What are /r/futurebeatproducers' favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Here's a pic of the entire thing and here's the ableton group preset for anyone who just wants it. This was made really quick and could be done better, dirt definitely doesn't sound spot on to the song but pretty close. If anyone figures it out lmk!

I used to love this song, been a while since I heard it, and I didn't get very far in before I started working. Listening to it more now, other things that should be done is the voices changed to 1 and add glide/portamento and it sounds like he ran his lpf a little higher than I did, maybe some resonance. There might be a 2st pitch bend in there too. With a kick and the same sidechain settings he's using I think that's almost it.

I also didn't touch any of the envelopes, there's minimal work to be done there but attack shouldn't be left at 0.00ms

Find a really nice clean not clipping 808 sub kick that's short, and then synthesize your own 808 bass (literally just sylenth1 sine wave decay all the way no sustain mid release and a little bit of the default distortion, with maybe some low boost)

das how I do eet

https://clyp.it/kdokb5np (this kick clips but you get the point) [made that with FL btw, and oshi uses FL too lol]

I did some cool synth layering today with a new track I'm working on. I have this supersaw type synth and then gave it a plucky LFO on 1/8 timing (Sytrus btw) and some decay on the whole volume env. Then I sidechain'd that to a Harmor 9 unison saw with chorus. All on the same MIDI notes. And a 3xOsc running 1 noise osc with low noise cut.. And a chiptune-square-ish arp made in Harmor that goes through the four notes of the chord, up. And a nice warm subbass with some overdrive (Sylenth1). I think it sounds pretty cool. (Here's said WIP)

sup pretty people : D

should I unprivate this/release? yes/no or feedback would be appreciated : D

https://soundcloud.com/west-metro/constellations-vip

(I've been missing these threads recently, feedback on this https://clyp.it/nt0ixkgt would be dope too : ^ )

Not what you are looking for, but this free 3 week Intro to Ableton Live course is being offered on Coursera starting February 2nd: https://www.coursera.org/course/abletonlive There's also a discussion forum on the website while you take the class so you can ask questions there if you need to.

You can grab the .nmsv file for free here.

You'll also want to drop an 8-band EQ onto it that looks something like this to really boost the midrange.

Thanks for the reply! I've been trying your suggestion for about an hour now and was able to come up with this: https://clyp.it/a0xjfjko (I couldn't find any good dubstep snares so I used a glitch hop snare) (Also I'm not the greatest at layering snares.)

It's not quite what I'm going for yet, but it's closer then what I had before. Thanks,

Grab some brass sounds, stack and saturate them to taste, little bit of reverb and you will end up with something like this: https://clyp.it/somo3fpl . I used the Kontakt factory library, ableton's saturator and reverb that's it. I can upload the ALS if you want.

It's just an 808 sample with a saturated harmonic and then layered/ sidechained to a compressed and limited kick. I recreated the first little bit of the bassline in Ableton real quick, you can a/b it with the actual song and it sounds fairly close I think. I can put up the .als if you want to spend time getting it exact

https://clyp.it/qkk1oaie

I usually try and think of a mood or emotion I'm trying to capture and begin laying down the foundation for a song. Sometimes I hear a song online or try a one of the various tuts on youtube about synthesis or something similar and build a song off of what I'm learning.

Whenever I feel like the song isn't going anywhere, I usually chop it up and try and rethink the whole thing. Also, I think having a large sample library helps not only vary up production, but it can also throw in some much needed inspiration when you're having writer's block.

Hope that helped!

P.S. - Here's my soundcloud if you were curious at all about my stuff. Leave yours if you have one and I'll follow you.

https://soundcloud.com/mnrk

I would love to take learn from you! I saw that thread, and thanks for sharing the knowledge.

I think it's more than fair you ask for donations, I would send some sheckles your way. Perhaps https://www.patreon.com/ would be a good platform to receive donations per lesson.

Super simple, just layers of electric guitar with distortion and reverb. Usually has some of the highs EQ'd out as well.

here's an example of what it'll sound like

Here's the included audio demo (which is also the .flp from Krs.): https://clyp.it/yav2zzcx

Here's a list of what's in it:

14 808s

36 Claps and Snares

38 Misc (Titled "EXCLU$IVE $HIT)

20 Hihats and Cymbals

19 Kicks

25 Percussion Loops

There's some nice guitar and melody loops from Oshi in the exclusive shit folder as well.

