Category: Tutorials

We’ve just launched the Tuts+ Marketplace, where Premium quality tutorials – both from our Tuts+ Premium program and from unaffiliated authors – are available to purchase individually. Our Tuts+ Premium program will still stay exactly the same – you’ll get all the same things, for the same price. But now, non-members will be able to purchase selected Premium tutorials on a one-off basis, without a Premium membership. Continue reading “Introducing the Tuts+ Marketplace – Making Premium Accessible to Everyone”

At Audiotuts+ we regularly put up a reader track for workshopping and critique (find out how to submit a track). This is how it works: you upload your song, and every week or so we’ll publish one here and step away from the podium. The floor is yours to talk about the track and how the artist can fix problems in and improve upon the mix and the song.

This track has been submitted for your friendly, constructive criticism. They have put their track (and their heart and soul) in your hands to learn and get useful feedback.

• Do you enjoy the song or track itself? Does it have potential?
• Can the arrangement be improved?
• How did you find the mix? What would you do differently?
• What do you enjoy about the rhythm track? What can be done to improve it?
• Is the choice of instruments relevant and effective for the style/song?
• Are the lyrics (if any) effective? Does the style, arrangement and genre of the song suit them?
• Can you suggest any specific techniques that might improve the track?
• Do you have any other constructive feedback?

In the Dead of Night by Fragments Of Winter

Artist’s website: www.fragmentsofwinter.com

Description of the track:

I first recorded the demo of this song in a rush, just to be sure to remember it in the future; it was a snippet, so sometimes I would play it in loop over and over just to see if it was good enough. Well, I loved to listen to the snippet for really long times, so I ended up wanting the song to be very steady and kind of repetitive, more like an ambiance background music.

Download audio file (Skyrockets03InTheDeadOfNight.mp3)

Terms of Use: Users can stream the track for the purposes of giving feedback but cannot download or redistribute it.

Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.

Submit Your Tracks for Workshopping

Need constructive criticism on your own tracks? Submit them using this form.

This tutorial will discuss why some people people prefer monitors over headphones – and vice versa. I’ll start by explaining a little about true stereo and binaural recordings to help you understand. I’ll then talk about monitors and headphones, give my opinion, and recommend some studio monitors.

Binaural Recording and True Stereo

A binaural recording is made using a dummy head or your own head. What they do is put microphones in your ears that are attached to a portable recorder. From this you will record things as you hear it.

For example, when having your hair shaved you will hear it very differently compared to the person shaving your head. And the same principal as a trumpet player who will hear the trumpet differently to someone standing in front of it.

The best example of this is possibly that people sound different in their own head. This is because they get the vibrations of their skull, reverb off the walls and because their ear is on their head not in front of their mouth.

I’m sure most of you will have heard the binaural haircut recording. This should be listened in headphones because it’s binaural and will make it sound like its actually happening to you. It will not work with monitors because it won’t be how you hear it – it’s not in your ears so its not happening in your head and it won’t work in mono.

Now the problem with headphones is that the center of stereo is right in front of you isn’t it, so how can you have sound be dead in the center when headphones only give you left and right, there is no center meaning it makes it sound like the music’s in your head and not in the room.

Monitors

So we’ve talked a little about binaural recordings and how the center of a stereo mix in headphones doesn’t really exists, which is why things sound different in headphones and monitors.

The problem with monitors is that the sound of mixing on monitors can vary room by room because of natural reverb unless you’re mixing in a totally dry environment, also if you’re doing home recording, have a family and far too busy to do mixing during the day I’m sure they won’t appreciate you mixing on monitors.

Most people prefer monitors. But why? It’s usually so they can have it loud. Everything sounds better loud, but this isn’t how you should mix check my 3 Mixing Tips to read about it.

It also has something to do with what I like to call “True Stereo”. As I mentioned above you have your left, right, front and possibly rear if you’re doing 5.1 surround sound mixing, compared to just left and right with headphone mixing. Monitors are also more expensive than headphones, and to buy a good subwoofer usually costs more than the monitors themselves.

Headphones

Don’t be put off getting headphones just yet though! Many people use headphones to mix with, and it works well for them. You can buy specially made headphones specifically for mixing audio that work great, but you will still have the true stereo problem. Headphones usually have a weak low end, so your bass will usually get muddy on a headphone mix. Shadowing is another common problem with headphone mixing.

Shadowing is the overspill of left and right speakers reaching both your ears – you can hear the right speaker in your left ear and vice versa. But with headphones the sound is isolated to just one ear. There are plug-ins that can help try and give you the shadowing effect of listening to monitors through headphones, but they’re not perfect. One freeware shadowing plug-in is by Vellocet.

It is surprising how much it can affect the quality of your mix when you listen back on a decent stereo monitor setup. You will realise that it sounded better in headphones, but if you mixed on monitors first it would be the other way around. Headphones are great for listening in detail, noticing clicks and distortion. Many people do great jobs of mixing with headphones, and it’s great for checking your monitor mix for anything that’s missing. It will let you hear the song from a different perspective.

My Vote

My vote would go with a decent set of monitors, but also use headphones for those late night mixing sessions, for a different perspective on your mix, and listening for detail. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on a decent set of monitors.

DONT BE AFRAID TO BUY SECOND HAND! Many people sell to upgrade and there is nothing wrong with the equipment they are selling.

Recommended Monitors

Tannoy Reveal 5A’s

£250-300 pair (new)

These monitors have a great low end for small monitors without a sub. They are favoured by mastering engineers, and have a range over 30kHz without making everything sound too bright. Many mastering and mixing engineers favour these over Genelecs for price and quality. They are neutral and balanced well for detailed listening, pick up a pair second hand and you’ll have no end of fun.

