. I will put that in the episode show notes. So lots of links actually to go away.

Speaker 4: 47:01

Yeah, sorry, don't overwhelm me with all this. No, no, no, it's all good stuff, man.

Speaker 2: 47:07

Yeah well, this is it. We've got lots going for free with the podcast as well, but I'll put a link to the episode of myself on Reagan's podcast as well, so you're going to have a listen to that where the tables are turned and I'm on the other side, which is quite interesting because it doesn't happen often for me. So, quite, it was really enjoyable, really enjoyable stuff. Huge thanks for joining me today, so I will catch up with you soon and enjoy what is left of your Sunday. Thank you very much, reagan.