Came up with this beat in a live Twitch session last Friday and it's pretty much ready to be released as a single. I love when that happens.

I'm also giving these rhodes samples away for anyone who's interested:

https://sellfy.com/liamkillen/p/lk-beat-battle-vol-2-on-the-rhode/

Just check out some stuff on basic synthesis. Learn oscillators, waveforms, subtractive, additive, fm later on, etc, adsr, envelopes, filters, modulation. All dat shtuff.

also here's a little thing I just went sam g on https://clyp.it/s52sx41k (all synths in sylenth and bass is trilian)

sup again peeps. got this here wip: https://clyp.it/m45q5f0y

This is an interesting one, I'm not happy with the synths at all, and probably the chord progression. And I just threw my drop concept on the end of the intro I was building for shits n gigs. Mostly this is just me experimenting with Slicex and snare samples.

Hey I’m posting the same piece as yesterday, since I did not have any feedback on it ! It is a WIP song, « Breathless » I think it is nearly finished. I would love to have some feedback on it, musically and sonically :) Clyp link : https://clyp.it/ckb531hw?token=10981c4a07ef3025d454fe8cb167eef5

Thank you, Eliott

Hey dude, I've always wondered about this synth but never tried to recreate it. I had a go at it in Massive and got relatively close. A lot of it was in the reverb and in the modulation between the square and saw waves. Here is a download of the Massive patch I made. It's not perfect but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Here is a Clyp demo of what it sounds like. Keep in mind this is just the Massive patch with no post processing or anything, which is where I suspect a bunch of the work is done on the sound. Let me know if you can get any closer/ have any ideas or suggestions about it!

Right, that's why not everything has to be at equal loudness. I'm not clipping everything, only the stuff that I want to be loud af. Example: https://clyp.it/rzw4ngqw

Only the kick and snare are clipping, everything else generally comes to like -2db.

So I decided to give it a go in Massive, here's the link to the patch, you can change some things to your liking:

https://www.mediafire.com/?j05zfn5zto0yduv

Edit: You can throw reverb on it too, I forgot lol.

:) Awesome!!!

Here is the midi for piano and cubase 5 project (uses nexus & absynth) Sorry haven't gotten into ableton yet :) https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pyfubsssdvxg5fo/FtgvoGb3Z6

keep in touch!

Made one here:

listen

download

Steps:

1. Generate noise with a synth, I used operator.
2. Resample that.
3. Adjust length to taste.
4. Apply EQ to cut off top and bottom of the sound.
5. Add reverb with a short tail.
6. Duplicate and only keep the very beginning of the duplication, increase volume for transient.
7. Add Redux effect in Ableton.

https://soundcloud.com/onnaut/i-love-you/s-d4u6d or https://clyp.it/riv5alet

lol shit, I tried

Things I noticed that made it closer to his rendition: Saturating the bass a lot My kicks are loud but they are clipping, how the does he do it without clipping (just use a limiter)?

Got pretty close in FM8. The pitch at the beginning could be a little better, and I could probably get closer with some eq, but that's good enough for now.

https://clyp.it/bruifwh4

Basically what I did is layered a soft square wave with a sin wave and another soft square wave with a square wave, all detuned and with slightly different volumes. Panned them a little to give it some wideness, and then gave them all a fairly quick attack with a long but continuous delay. I gave the patch 8 voices to really thicken it up a bit and put some analog quality to give it those really subtle imperfections.

For the post processing, I used an auto filter to get rid of the lows below about 100 Hz. Then I saturated the 700 Hz Frequency range a bit, put on a little bit of reverb, and then eq'd out slightly some highs and lows while just barely boosting around the 1k Hz range.