Amazon: $349 each

Genelec 6010A & 5040A (Sub)

£199 per speaker (new)
£399 sub-woofer (new)

These monitors are the far more expensive option, but if you’ve got the budget these are great monitors with 2-way active speakers and onboard amps. They have a 76mm woofer and a 19mm tweeter that have 12 Watts each. The set has crossover filters and protection circuitry and then the big boy of the set is the mushroom shaped sub-woof with 40 Watts of power, and goes down to 35Hz, which is plenty. It has its own volume control that will operate the whole system. This thing will give even more expensive monitors a challenge. But for £800 ($1,202 approx) roughly overall it better do a good job.

Amazon: $639 pair or $1,250.50 with sub

Usually, editing is overlooked as a part of audio production. It’s not that engineers don’t know what it is, it’s just that it’s looked at the same way a chef would look at doing the dishes. It’s boring. It’s tedious and tiresome to go through each and every track to spot the glitches, pops and abnormal volume changes.

That said, here are some effective editing tips you can keep in mind the next time you finished recording and are deciding to dive into the mixing phase.

http://www.sxc.hu/profile/sibaudio

Tip 1: Edit Before You Start Mixing

The best way to approach a mix is if all the tracks are edited and sounding the best they can. If you dedicate a part of your session to editing your tracks the mixing aspect will be easier and more enjoyable.

Tip 2: Cut Out Any Background Noise Between Phrases

Go through all your tracks and listen to the silences between phrases.

Most of the time, especially with vocal tracks, the parts that look like silences in your DAW do have noise, very quiet breaths and the occasional lyric sheet being turned. And guess what happens when you add compression to those vocals? The noise floor goes up and now the noise is even more audible.

Tip 3: Use Fades Effectively

Sometimes, when you have a quiet backing track and suddenly you introduce more instrument to the mix, the volume change might sound abnormal. By using fades you can minimize the aural unexpectedness of adding more instruments to a mix.

Tip 4: Cut At the Zero Point

The zero point is the point in the waveform where the positive and negative side of a wave meet. This is where the volume of the wave is zero. By cutting here you can avoid clicks and pops in your audio.

Tip 5: Raise the Volume of Individual Phrases

If some phrases of a track sound much louder or quieter than the rest, rather than compressing the whole track to lower the dynamic range try raising or lowering the individual phrases. That way your compression will be more effective over the track as a whole.

Tip 6: Move Regions for Quick Fixes

If a phrase or two don’t sound completely in the pocket or a drum hit doesn’t come exactly on the beat, there is nothing wrong with a little digital magic and moving a phrase here or there if it’s just for quick fixes. But if you’re spending most of your time moving a complete bass track here or there usually you’re better off recording the whole part again.

Tip 7: Copy/Paste

The beauty of doing things in the digital domain is that you can copy and paste parts to other sections in the song.

Say your singer has a cold and his voice breaks after the first chorus, or you want to copy a guitar part to another place in the chorus. Maybe you can fly the chorus vocal into the intro parts to create a completely new arrangement. It’s very easy and quick to try out new arrangements by copying and pasting like this.

Tip 8: Use A.D.T.

In a similar vein, using artificial double tracking to double a part is an easy part of editing. Just copy and paste a phrase and displace it a few milliseconds after the original to create this effect.

Tip 9: Use Mutes

By cutting up regions into their respective intro, verse, chorus parts etc. you can create dynamics and anticipation throughout the songs.

Say you have a lonely vocal in the first verse, a doubled one in the chorus and then various harmonizations for the rest of the track. By muting some vocals and then introducing them sporadically you can create a type of suspense.

Tip 10: Get It Over With

Editing can be boring. But it’s worth it – get it over with. When you have clean tracks, devoid of background noise, fades that compliment your tracks and innovative arrangements by experimenting with regions you can clearly see how the benefits of editing reveal themselves.

In this week’s Audio Premium content, Ryan Leach explores how you can use music to express feelings and ideas in a completely intangible way. He takes a detailed step-by-step approach, with full examples including notation and audio examples.

To learn more about what you get as part of Audio Premium, read this. To take a peek inside this tutorial, hit the jump!

One of the greatest things about music is it’s ability to express feelings and ideas in a completely intangible way. Music can convey ideas as disparate as water, springtime, machinery, melancholy, and exuberance. When you’re just starting out as a composer or songwriter, using instrumental music to express specific ideas can be a daunting and overwhelming task.

The purpose of this tutorial is to present a step-by-step process you can use to convey a non-musical idea in musical terms. It is by no means the only approach, and often times pure intuition is the best way to go, but it’s a logical and easy way for a beginning composer or songwriter to get started.

I’ll begin by briefly discussing the basic idea of program music, and then go on to the step-by-step process, followed by a few examples of putting the process into use.

Here’s the kind of music you’ll be able to create once you harness the knowledge inside:

Download audio file (example.mp3)

Table of Contents

• Absolute vs. Program Music
• Program Music Today
• Step 1 – Know What You’re Trying To Say
• Step 2 – Rhythm
• Step 3 – Harmony
• Step 4 – Melody
• Step 5 – Orchestration
• Example – Step 1 – Sorrow
• Example – Step 2 – Rhythm
• Example – Step 3 – Harmony
• Example – Step 4 – Melody
• Example – Step 5 – Orchestration
• Example – Filling out the piece
• Conclusion

Existing Premium members can log-in and download. Not a Plus member? Join now.

At Audiotuts+ we regularly put up a reader track for workshopping and critique (find out how to submit a track). This is how it works: you upload your song, and every week or so we’ll publish one here and step away from the podium. The floor is yours to talk about the track and how the artist can fix problems in and improve upon the mix and the song.

This track has been submitted for your friendly, constructive criticism. They have put their track (and their heart and soul) in your hands to learn and get useful feedback.

