Life WITHOUT Waves Plugins (Not a deal)

[mettelus]

I just happened upon some videos by @ChernobylStudios and this one was too funny not to share, because of the recent threads on Waves. He started a series on "Life WITHOUT Waves Plugins" (only one video so far)... and his choice for doing the entire post-production was Melda Production plugins.

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by mettelus

[Zo]

He doesn t need plugins but exorcism lol ...

[Max Arwood]

Better go back to waves 

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

Oh boy. He's actually doing free advertising for Waves without noticing... Especially considering they pulled back on the subscription only aspect and a good portion of people watching at a later stage will have no idea about the context of the video.

I did think about installing the Waves plugins I have but I gave up after remembering 6 plugins will cost me 10 GB of disk space.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Bruno de Souza Lino

[mettelus]

 

6 hours ago, Zo said:

He doesn t need plugins but exorcism lol ...

Yeah, that is definitely not my genre and that track may not have been the best choice. I am not sure what the back story is (seems more promotional based), but it is a good perspective from someone touching them for the first time and making comparisons to others (in this case Waves). I like that he touched upon the MFreeFXBundle like he did, since that gets overlooked sometimes when new folks are asking about FX options.

I didn't check (and really don't know) the dates involved, but there may not be other videos after Waves recanted their position. I found the title of the video funny when it popped up, but it is not really applicable now.

[bitflipper]

That stuff makes my throat hurt.

Right after the Waves debacle, there were a whole cluster of videos on the theme of "how to dump Waves". This one was pretty extensive.

 

[Bapu]

16 hours ago, mettelus said:

I just happened upon some videos by @ChernobylStudios and this one was too funny not to share, because of the recent threads on Waves. He started a series on "Life WITHOUT Waves Plugins" (only one video so far)... and his choice for doing the entire post-production was Melda Production plugins.

 

It would have sounded 20%-40%  better in <insert your fav DAW name here> than Cubase!

Edited May 3, 2023 by Bapu

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

I found the song hard to listen at low volumes, but that's more a flaw of the genre in question than everything.

[Wibbles]

9 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

I did think about installing the Waves plugins I have but I gave up after remembering 6 plugins will cost me 10 GB of disk space.

2 Waves plugins nearly cost me my soul.

[Bapu]

19 minutes ago, Wibbles said:

2 Waves plugins nearly cost me my soul.

Should have bought them on sale.

[kitekrazy1]

2 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

I found the song hard to listen at low volumes, but that's more a flaw of the genre in question than everything.

That is not a good genre for any mixing display.

[dubdisciple]

If I was Melda, I would sponsor him not to pitch my products. 

[Starship Krupa]

7 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

That is not a good genre for any mixing display.

Scott has a niche there. He works in a genre that seems kind of underserved (not "undeserved!") on YouTube.

There's....plenty....of pop r 'n' b stuff on there, which, to be fair, uses slick production techniques to the hilt, but it's not a genre that I much care for, at least not in its current state.

[dubdisciple]

The genre didn't bother me.  It was his cookie cutter approach towards mixing that gave me pause. 

[kitekrazy1]

3 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Scott has a niche there. He works in a genre that seems kind of underserved (not "undeserved!") on YouTube.

There's....plenty....of pop r 'n' b stuff on there, which, to be fair, uses slick production techniques to the hilt, but it's not a genre that I much care for, at least not in its current state.

You gotta make the kicks shine and make sure there is separation between guitar and bass.  I doubt it's as easy as one thinks.  My attention span can't handle 20 minute+ youtube videos so I don't know if there was am A/B comparison.

[Byron Dickens]

Some of y'all would do well if you would learn how to separate your personal tastes from objective evaluation.

I mean, I can't stand most of what passes for R&B or Country these days, but I think I can at least tell when it's well done.

[Zo]

lol just to be clear , i really know this style , and have friends doing it  .... i also worked with a lot of death metal artist back then since we were working or voices in horror core rap like crazy .... 

My comment was for fun , and as for material , judging plugins subtilities on those mixes is an instant pass for me  , not because of the style , but it's inability to realyy disaply plugin impact ....as simple as that .... 

Still laugthing at my own joke , can't help ....  

[Craig N]

7 hours ago, bitflipper said:

That stuff makes my throat hurt.

I'm not sure if you're saying it makes your throat hurt sympathetically or if you actually listen to any of this kind of music, but as someone who has had a great fondness for death metal and some of the less extreme black metal bands like Samael, it makes my throat hurt too. 