I think your best bet to get close in massive would be to have 3 oscillators, 2 detuned square waves a fifth apart with the intensity down a bit and the waveform set between square and sin, and one quieter sin wave. Detune them a bit and modulate the pitch so it's a pretty sharp change at the very start while the attack is kind of slow. The post processing should be similar to what I did and that should hopefully get you close! If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try and help out, it's good practice

Edit: This is for the pad at 3:37, to get the one the rest of the song you just lowpass the same patch. Also, if anyone else is curious how I routed FM8, here's a screenshot of it

This is about as close as I get, with serum: https://clyp.it/udwnkn5j

Two low-passed sine waves, differing in pitch by a fifth. A fourth works pretty nicely too and I'm not totally sure if that's what they're doing, but it does add some width to the sound. Also, delay/reverb/chorus will give it that spacey feeling.

https://soundcloud.com/thisisdzmnd/future-ft-pusha-t-pharrell-move-that-dope-dzmnd-remix punched up the snare and got rid of some tamborzao parts that muddied up the the mix

also, which of these should i continue with? i think they ended up sounding too similar for my tastes, both are kinda remixes? https://clyp.it/5mqkwned

Hopefully I can squeeze myself in here, I'll give feedback in a few minutes. But for now, have this WIP remix of Hop and Skip by Lonemoon: https://clyp.it/fkglmgq0

(very barebones intro and literally copied x4 drop lol, still working on)

Falling in to "I'm almost done with this track so I hate it now" syndrome. Chords aren't my favorite, but I think I could just release it and be done with it.

https://clyp.it/tx5b5y0m

Edit: ninja'd the clyp to the latest version hehe

Using the method I explained above, I made a straight fill from some samples (example below).

And another good trick is to use velocity! Also I'm a drummer so I have a good understanding of fills. Here's an example, this is a straight tom fill, with velocity mapping. Tempo is 120. And a pic of what the velocity looks like in FL.

P.S. I'm bad at explaining haha

I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but here's my mpc-like chop preset. https://mega.nz/#!Jo12mAbb!N_X6kRZZsQVcjcnZNF5VAEbIDbVe59jkUZXlhHhgH5o

Drop it into User Library/Defaults/Slicing/ Then you can right-click your sample, select "Slice to a new MIDI track" using this preset and the each bar/transient setting. Just hit your keys/pads and see what comes out of it. You can edit the start of each fragment in its sampler.

Hey, I had 5 min so I took /u/ThatPineapple's Midi and Saw and added some noise and a Sub since this is probably a little bit more what you're going for. When I finish studying I may come back and try and make it even closer using Sylenth or Massive, but this is a (crude) attempt at where you're trying to get I think

https://clyp.it/kxxkocie

Edit: Keep in mind this isn't EQ'd, or really had much post processing done at all, so you could get the sound much closer with some work

I know that this is the second time I've posted here today, but I'm just trying to get a little feedback on a couple tracks so that I can continue to improve on em, ya know? Anyway, any and all feedback is welcome and appreciated!

https://clyp.it/hsy4bjmu

Hey everybody. I'm relatively new to producing and to reddit. Here's new track that's a work in progress; I arranged some snare and hi hat rolls/samples to create that break at about 0:42. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, no sugar-coating it!

https://clyp.it/njympcu0

I gave it another shot in massive cause that's what you wanted, it probably sounds closer than the operator attempt. Here is the massive preset, quite different technique than the operator.

There is certainly way more going on inside the massive patch, a phaser, dimension expander, parallel filters, unsynced fm, wavetable and phase modulation, and sine & paraballic shaper distortions.

Yeah you've definitely got the right idea, I typically put a utility in a rack and setup a macro saying the minimum and maximum so I'm not sending things into way beyond clipping, I'll take a look I believe intro should have utility, it's under the audio effects if you see this before I look it up myself.

(After a quick look at ableton's site: https://www.ableton.com/en/live/feature-comparison/ it looks like you should have utility regardless of the version. If anything I said is somewhat confusing always happy to try to explain another way.)

As you point out in the video, branding, marketing, etc, are so important. I would argue that they are more important than ANYTHING in the music (in Pop).

Do you think Britney Spears was popular because she was a better musician than other pop singers? Do you think Ariana Grande is a better musician? Taylor Swift? They are all very talented people, but in each case, it's so much more about branding than about anything in the music (which is why it's so difficult to study pop as music).

I like your use of scholarly sources.

Great video!

I think you would get a lot from this book by Joanna Demers: Listening Through the Noise. It has the best discussion of genre that I've ever read. It directly pertains to odd genres of electroacoustic music, but the discussion of genre applies to all genres of music.