• Do you enjoy the song or track itself? Does it have potential?
• Can the arrangement be improved?
• How did you find the mix? What would you do differently?
• What do you enjoy about the rhythm track? What can be done to improve it?
• Is the choice of instruments relevant and effective for the style/song?
• Are the lyrics (if any) effective? Does the style, arrangement and genre of the song suit them?
• Can you suggest any specific techniques that might improve the track?
• Do you have any other constructive feedback?

Monolation by Sigi Mueller

Artist’s website: www.sigimusic.com

Description of the track:

An electronic song I wrote while listening and researching the early development of electronic music.

Download audio file (Monolation.mp3)

Terms of Use: Users can stream the track for the purposes of giving feedback but cannot download or redistribute it.

Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.

Submit Your Tracks for Workshopping

Need constructive criticism on your own tracks? Submit them using this form.

In the second part of Guitar Amp Simulators 101, we looked ways of using different amplifier, cabinet and microphone models, as well as some of the more advanced amplifier settings, to achieve specific goals in designing a guitar sound. In this third part, I’m going to guide you through some slightly more complex virtual guitar rigs, focussing on blending sounds and using more advanced cabinet and speaker modelling to achieve more realistic sounds.

As before, the focus is on Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig though, this time, I’ll include some 3rd party cabinet and microphone models, too. So grab your guitar, fire up your DAW, and let’s dive in!

Depth and Texture

It’s probably fair to say that most rock and pop recordings make use of multiple, distinct guitar sounds, whether discretely and in specific applications, for example, producing distorted sounds with a big 50 Watt half-stack and clean sounds with a vintage Vox AC30, or by blending tones throughout all or part of a song. Of course, in bands with two or more guitarists (or, at least, arrange songs for two distinct guitar parts), this blending happens naturally, though even there, there is potential to blend sounds by using multiple cabinets and microphones for each guitar.

The point being that, unless you’re aiming for a very raw, uncomplicated sound, you’re almost certainly going to achieve better results by blending multiple tones.

As we saw in the last part of this series, cabinets and microphones can have as much or even more to do with the overall sound than the amplifier itself. You’ll remember that we blended the warm, rich tones of a Marshall Plexi model with a brighter sounding 2×12 Fender style cabinet model, and further tweaked the tone by blending two distinct microphone sounds. By extending this principle to encompass blending whole, distinct set-ups, we can achieve the rich, thick textures and vibrant sounds we hear in professional recordings.

To hear this principle in practice, try listening to some of your favourite recordings while rolling the balance control between hard left and right. As you do this, you should be able to pick out multiple distinct guitar tones. It’s not uncommon, especially with hard rock and metal, to be able to discern that the overall guitar sound is actually a blend of two or more sounds which, on their own, sound too extreme – too bright, dark, distorted, clean, etc. – but the sum of them is just right, and much richer and more interesting than anything you could produce with only one tone.

These are the principles that this tutorial is based on, so let’s work through them one at a time.

Horses for Courses

The most basic application of our basic idea is using distinct amplifier models for specific tasks. We could roughly divide common guitar applications into the following, potentially overlapping categories:

• Clean
• Overdriven
• Distorted
• Rhythm
• Lead

So far so obvious, but the point is that each is an individual job and may best be served by different tools. Since, with modelling software, we have near limitless options, there’s no reason to make the sort of compromises that most of us have to make in a live situation, so we can go ahead and use as many amps as we like to get a rich complement of sounds.

Read More

This article is about a quick and effective technique for capturing inspiration in a practical way that quickly translates into an actual song. This is one way to start a track with a vision you will want to finish.

Step 1

First, set the tempo, and record yourself singing your idea into the closest microphone you can find. It doesn’t have to be high-quality or anything spectacular, as we won’t be using the audio in the final song. The goal is just to capture an idea that can be worked with.

Download audio file (01BeatboxWalkthrough.mp3)

Step 2

Next, adjust the file so that it is synced with the track, slice the audio file and arrange it if you’d like. If your idea is too complex to capture in one take, feel free to overdub a second part. Playlist markers can aid in showing different parts of the song.

Step 3

Leaving the audio untouched, create a drum pattern that supports your sung idea. An advantage to starting songs this way is that you might end up making better drum patterns that are designed to support something else, rather than drums that sound good solo but not necessarily with additional instruments.

Download audio file (02BeatboxWalkthrough.mp3)

Step 4

Now it’s time to start replacing that idea file. Mute it, and depending your preferences, add a bass or lead instrument first. Because I’m going for Dubstep, bass is more prominent, so I started by adding a couple bass patterns that imitate my sung idea.

Download audio file (03BeatboxWalkthrough.mp3)

Power Tip

Right now you may be wondering how strict you should adhere to your sung idea file. It’s okay to take the approach of following your sketch exactly, perhaps using a pitch analysis program to be sure you follow it note-for-note, but it’s often easier to use it as a general guideline, or abandon it entirely at this point. Being able to change direction to something that sounds better gives you the freedom to focus on what really matters, which is the end result.

Step 6

Lastly, consider adding a couple more instruments to your track. Add a lead or a bass depending on what the track needs, and consider adding some cymbals or sound effects to create anticipation. In my example, I added some zaps and a flute instrument.

Download audio file (04BeatboxWalkthrough.mp3)

I’ve found that this is a great technique for starting songs, and I hope you will try it and see if it’s useful for you. If you are curious to hear how the track further developed, please listen at this link.

What are you working on at the moment?

Each weekend we open our mic to readers and lurkers alike to come out of the woodwork and tell us your thoughts and opinion, your experiences and mistakes, what you love and what you hate. We want to hear from you, and here’s your chance.

What audio projects are you working on at the moment? Let us know about them.

Are they for fun or fortune? What software are you using? What will the finished product look like?

Are you doing all the tracking yourself, or recording a band, or getting help from other musos? Are you trying any new techniques or approaches?

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?

