What VSTs or beat making tools does famous producers use?

W

westside2

Member
When I make beats in FL Studio, it doesn't sound professional.. Although I use good VSTs (like Nexus) and quality drum kits and good mix&mastering techniques, it still doesn't sound really professional.

For example, 50 cent - candyshop (produced by scott storch) beat.. Man it was created almost "10" YEARS ago but it's still great and very high quality sound and so clear. It's still impossible to make a beat like that for me. Furthermore I've been making beats for 6 years, I'm not that amateur either.

What tools and techniques did they use to make a professional beat like that?
 
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Scott Storch used to use the Yamah Motif for a lot of his beats. The major producers use the same thing as the up and comers, they might have couple people in their team help with mixing and mastering. Sure a lot of them create their own sounds from scratch too instead of relying on presets.
 
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Major trap producers use VSTs such as Omnisphere, Purity, Hypersonic, ElectraX and Nexus. This is only a handful that I have seen them use.
 
equalizers, filters etc.Synthesis is something that can be achieved built in the daws already, most romplers are just patches made with other vsts except alchemy and omnisphere, those are hybrid plugins like harmor is.You could also try that "shelving" thing.
 
hardware synth modules, played by real keyboard players,

guitars played by real guitarists,

bass guitars played by (you guessed it) real bass players,

drumkits played by (wait for it) real drummers

real brass played by real people

real strings played by real people and so it goes

in addition they would have used real hardware mixing and recording equipment if doing this more than 10 years ago, so a limited number of actual fx units as opposed to a plugin that can be dropped multiple times in the same session

as far as modern production goes they use the same things that we do to create and probably use protools (for no other reason that it was the first daw to make it into the big studios) for mixing/mastering
 
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Professional sound starts with a good composition and a good arrangement. Play a "pro" song with any quality vst and the outcome will still sound amazing.

"A poor workman blames his tools."
 
mycbeats said:
Professional sound starts with a good composition and a good arrangement. Play a "pro" song with any quality vst and the outcome will still sound amazing.

"A poor workman blames his tools."
Click to expand...

I think this is the most overlooked part. People get too caught up on what plugins to use and how to mix and master and what else before they actually get a good grasp on making music. If you can make good music, you can make good music with anything.
 
There are also plenty of big mainstream hits that are mostly just based on presets and (stock) plugins. It's not the gear...nor it doesn't have to involve an army of professional musicians.
 
Scott made this Beat with a Yamaha Motif. But you also can do those kind of Beats today with good VST´s.
But it not only depends on the VST´s you are using, its still importand how you effect and Mix your Instruments and how you Master your Beat.
 
May I suggest and guess these bro,

Rapture
Synthmaster
Sylenth1
Dimension Pro - Mo Phatt

Rekordhead said:
I think this is the most overlooked part. People get too caught up on what plugins to use and how to mix and master and what else before they actually get a good grasp on making music. If you can make good music, you can make good music with anything.
Click to expand...

I like dat! :) :D woot woot
 
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Maybe it's all about mix & mastering. And I am not that good at mix&mastering yet, maybe.. But my melodies and rythms are really good.
 
Maybe you can try letting one of your beats mixed and or mastered by a professional. You'll at least know if that was what's missing or not.
 
Search tiny desk concerts on youtube and you'll find that it's a lot more about who is playing than what they are playing. Same goes for producing in a DAW.

A common mistake that can kill a pro sound is we tend to add rather than take away when something doesn't sound just right. For example we stack up tons of effects when a track doesn't sound good, rather than simply trying to play it/compose it better. Or if the drums sound a little weak we might add a shaker or another hihat to make it sound fuller rather than making a tighter drum performance. Etc.

In the end it is much more complex to add more and more and more to make stuff sound better and we end up with busy mixes that fall apart. Spending time perfecting fewer tracks and making them jive together is a much simpler process (although does require good tracks to work with).

Try a less is more approach. Make tracks that are more pro but use less of them. If recording try to get the best take possible. Think about mic placement to replace post processing (i.e. EQ). When using VST instruments don't worry about getting the exact sound you're after but rather making the sound you find work well with the composition. And so on.


So rather than looking for more VST's or adding tracks to make things sound more pro, try the opposite approach. Use as few effects and eq as possible. Try to remove uneeded tracks.

Finally almost ALL the time spent working on a song should be away from 'the studio' FOr example bands don't just walk into a recording studio and start trying to write some tunes for their new album (although spontanious studio comps often happen). They don't walk out on stage and start jamming together hoping something cool comes up. Usually one or two of them will form a musical idea and develop it to some extent. Then the band will work on building it into a complete song. Then they practice it for months. Only once the song is fully composed and well practiced do they go into a recording studio to record it.

It is impractical to not use our DAW while composing and practicing songs (especially for solo producers) but if we take a more pro approach and think of music production on a DAW in similar steps, tracks will sound more pro.
 
you have to lock down monitoring first. studio monitors(or headphones) and a good audio interface. without those youre mixing kinda blindly. then arrangement. too many sounds can equal a messy mix. next you have to study the art of mixing. comping, eq, reverb, filtering, etc. you have to learn when to add and take away. then after all that look into mastering. you should never do it yourself. it'll be a biased situation. in other words keep researching. i research cause i dont know what else to read about lol.

but to get a professional mix (like on a major label project) you'll become lower on the totem pole. it'll take a team of ppl and things.

the equipment<the producer<the mixing engineer<the mastering engineer<the medium

sometimes you'll have to throw the artist in there too(sarcasm) him/her can b apart of a good mix too.
 
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Scott made/makes great compositions then hands the beats over to be recorded on (vocal artists) then those were mixed and mastered by professionals
 
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