I uploaded some track stems for the song if anyone's interested. If you do something with them, please get a hold of me. I'd like to hear what you did! Probably easiest through either reddit or my soundcloud.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/a1dca9yr198dg1d/_QIPQsJUms

[NOT Future] I know this track doesn't fit the genre but I love the music I find in this sub and you guys seem so knowledgeable and helpful in your feedback. If anyone's willing to give this a listen I'd really appreciate it! Be harsh but constructive plss.

https://clyp.it/ddwsr2dd

I know this is relatively unmixed and i have a lot of work to go on the track

Almost finished that track "Since I Love You", on which I sing :) ! I'd love to have any kind of feedback on it (mastering is not done, I did it real quick just to have a decent playback volume but it's not at all the final one) !

https://clyp.it/htnogvzj

https://clyp.it/pbnhsykn my attempt at a trap song, kind of goofily based it off Dogmeat from fallout but I thought the musical elements were solid. constructive feedback would be great, still haven't mixed it all the way and such so it might sound sloppy.

https://clyp.it/pbnhsykn my attempt at a trap song, kind of goofily based it off Dogmeat from fallout but I thought the musical elements were solid. constructive feedback would be great, still haven't mixed it all the way and such so it might sound sloppy.

> https://clyp.it/e3llonga

for this track, I'd recommend trying out a snare thats dry. The reverb on the clap takes some of the uhmp this track could have, to be hip hop esq. Try playing around with some more low ends for the kick too, I wanna feel it in my chest. this is for "Future_trap808"

I'm more looking for sounds we here everyday rather than unique sci-fi sounds. I actually just last night started to make a folder with just download after download from websites like soundbible. I just need to be more creative with my sampling, I started this last night thought sampling was kind of creative, how did I do? https://clyp.it/2s2uor1q

Tried to make something with a bit of a retrofuturistic/old school flair.

https://clyp.it/sbz5zqzr

Thoughts?

Feedback

Okay thanks man, this is exactly what I was looking for :) The kick and snare/clap samples are both from the Ekali pack and like an extra clap thing from some random pack but agreed I haven't done much on them. Here is what it would sound like if I just kept it the same without coming down the cutoff, decay and release, I thought this was a little bit more generic then If I were to do what I have done.

https://clyp.it/rzw4ngqw

Instrumental I'm making for a rapper. All percussion is a live take (bongos, djembe, tambourine, shaker, maraca, metal tink noise). I haven't been able to work on it since last week due to reinstalling my OS, so there's some stuff to fix. Lmk what you think :)

Just go with the flow bro! personally i alwasy start with some drums or a nice melody! i use the layering technique myself! but its all about variety! im using fl studio(which is pretty legit if you know what your doin)but i also use maschine and massive synth. but one thing i have trouble with is my music sometimes doesnt sound like i want it too and it will make me hate a piece! but others will say its fine! so just dont compare it to what other music! its all about making your own! so just like i said just go with it! have fun and experiment! dont think im tryin to say im a pro at it! but i know the basis of making music here is my soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/#wannagetdown

Thank you! I just layered in a lofi crunchy clap and a rim shot and it sounds a bit better now. https://clyp.it/ghjo5aff Edit: But it still doesn't sound as garagey as lidos snare. I was also able to sample the snare from the track for comparison. https://clyp.it/kg1mdhmt

Real quick Kingdom Hearts flip I made lol. I'm just looking to see if the idea is alright and if the orchestral parts in the beginning need to fatten up or whatnot. Thanks!

https://clyp.it/xkvu3p1p

Hey guys! I'm new here on this sub. I produce under the name Deer Claw currently. I've been producing for about 4 months, so I'd love to get some feedback on my tracks. Any advice is welcome. I currently struggle the most with mixing, and have been trying to get these two songs to sit right for a while.

First song: Copycat (WIP Mix)

Second song (I wrote it this weekend, and don't like the bridge): Thrush (WIP Mix)

Let me know what you think... I'm going to go give feedback on other people's stuff.

Thanks

Hey guys... I'm pretty late to the party, but here's my track. I currently produce under the name Deer Claw.

https://clyp.it/cfpv0kv3

It was written in the last 24 hours and is definitely a WIP, but I thought some of you might like it and have some good feedback on it.

I'm going to go through and look at other people's stuff now; I already viewed some, and there's some serious talent here!

That's pretty hot dude! Really solid beat, I'd add some more variation, etc. Possibly during the intro have a different instrument/synth for the chords so it's not the same throughout.