FL Studio (formerly “Fruityloops”) is a DAW by Image-Line currently only available for Windows. The program’s strength is its pattern-based philosophy which it inherited from its MIDI drum machine pedigree. The program has continued to evolve over the years, and now has features that rival other popular DAWs. The different editions of the program range in price from USD$49 to $499.

This article was previously published on the AudioJungle blog. We’ll be bringing you an article from the archives each week.

This is our fourteenth article in the series “Exploring Digital Audio Workstations”. If you’ve missed the earlier articles, you can find them here:

1. Exploring Digital Audio Workstations
2. Discover Pro Tools LE
3. 11 Essential Pro Tools Tutorials
4. Discover Logic Pro
5. 11 of the Best Tutorials for Logic Pro
6. Discover Propellerhead’s Reason
7. 18 Reason Tutorials That Cover All the Bases
8. Discover Steinberg’s Cubase 5
9. 20 Instructive Cubase Tutorials
10. Discover Cakewalk’s SONAR
11. 14 Tutorials that Make Using SONAR a Piece of Cake
12. Discover Ableton Live
13. 17 Amazing Ableton Live Tutorials

Now let’s have a look at FL Studio.

History and Background

Fruityloops had humble beginnings in 1998 as a MIDI-only drum editor. Version 1.0 of the program was never released. If you enjoy playing with old technology, you can still download the program from a link at the bottom of Image-Line’s FL Studio History page.

Over the eleven years since then features have been continually added until it became the fully functional virtual studio we know and love today. The change of names from “Fruityloops” to “FL Studio” reflects this change.

FL Studio is still centered around a pattern-based sequencer, and this emphasis gives the program a different workflow to other professional DAWs. I haven’t used the program extensively myself, but I have watched my kids play with Fruityloops for hours at a time. They seemed to enjoy the way it worked, and found it easy to create some (basic and repetitive) songs. If you’ve tried FL Studios, do you love or hate this different way of working?

FL Studio is produced by Image-Line, a Belgian company who focus on audio software. The program is currently only available for Microsoft Windows, and the latest version, FL Studio 9, was released just a couple of months ago. Most significantly, this version added multithreaded generators and effects. In a welcome move, they are starting to work on Mac versions of their software.

FL Studio’s Features

The FL Studio features page lists the following features across the various editions of the program:

Plugin support

• Multi-out VSTi, Rewire & DXi softsynths
• VST & DX effects
• FPC: Fruity Pad Controller
• FL Studio Generators & FX
• Usable as multi-out VSTi client in hosts like Cubase
• Usable as multi-out ReWire client in hosts like Sonar
• Usable as multi-out DXi client in hosts like Sonar

Midi support

• Use external midi keyboards & midi controllers
• Import & export midi files
• MIDI SysEx input and basic MMC functions

Audio support

• Full audiotracks with WAV form display
• Reads .WAV, .MP3, .SYN, .DS, .Speech files
• Edison Wave Editor ($99 value) included
• ASIO-in recording

Music creation

• Step sequencer with integrated Piano keyboard
• Pianoroll (allowing chords)
• Full realtime recording & automation of all parameters
• Internal controllers
• Arpeggiator
• Automatic slicer (that reads .REX files)
• More than 15 generators (softsynths) included
• Over 40 HQ FX (effects) included
• Pattern (midi) clips in the playlist

Automation

• Pattern-based event automation
• Envelope automation of all parameters in playlist

Mixer & FX rack

• 99 Insert & 4 Send Tracks with 8 FX channels each
• Post FX Parametric EQ, Volume, Pan, VU meter
• Full FX (re)routing

Updates & Online features

• Lifetime Free updates
• Download more than 2GB of HQ samples on SampleFusion
• Watch dozens of online Video Tutorials
• Exchange songs & tips with users & developers in our forums

Output support

• Directsound
• Multi-out ASIO
• Midi out
• Render to .WAV (16bit, 24bit or 32bit)
• Render to .MP3 (32kbit up to 320kbit)
• Render to .OGG (32kbit up to 450kbit)
• Render separate ‘stems’ for each mixer track

Generators/Softsynths/FX

• FL versions of SimSynth Live, DX-10, DrumSynth, WASP, WASP XT, SynthMaker Player
• Delay, Delay Bank, Equo, Flangus, Love Philter, Vocoder, Parametric EQ & EQ2, Multiband Compressor, Spectroman, Stereo Enhancer, Wave Candy, Wave Shaper, Soundgoodizer
• FL SynthMaker Full, Slicex, Vocodex
• 3xOsc, Sampler, BooBass, Beepmap, Plucked, Fruit Kick, Chrome ,FPC, WaveTraveller, Dashboard, KB Controller,Fruity Vibrator, Midi Out, FL Slayer, FL Keys, Granuliser
• DirectWave Player
• Maximus, Hardcore, VideoPlayer, Sytrus, Soundfont player, DirectWave Sampler
• Deckadance, Poizone, Toxic Biohazard, Morphine, Gross Beat, Ogun, Sawer

Included content

• +1900 presets using 600 wav files
• Generic Sample CD
• $49 Virtual Cash card

But Image-Line don’t just want you learning about the features from a boring list. They make a fully-functional demo version of FL Studio available for download, though the link doesn’t seem to be working a the time of writing.

Moving away from software features, some unique aspects of the software are that it comes with free software upgrades for life, and has some very affordable editions.

User Comments

What do FL Studio users think of the product? Here are some comments by users and reviewers that I found around the Net. I’d love to hear from you in the comments too.

