Making things sound less digital (1 Viewer)

[josephk]

I'm writing a few songs here and there. I found a decent vst synth which has some nice warm sounding instruments but then my beats sound really digital and cold alongside them. Any tips and tricks as to how to make them sound less cold?

Thaaaaankkks

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

Try a bit of distortion/saturation and maybe eq them to be a bit less hi-fi.
Although without hearing anything, I'm just talking out me hole.

 

[Serpico]

Depends what you mean by digital sounding. If they sound "mechanical" and lifeless then maybe everythings quantized to fuck so ease off that. Move a few notes slightly off the beat. Takes a bit of practice. Or as mentioned above, if it's the characterisitics of the sound that are mechanical then saturation. For lovely subtle warmth and one of the top 10 most useful plug-ins of all time, check out the PSP Vintage Warmer. Something I use all the time.

 

[theoootini]

the vintage warmer plug is great.

 

[Goodbye]

Use more cowbell

 

[ann post]

i had bother like this before (long before the days of plug ins and all that hoo haa). i used to run drum tracks out through this amp, which was inside a wardrobe with about 5 different mic's in it and then blended the 'real' sounds to make the tracks.

 

[guy of the tiger]

Chances are your not going to get them to sound liek real drums, but you can do lots of stuff to make them sound more natural.

I think the ear can identify a sound which is looping withhout any variation, and gets bored of it. so I always try to add very slight, almost indetectable random variation to tracks.
- add a bit of syncopation or very small (couple of millisecond) delay offsets to indivdual drum hits.
- record the sound of an empty room (in stereo) and mix it in (or add low level white noise varying in volume randomly)
- make sure the drums are not all straight down the centre channel, pan them realisticly
- record the drum track into a shitty tape recorded then back into the computer
- radomly change the pitch and/or volume (or some other aspect of the sound) VERY slightly for the duration of it. (maybe scribble a pitch change in, or wiggle the pitch button, but only apply it very slightly)

All of these things will increase the depth of the sound too

 

[Scientician 0.8]

Record them onto tape then back again.

 

[coast to coast]

i had bother like this before (long before the days of plug ins and all that hoo haa). i used to run drum tracks out through this amp, which was inside a wardrobe with about 5 different mic's in it and then blended the 'real' sounds to make the tracks.

Nice.

Record them onto tape then back again.

While this would help, the tape will most likely go a bit out of time. I think the playing them into a room through an amp or speakers and recording the room might be a good idea. Cetainly a fun one!

 

[theoootini]

did i read somewhere that recording onto VHS was also a good way to go?

 

[pissypants]

Ferox - Tape simulator

is a free tape saturation modeller VST plugin. It has separate controls for saturation and hysteresis effects. Feedback with variable tape speed is provided to simulate vintage tape echos.
It's available in this free bundle:
http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/downloads/bundle/bundle.zip

Theres also voxengo's free tube amp simulator:

http://www.voxengo.com/product/tubeamp/

 

[mel gibson]

try running stuff out of the pc and into guitar pedals,then record back into the PC

 

[Red_Dog]

You may just be using whack samples to begin with and thats the problem man!

Anyway techniques Ive found usuful for making drums more 'warm' or 'full'

As above variation
Layering ,
run them trough a bit of hardware
Sample some of your drum sounds from vinly or commercial recordings

In general if your drums sound whack just try to use better samples!

 

[worthit]

whack

 

[Unicron]

did i read somewhere that recording onto VHS was also a good way to go?

Isn't that what ADAT is?

 

[Unicron]

Ferox - Tape simulator

is a free tape saturation modeller VST plugin. It has separate controls for saturation and hysteresis effects. Feedback with variable tape speed is provided to simulate vintage tape echos.
It's available in this free bundle:
http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/downloads/bundle/bundle.zip

I've used this (pissypants turned me on to it before) and it sounds great.

 

[josephk]

I kinda forgot I made this thread. Nice one for the responses! I'll make my way through the links now. cheers