I'd appreciate it if you checked out mine: https://clyp.it/nbirkdjs :)

Thanks man! Can't remember having much low end in the intro, must be the rhodes' low mids. Anyways, the drums you're talkin about is a sexy ass tom fill sample I found and chopped up. Here's the original sample (which I do use directly in the track): https://clyp.it/dseseky2.mp3 (right click and save as)

so here's the main one I'm looking for some feedback on: https://clyp.it/clhv3uru It's like, fast future, maybe future hop idk

and this one is optional entirely, but it's a VIP of my first future track 'Constellations', and it's only the chords and some other little stuff, but I think it's going to turn out to be a complete TUNE ya feel lol https://clyp.it/1tsfkvza

https://clyp.it/fwz45q3p
this is a track i've been working on for a while, it's nothing like my usual stuff. it feels a bit anticlimactic and i'd really like some advice on how to fix that. uploaded to clyp because it wouldn't fit the hip-hop oriented sound of my soundcloud
edit: gonna walk my dog i swear i'll give feedback on this thread when i get back

added more percs in the middle,like everyone suggested(im bad at it though)

https://clyp.it/vzbrj5vh#

also my headphone jack broke so just tell me if its muddy,I cant really tell on my speakers

A WIP remix of Rolling in the Deep by Adele https://clyp.it/1skniho3

I probably won't finish it mainly because this was quite experimental in terms of mastering and mixing and just the idea of a combination of genres. Tell me what you think. No sugar coating.

https://clyp.it/pll5efd2

Hey guys. Made a really weird remix of a Captain Murphy (<FlyLo's rapping persona, in case you didn't know) song. I like the progression of it, but the mix is really bothering me. Thoughts? Any feedback/critique is appreciated.

First anything I've done with music, thought I'd just start messing around. Got started with ableton, messing around and made a small loop. Obviously going to expand on it, but any ideas/what sounds completely shit in the mix?

https://clyp.it/ywz1hqrf

I've got a couple that I'd love feedback on:

Recently brought this one back and put finishing touches on it, FlyLo inspired.

https://soundcloud.com/deadpanned/questionable-at-best

Still working on this one, probably the most experimental I've gone in terms of structure; after coming up with the weird first part, I decided that I wanted to try to and make several different distinct sections. Are the string samples too cheesy?

https://clyp.it/5jenbl3a

Any feedback/criticism is greatly appreciated!

sup doods, got this new wip 'ere. whipped it up in a few hours last night. whaddya think? I called it desk job because I sampled the snare from two handles on my desk (which had two cool different pitches) and the hihat sound is originally from a high pitched tap I discovered I could make. It was basically a challenge to see if I could make a song using sounds from my desk that were main sounds xD

enjoy https://clyp.it/kdokb5np (updated)

note: it's a bass adventure as usual for my tracks, I always try to make the bassline unique as hell

Thanks man! I would totally jump right on all that stuff, but my PC is not cooperating ATM. Random ass freezes when I have anything other than Chrome open, so I can't make music right now and it's driving me up the wall! And it's already being released on Neighbors Hate Us, the guy said it was fire, so I'll just stick with it! hahaha

EDIT WOW I TOTALLY JUST REALIZED THIS WAS NOT THE FINAL VERSION I'M AN IDIOT. Here's the last one wow: https://clyp.it/odfaxf53

Hello everyone, this is the first song that I actually (almost) finished. I need some dead honest feedback as I have reached a point where I don't know if it's worth continuing on that song or not. PS: It's not mixed or mastered, but I appreciate feedback on this nevertheless. Thanks in advance! https://clyp.it/hb0f0xkg

Newest <em>finished</em> track... almost

Didn't think EDM was the right place, so I thought I'd share this with you; my newest french-house/nu-disco/future funk track I've been working on. Almost finished but wondering about any additions/tweaks I could make to it. Thinking about ending it with some samples maybe. Maybe some vocal samples throughout? Let me know - I'll gladly return the favour. Thanks

Hello everyone, this is the first song that I actually (almost) finished, so my first time posting something here. I need some dead honest feedback as I have reached a point where I don't know if it's worth continuing on that song or not. PS: It's not mixed or mastered, but I appreciate feedback on this nevertheless. Thanks in advance! https://clyp.it/hb0f0xkg