• “FL Studio offers a tremendous value for what you get. Comparable products cost nearly twice as much. FL Studio’s quirky sound generators and interoperability make it a great addition to any studio. Be warned, though: several versions of FL Studio are available, so more features are included as the price goes up.” (CNET Staff)
• “This is a very high quality professional studio for music production. It does not take a lot of space compared to other programs like Cubase. It works faster and has a easy and intuitive feel to it which accelerates learning. Other programs seem to be very hard to learn. Free unlimited updates rock!” (michalkun)
• “i dont mind FL’s look i just wish that the vsti thing was set up like cubases and other daws are. i dont want a vst to be set on a certain channel i want it to be in its own host so you can set the channels accordingly. now for the library i think that their best synth is morphine (i actually use it) and for the drums and stuff it doesnt even matter cause i dont even use i never use any daw stock sounds (besides reason). Reason is supposed to have good sounds out the box because it doesnt allow any 3rd party synthisizers or vsts to work within it. so yeah pretty much fix that vsti thing and it will be ok in my book.” (Cheta)
• “Fruity Loops has long proven that not all music making apps have to look the same way. FL is quirky and different. Its editing interface is built as much around step sequencers and pattern sequencing as the conventional, mixer and audio-tape-derived views. But perhaps some of its real draw is that it packs, in its mid-level-and-higher packages, it’s packed with fascinating and unusual sonic toys. FL 9 looks to continue that tradition. And because it’s FL, if you’ve ever bought FL, you get a free lifetime upgrade to this version. (Seriously, if you’re pirating FL, stop. You have absolutely no excuse.)” (Peter Kirn, Create Digital Music.com)
• “With a newly-designed, graphically-driven interface, customizable workflows and workspaces and intuitive MIDI mapping features, quickly recording and editing or composing and sequencing MIDI files is a facile process, far removed from the rough-hewn, guesswork that typified MIDI software programs and applications nary a decade ago. With 255 ports available for MIDI data, as well as automated features like MIDI “Master Sync” and stops/starts-on-a-dime synchronization features, performing MIDI-related tasks is virtually a plug-and-play affair for the initial recording process, while its composition, sequencing and editing features streamline the other processes to take loops, parts or entire projects from scraps, bits and loose threads to ergonomically-sealed quilts.” (TopTenREVIEWS)

Have you used FL Studio? Do you love it or hate it? What are your favorite features? Let us know in the comments.

At Audiotuts+ we regularly put up a reader track for workshopping and critique (find out how to submit a track). This is how it works: you upload your song, and every week or so we’ll publish one here and step away from the podium. The floor is yours to talk about the track and how the artist can fix problems in and improve upon the mix and the song.

This track has been submitted for your friendly, constructive criticism. They have put their track (and their heart and soul) in your hands to learn and get useful feedback.

• Do you enjoy the song or track itself? Does it have potential?
• Can the arrangement be improved?
• How did you find the mix? What would you do differently?
• What do you enjoy about the rhythm track? What can be done to improve it?
• Is the choice of instruments relevant and effective for the style/song?
• Are the lyrics (if any) effective? Does the style, arrangement and genre of the song suit them?
• Can you suggest any specific techniques that might improve the track?
• Do you have any other constructive feedback?

Life Form II by Dmitry Glushenko

Artist’s website: alonetone.com/dmitryglushenko

Description of the track:

A track performed exclusively by Cubase VST resources. I look forward to your opinions and criticism with a view to improve my future recordings. Thanks!

Download audio file (02LifeFormII.mp3)

Terms of Use: This track may be downloaded.

Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.

Submit Your Tracks for Workshopping

Need constructive criticism on your own tracks? Submit them using this form.

Tonight at 7pm CST we will be streaming a live video feed from our Envato Community Night here in Chicago. This will give you a chance to “hang out” with the Envato staff as we have an informal meet and greet with those who use the sites. Each site editor/manager, including myself, will make a point to come over and say hello. For those who can’t make it, we’ll record the stream for you to go back and watch later.

Update: Recordings Added

For those of you who couldn’t watch the video live, feel free to watch the recordings below.

Introduction: Part 1

Q & A Time: Part 2

Sometimes certain scenes are too expensive, dangerous, or even impossible to photograph. This is when people often turn to Photoshop. In only a little bit of time, you can create a very realistic looking image. Today we will be learning how to create an eerie underwater scene. So, get your scuba gear on and let’s get started!

Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.

• Bubble Brush
• Ocean Background
• Shark
• Turtle
• Coral

Step 1

We are going to first open up the background ocean image, as this will dictate how large our canvas is going to be. You can do this by either dragging and dropping the image icon onto your Photoshop icon, or go to File > Open.

Step 2

Once the background is opened in Photoshop, go to: Image > Image Size. In the popup box, we are only going to modify the Width. Set the width to: 630px.

Step 3

Before you can modify the background image, you are going to need to unlock it. We can do this by double clicking on the layer in the layer panel and by clicking "OK" on the "New Layer" popup.

Step 4

Once the background is unlocked, you can go ahead and drag it down, just until the bright rocks on the bottom are no longer visible. This will allow us to add more water to the top portion of the image. Grab your marquee selection tool and select the bottom portion of the image up to below the waves in the water, and then click the "mask" button in your layers panel.

Step 5

Select the top portion of the water and click "Cmd/Ctrl + J" on your keyboard to duplicate the selection to a new layer. Move the layer up just slightly and scale it upwards just so it covers about half of the transparent portion of the canvas.

Click "Cmd/Ctrl + J" one more time, to duplicate that layer. Take this layer, and move it upwards until it reaches the top of the canvas. Don’t worry about the water looking a little stretched. That won’t be noticeable once we are finished.

Step 6

Now that we have the background filled in, we have to work on the bottom edges of the new layers that we created in the last step. We can do this very simply by using layer masks once again. We do this by clicking on the layer in the layers panel and then click the "mask" button. A new thumbnail image of a white box will appear next to the layer thumbnail.

You will now need to select a midsize brush with a hardness of 0%. We are going to use this brush to gently paint the bottom portion of the selected layer. By doing this, it will make the layer blend in. You will have to repeat this step for both of the water layers.

Step 7

Import the Shark image. You can do this by going to File > Place and navigating to the shark image. Or you can just simply drag and drop the image from your folder directly onto your Photoshop document. Once it is imported, scale the shark to size, and then place it on the right side of the image about halfway up the image.