When I was in my teens through my thirties I could sing along (growl along?) with death or black metal, but now that I'm nearing 50, my voice just can't tolerate it for more than a few seconds - probably not a good sign for the health of the vocal cords. Just as well I don't listen to that kind of music anymore really.  

[mettelus]

I admittedly often run YT videos at 1.5 speed or higher and multitask while doing so, especially if they have any length to them. While the commenting can be useful, YT videos that are not scripted tend to just be closed and forgotten.

8 hours ago, bitflipper said:

Right after the Waves debacle, there were a whole cluster of videos on the theme of "how to dump Waves". This one was pretty extensive.

One thing mentioned in that video he could not find a replacement for was"MaxxBass" and he specifically mentioned harmonic generation. That is a specific focus for MCharacter, but not sure how they compare side-by-side for his usage ( I would "assume" it is comparable). That particular plugin has gotten way more use than I expected when I first found it. After almost 6 years of owning MComplete, I still have probably only tested 50% of Melda's plugins to 30% of their capacity. MDrummer still gives me grief though, every time I force myself to sit down and focus on that I run out of time and on reset have lost ground (the 2 steps forward, one step back routine). For just creating tracks it is akin to BIAB in that it will generate things fast (blistering fast), but when you dive into editing that or have a set purpose, it is not as easy (if focusing work inside MDrummer).

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by mettelus

[Starship Krupa]

6 hours ago, mettelus said:

MDrummer still gives me grief though, every time I force myself to sit down and focus on that I run out of time and on reset have lost ground (the 2 steps forward, one step back routine). For just creating tracks it is akin to BIAB in that it will generate things fast (blistering fast), but when you dive into editing that or have a set purpose, it is not as easy (if focusing work inside MDrummer).

Story checks out.

I like the way MDrummer sounds, and heaven knows it comes with enough samples to mean that I'll never have to worry about whether I can get a sound or not.

However, I've not been able to use it in any way except "pad mode" as a dumb sample player. All of the creating songs, yada yada is so far unfathomable.

The drum machine paradigm I'm used to is that the first couple of octaves on my keyboard are mapped closely to the GM kit standard, then they skip an octave and those keys start triggering different variations of whatever pattern you've got loaded. And there will be intro, outro, verse, chorus, fills and variations of these. No mode switching, you can play it as a drum kit with your left hand and trigger patterns with your right hand.

I know that MDrummer is full of great rhythms, whole songs even, and they're broken down into sections, but as far as being able to use those sections, I'm toast. I can get it as far as being able to play and loop one of its internal songs' intro, but only the intro. Can't figure out how to trigger the verse or chorus beats or anything else.

That's why I never bought it; what happened the first few times I tried it was that I somehow made it start playing and then couldn't shut it off, and I get unusually angry when I can't turn a racket-making device off (think Han Solo: "It was a boring conversation."). And I could never remember how to get it into pad mode. So I'd install it in demo mode, fail to understand why it wasn't responding to the GM keys, then maybe get it into pad mode for a little bit. Then I'd start clicking things, get an intro playing, forget how to put it back into pad mode and decide that having a canned drum pattern intro jamming away while I failed to figure out how to stop it short of muting its track was a sign that we were just not compatible. I don't usually buy things that anger me while I'm demo'ing them.

MeldaProduction's plug-ins are known for being complex, and often also having somewhat obscure controls. I'm a fan of them and I agree. Doesn't bother me until clicking one of those controls results in a canned drum intro racket that I can't stop.

I use Piano Roll and Step Sequencer to program beats anyway, so pad mode is fine until I have a free week or two to figure out its advanced features.

Here's the interface it presents when you first open it. The controls seem to have been placed just this side of "randomly," and see that little tiny "drum pad mode?" It vanishes once you switch to any view other than the optimistically-named "Quick Setup." 4 huge tree directories dominate the UI, and they are no labels on them indicating what they are listing (I finally figured them out via trial-and-error). As with all Melda plug-ins, clicking on the global help button opens a text file that starts with 1/2 page on how to load a global preset (which, BTW are not what is being shown in any of the 4 big columns), then each of the generic controls on the header....and it's just too depressing to try to wade into documentation this obtuse. It's a freaking drum machine, it has no right to be harder to figure out than Break Tweaker.

I think someone finally straightened out Vojtech on how people usually want to start with something simple and then only go to the advanced features when they want or need to really dig into something (I imagine him being someone who gets more of a thrill looking under the hood of a sports car than driving it) MDrummer is likely from before that time.