Almost done with this, I think it needs some vox chops with reverb or some shit and maybe the middle section could be changed, I know I'm changing the melody a bit cuz it sounds stupid. https://clyp.it/u3lueqvk

Been workin on this with a bro lately. https://clyp.it/w3e4k0gl

Literally ignore what happens at 1:10 till the next section lol, that's very placeholder. I might use it once I tighten up the melody though haha. Harsh feedback welcome, destroy me pls :^)

Edit: a few people seemed to like this, so here it is, in the feedback thread lol: https://clyp.it/3skgwlsq (very old WIP, having issues opening project)

https://clyp.it/3skgwlsq

Haven't gotten feedback on this yet :^) Some info about it: very WIP I changed the snare to something way better, and corrected the dynamics on the music box, and added more future-y synths. Feedback on structure and melody/808 bassline would be appreciated!

Check out this site http://www.whosampled.com/

Hear me out, basically i search artists i like and find out who they sample, then i go through THAT artists works and generally download there stuff from youtube to sample myself.

There are a Vast amount of live baile funk recordings and bootlegs floating around. Furacao 2000 is a good starting point. Also if you're into baile stuff I just whacked out a 5 minute minimix that powers through a lot of the classics as well as some harder to find tunes.

https://www.mixcloud.com/Joemarks/funk-carioca-minimix/

No...it's a wav file

Edit: I didn't realize you couldn't play from dropbox links anymore...Sorry! Didn't mean to ask people to download a huge file, otherwise I would've bounced it to mp3. Here's a link to the 320 mp3 https://www.dropbox.com/s/3n2ih28em0e8tnc/ephemeral%20artery.mp3

I used to collect educative rhythm books when I was a teenager, obsessed with learning the drums. I recently dug up this book called "West African Rhythms for Drumset" and performed some of those notes on my Drumbrute Impact.

I've included some of these loops on my website- grab em if you're interested, free!

https://sellfy.com/liamkillen/p/drumbrute-impact-loops/

https://clyp.it/ofuhqwhf

This is an idea that I've started, I've only got a snippet so far. Very FlyLo/iglooghost/ILLingsworth inspired. Any feedback is totally welcome, tell me anything that you think is wrong with it. Thanks!

If you don't are lazier and use Mac you can install SoundFlower (free) and route the audio from anywhere back into your DAW.

Means you can just record the part you are interested in and don't have to wait for download / just hit record and then play the video / game / whatever

On mobile so not sure if this link will work

Aside from the synths like Analog and Operator you're relegated to sampling with Simpler as opposed to Sampler.

You're also limited on your scenes and return tracks that you can use.

I use Suite (after upgrading from Standard) and the sound library that it comes with is pretty awesome.

Here's the full rundown - https://www.ableton.com/en/live/feature-comparison/

Field recorders could work for vocals, but they're usually used for interviews, not singing as far as I'm aware. But i have no first-hand experience.

Since you don't have an audio-interface, you could go for a USB dynamic microphone, such as the Audio Technica ATR2100-USB (if you're in/near the US) or the T.bone MB88U Dual (if you're in Europe) which both have USB and XLR-connections. Since the latter is a brand owned by the webshop itself, do ask what mic-holder they recommend if needed, since it's quite bigger at the handle than 'ordinary' mics.

The aforementioned SM57 needs an audio-interface (and maybe a pre-amp as well) in order to work on a mic. The mics I just linked can directly be plugged in into a computer. For now those are your cheapest options in case you just want to explore/try out.

If you're on a mac, load up garage band and have a go.If you're on a PC download Reaper and have a go. Watch some tutorials and enjoy yourself.

When you're feeling confident that you want to keep up with this, get an audio interface in the $150-200 range and pair of Monitoring Headphones.

I've had a pair of these for 7 years

These are a little nicer

Do you have any experience playing music? If you don't, you'll need to spend some time learning about how music as a whole works in general before diving into serious production.

Awesome! I keep playing around with the tempo to find a happy medium!

To answer your question head phone wise I mix on these They are inexpensive and have a great sound. I have had mine for about 5 years now, and they are still wonderful! To play my mix in speakers, I just use an iHome, ahahah. I also play it in cheap headphones to see how it would sound to most people. I don't have any fancy monitors. To get the low end clean, it takes time to train the ear, and mix properly. Watch all the levels, sidechain it, and then I also master in ableton. Look up tutorials, the internet is a great place!