Step 8

Now it’s time to remove the background from the shark image. We are going to do this exactly like we did in step 6, with the mask tool. Click on the shark layer and then click the "mask" button in your layer’s panel. With a small brush slowly erase around the entire shark, removing the background. The closer you get to the shark, the better the final image will look.

Step 9

You can leave the shark as-is, but I prefer to give the shark more of a gray look. We are going to accomplish this by creating 2 duplicates of the shark and modifying them slightly. First step is to select your current shark layer and changing the Blending Mode to "overlay". You can do this by clicking the box with the word "Normal". This box is located at the top of your layers panel.

Duplicate that current layer (Cmd/Ctrl + J), change the Blending Mode to "Hard Light". We are going to want to "Desaturate" this layer. You can do this simply by clicking "Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + U", or you can do it the hard way by going to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. This will turn the image black and white. Duplicate the desaturated layer (Cmd/Ctrl + J) and change the layer mode back to "Normal", but this time change the "Opacity" to 60%.

Step 10

Now it’s time to give the background a dark eerie look. Create a new layer above the water background layers and fill it with black. Then grab a very large eraser brush (about 1000 px) and erase the top left portion of the black background. Lower the opacity of this layer to about 65%. Create one more layer and fill it with black. Using the same size eraser brush, erase the top right portion of the layer. This time lower the opacity to 80%.

Step 11

We now have 8 layers in our layers palette and it is looking a little sloppy. We can quickly organize it by selecting the 3 shark layers and clicking "Cmd/Ctrl + G". This will create a new folder with those layers in it. Lets do the same for the 5 background layers (2 black layers and 3 background image layers).

Step 12

At this point, our scene is looking pretty empty. Lets fix this by duplicating the shark and giving him 2 friends. Select the "Shark" folder and drag it down to the "New layer" icon on the bottom of the layers palette. Go ahead and add one just above the current shark and then another on the left side of the canvas. Mess with the opacity and scaling of the shark to give the sharks more "depth".

Step 13

Now that the sharks are all placed, we need to give them a couple of friends, turtles. Go ahead and load the turtle image into Photoshop, exactly like you did with the shark image. At the moment, the turtle is swimming towards the left. We are going to flip the image horizontal so the turtle is swimming towards the right. We can rotate the image horizontal by going to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.

Step 14

We need to now remove the background from the turtle image. We do this the exact same way as we did with the shark. Create a layer mask and then just paint around the turtle. This time, we want to leave a little bit of the coral that is under the turtle. You also want to mask a small amount of the background on the edges of coral. This way there are no hard edges.

Step 15

As you can see, the turtle stands out pretty badly. We need to do pretty much exactly like we did with the shark. Set the turtle layer’s blending mode to "Overlay" and set the opacity to 60%. Duplicate the turtle layer by clicking Cmd/Ctrl + J. Then set that layer to "Hard Light" with an opacity of 100%. As you can see, the turtle is standing out still, we need desaturate that layer. You can do this by clicking "Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + U", or going to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

Step 16

One final step for the "Hard Light" layer, is to slightly mask the bottom portion of it. We can do this by clicking on the "mask" thumbnail on the layer. Then with a black brush with the size of about 300px and a hardness of 0%, gently paint the bottom half of the turtle and coral. This will help make the turtle and coral blend in with the background Now, take both of those layers and put them into their own folder called "Turtle / Coral". You can do this by selecting both layers and clicking "Cmd/Ctrl + G".

Step 17

The turtle feels a bit out-numbered because there are so many sharks, so lets give him a friend. You can make a copy of the turtle, just like we did with the shark, by dragging it to the "new layer" button at the bottom of the layers pallet.

The problem with just cloning the turtle is that it has the little bit of coral at the bottom of the image, so we are going to have to remove that. Rather than redoing all of the previous steps, we are going to just add a layer mask to the folder. You can do this by clicking the folder, and just like with a layer, you click the "mask" button at the bottom of the layers pallet. With the mask created, paint away the rest of the coral with a small brush. Now, you can place the turtle at the upper left corner of the canvas. I recommend scaling, rotating and lowering the opacity to give it some depth.

Step 18

There is one more image for us to work with. This will just be repeating the exact same steps as the turtle. Go ahead and load up the Coral image and place it on the lower right corner of the canvas. Mask out the background, just like we did with the other images. With this image, all we have to do is change the layer Blending Mode to "Overlay" with an Opacity of 40%.

Step 19

Now that we are done with the images, we can begin adding a little detail. We are going to add bubbles to the water, to give some character to the fish. First, we will have to load the bubble brushes. You do this by right clicking the canvas. In the brush selection pop-up, click the arrow on the top right, go down to "Preset Manager." In the "Preset Manager" window, make sure your Preset Type is on "Brushes", then click on the "Load" button and load the brush file.

Step 20

Your brushes are now loaded, but painting 1 bubble at a time would take way too much time. We can save time by simply modifying the brush. Click "F5" to open your brush menu, or go to Window > Brush. Select the bubble brush with the number "690." In this window we are going to do the following: Size: 6px – Spacing: 210%. On the left, click "Shape Dynamics." Size Jitter: 30% – Minimum Diameter: 10% – Angle Jitter: 10% – Roundness Jitter: 20% – Minimum Roundness: 25%. On the left, click "Scattering." Scatter: 1000% – Count: 1 – Count Jitter: 18%. You don’t have to worry about any other settings.

Step 21

Now that your brush is set, create a new layer and make sure your brush color is white. Then paint the bubbles. I like to give 1 to 2 rows of bubbles (vertical rows) by each mouth and gills. You can also add a few in the background. Pretty much anywhere you feel bubbles should be placed. Feel free to play with the brush size. Once your bubbles are brushed, lower the bubble layer’s Opacity to about 20% to 30%.

Step 22

We need to go back to a "default" paintbrush. You can do this by right clicking the canvas and in the brush selection menu, just select one of the round brushes at the top. Set the size to about: 35px and make sure the hardness is 0%. Create a new layer and make sure your brush color is white. Now, we are going to paint "rays" coming from the top right of the canvas.

Step 23

We need to now make the sunrays blend in quite a bit better. First step is to add noise to them. You can do this by going to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Make the amount 16%. Then add Gaussian Blur. Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Make the Radius 22.0 pixels. Lower the layer Opacity to about: 20%. If you feel that the light rays are a little too "heavy", you can create a layer mask, and gently mask out certain portions of the rays. For example: the bottom edges, and parts that intersect with the fish.

Final Image

Congratulations, you have successfully created an eerie underwater scene.

Recreating electronic devices in Photoshop is a great way to learn. Today, we will demonstrate how to create a Motorola Droid style phone in Photoshop. Let’s get started!

Step 1

Start by creating a new 2000 x 2000 px canvas and save it as "phone.psd." Use the Pen Tool to the outer silhouette of the device. Make sure it is black. Name it MAIN BG.

Step 2

With the Pen Tool, draw a shape for each main section of the phone. Notice that we are leaving a small gap between the shapes to give the illusion of separate parts. Organize your shapes in groups ( Cmd/Ctrl + G ), and rename the layers as seen below.

Step 3

Now make the side of the phone and again organize and rename them as shown below. It is very important to keep your layers organized because this project requires many layers.

Step 4

Now that we have defined the main parts of the phone, let’s start adding some shading. Double click the "Front / bottom / 1" layer , and apply a Gradient Overlay with the settings shown on the image below. Drag the mouse onto the canvas, and with the Layer Styles Window open and Gradient Overlay selected, reposition your gradient.

Step 5

Duplicate the "Front / bottom / 1" layer (Cmd/Ctrl + J), rename the duplicate to "2", and apply a Gradient Overlay and Inner Shadow with the settings shown on the image below. Press OK.

Step 6

Close the "Front / bottom" group. Select and double click the "Front / center / 1" layer. Apply a Gradient Overlay with the same settings on the picture below. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 7

Duplicate the "Front / Center / 1" layer (Cmd/Ctrl + J), rename the duplicate to "2", and double click to apply a Gradient Overlay with the settings seen on the following image. Press OK.

Step 8

Close the "Center Group" and select the "Front / Top /1" layer. Double click it to apply the Gradient Overlay with the settings of the image below. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Remember you can drag on the stage to move the gradient while the Layer Style Window is open and Gradient Overlay is selected.

Step 9

Duplicate the "Front / Top /1" layer ( Cmd/Ctrl + J) , rename the duplicate to "2", and double click to apply a Gradient Overlay with the settings seen on the image below. Press OK.

Step 10

Close the "Front " group, double click the "Side / Side_Bottom / 1" layer to apply a Gradient Overlay as seen in the following image. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 11

Now, double click the "Side / Side_Back / 1" layer to apply a Gradient Overlay as seen in the following image. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 12

Duplicate the "Side / Side_Back / 1" layer (Cmd/Ctrl + J). Rename the new layer to "2", double click it to apply a Gradient Overlay with the settings seen on the image below. Notice that now the blending mode of the gradient is set to Multiply because we are making a shadow (not a light) on the right left corner. Drag the gradient to reposition it to the corner. Press OK.

Step 13

Duplicate the "Side / Side_Back / 2" (Cmd/Ctrl + J) layer. Rename the new layer to "3", double click it to apply a Gradient Overlay with the settings seen in the following image. Again, notice that now the blending mode of the gradient is set to Multiply because we are making a shadow (not a light) on the bottom left corner. Drag the gradient to reposition it to the corner. Press OK.

Step 14

Close the "Side / Side_Back" group and double click the "Side / Side_Center/1" layer to apply a Gradient Overlay with the settings seen on the image below. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 15

Close the "Side / Side_Center" group and double click the "Side / Side_Top/1" layer to apply a Gradient Overlay with the settings seen on the image below. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 16

Now, close the "Side" group, and with the Pen Tool, make the shapes for the buttons and the speaker. Make a small circle with the Ellipse Tool (u) for the microphone. For the center part of the speaker make a shape and paint it grey (bfbfbf). Organize all shapes following the image below.

Step 17

Double click the "Buttons / 1" layer, and apply the Inner Shadow and Gradient Overlay following the settings of the image below. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 18

Do the same with the "Buttons / 2" layer, apply the Inner Shadow and Gradient Overlay following the settings of the image bellow. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 19

Do the same with the "Buttons / 3" layer, apply the Inner Shadow and Gradient Overlay following the settings of the image bellow. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 20

Do the same with the "Buttons / 4" layer, apply the Inner Shadow and Gradient Overlay following the settings of the image bellow. Press OK. On the Layers Window turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 21

With the "Buttons / 4" layer selected, create a rectangle anywhere on the space using the Rectangle Tool (U). Rename the layer of the rectangle you just created to "All". Now select the Path Selection Tool (A), select the path of the "Buttons / 4" layer, copy it (Cmd/Ctrl + C), and paste(Cmd/Ctrl+V) it onto the path of your "All" layer. Do the same for "Buttons / 3" layer, the "Buttons / 2" layer, and the "Buttons / 1" layer. This may be a little tricky to understand, but following the image below illustrates how it is done.

Step 22

Now double click the "All" layer and apply a Gradient Overlay and Inner Shadow following the settings of the image below.

Step 23

Close the "Buttons" group and select the "mic / Mic" layer. Make sure it is Black and its Fill is at 100%. Apply a Bevel and Emboss with the settings of the image below. Press OK.

Step 24

Close the "mic" group and select the "speaker / Speaker" layer. Apply an Inner Shadow and Gradient Overlay with the settings shown on the image below. Press OK. On the Layers Window, turn the Fill of the layer to 0%.

Step 25

Now lets make the center part of the speaker. Create a new document with size 4 x 4 px. Zoom in as much as you can. With the Mask Tool (m) make a selection like in the picture below. With the Paint Bucket Tool fill the selection with black. Deselect all (Cmd/Ctrl + D) and go to the menu Edit/ Define Pattern , a window will prompt for you to write a name for the Pattern, write any name and press Ok.

Step 26

Go back to the file phone.psd and double click "speaker / Speaker center" layer. Add a Gradient Overlay, Inner Shadow and Pattern Overlay with the pattern we just created. Check the picture below for the settings.

Step 27

Let’s create the HDMI plug. Start by selecting the Pen Tool (P) and drawing the outer shape of the plug. Rename it to "1" and press (Cmd/Ctrl + G) with the layer selected to make a group. Rename the group to "HDMI plug". Then apply a Bevel and Emboss style to the "HDMI Plug / 1" layer following the settings on the picture below.

Step 28

With the Pen Tool, create another Shape over the last one, make sure its color is CCCCCC and apply an Inner Shadow Style with the same settings as those on the following image.

Step 29

With the Pen Tool, create another Shape over the last one. Make sure its color is 797979 and apply an Inner Shadow Style with the same settings as those on the following image.

Step 30

With the Pen Tool, create another Shape over the last one, Make sure its color is 343434.
And your HDMI plug is done.

Step 31

Let’s make the USB plug. With the Pen Tool, draw the outer shape of the plug. Make its color 0e0e0e. Rename it to "1" and press (Cmd/Ctrl + G) with the layer selected to make a group. Rename the group to "USB plug".

Step 32

With the Pen Tool, draw the inner shape of the USB plug. Make it black 000000. Rename it to "2". Apply the Inner Shadow, Inner Glow and Gradient Overlay styles following the image below.

Step 33

Let’s make the display screen. Start by drawing the outer part of the screen. Make it black 000000.

Step 34

Draw the inner part of the screen name it "2" and hide it. Paste the image you would like to be in the screen over the "Display / 2" layer and rename it to "wallpaper" (I am including a beautiful image with the source files in case you wish to use it). With the Cmd/Ctrl key pressed, select the Vector Mask Thumbnail of the "Display/2" layer. That will make a selection. With your "wallpaper" layer selected, press the Add Layer Mask button to hide the part of the wallpaper that is outside the screen. Now click the small chain links that appear on your "wallpaper" layer to disable the link between the layer and its mask With the thumbnail of your "wallpaper" layer selected, press Cmd/Ctrl + T to transform it, and press the Cmd/Ctrl key to distort the image you are using as wallpaper to match the phone’s perspective. Press Return key when you are done. Apply a Gradient Overlay and an Inner Shadow style to your "wallpaper " following the settings shown at the bottom of the image below. Press OK. Finally, again enable the link between your "wallpaper" layer and its mask.

Step 35

Let’s do the glare of the screen. With the Pen Tool, make the shape of the glare over your "wallpaper" layer. Rename the layer to "glare" and apply a Gradient Overlay Style following the settings of the image below. Turn the Fill of the layer to 0%. Press OK.

Step 36

Now go and download the USB, HDMI, and MOTOROLA logos. Paste them into your "phone.psd". Using Cmd/Ctrl + T to transform, and the Cmd/Ctrl key while transforming to distort your logos to match the perspective of the phone. Place all the logos in a group named "Logos". All the shapes of the logos should be color grey 959595.

Step 37

Now do exactly the same with the icons. The only difference is that you will have to draw them with your Pen Tool using a reference image. Make sure the four icons are color grey d7d7d7. Make a group with all the icons and name it "Big Icons". Do the same with the three big icons, but make them color white FFFFFF, and set their Fill to 50%.

Step 38

If you are still here with me, it means you are an extremely patient and detail-oriented person, so let’s take it a little bit further and add more detail to make our phone look even more life like. Make a new 100 x 100 px document with a black background. In the menu, go to Filter/ Noise Add Noise following the settings on the image below. Press OK. In the menu go to Edit / Define pattern, and name it "Noise".

Step 39

Go back to your "phone.psd" file. Double click the first layer you created, "MAIN BG", and apply a Pattern Overlay style with the pattern "Noise" that you just created following the settings on the image below. Press OK. This will add some texture to the plastic.

Step 40

While pressing the Cmd/Ctrl key, select the Vector Mask Thumbnail of that same "MAIN BG" layer. This will select the entire phone. Now press the "Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer" button at the bottom of the layers window and select "Foto Filter.” This creates an adjustment layer named "Photo Filter 1" over the "MAIN BG" layer. Drag "Photo Filter 1" to place it between the "USB plug" group and the "display" group.

Double click the thumbnail of the "Photo Filter 1" layer and the "adjustments" window will pop up. Apply the same settings as those on the image below.

Step 41

Using the Shift Key, select all layers and groups, from "MAIN BG" to "Big Icons", and press Cmd/Ctrl + G to make a group with everything inside. Name that group "Final Phone". Drag the "Final Phone" group to the "Create a New Layer" button at the bottom of the layers window. This will duplicate the "Final Phone" group. Select the new "Final Phone Copy" group and press Cmd/Ctrl + E to merge all layers inside that group into one layer. Rename it to "Reflected". Select the "Reflected" layer and go to the "Edit / Transform / Flip Vertical" menu.

Step 42

Now drag the "Reflected" layer to its final position. Press the "Add Vector Mask" button at the bottom of the Layers Window. Ensure you have white as your foreground color and black as your background color. Within the Mask Thumbnail of the "reflection" layer selected, drag from top to bottom. Finally, paint the Background layer with gray "c2c2c2".

Final Image