Where to become reference tracks?

Hey anybody,

I am wondering where people become their reference tracks from. Are they supposed to be .wav files? I know which songs I want to use but just don't know where the all-time place to get them is

level 1

Mod Moderator Achievement · 11 mo. ago · Stickied comment Teaboy ☕

level i

I buy on Bandcamp and get .wav files. I recall it'south a expert fashion to support your favorite artists.

level ii

2d this. It'south a win win. Go a lossless file and directly support your artist.

level ane

I've seen a lot of kind of strange misconceptions almost reference tracks having to be lossless/really high quality. The purpose of a reference rails is to compare the balance/panning/full general sound of a song to your mix, yous really do not demand super loftier fi lossless sound for this. Anything of decent quality will be fine.

Eric Valentine uses a spotify playlist for his reference mixes.

level 2

Ok I've been pulling them off YouTube and I guess I could simply listen on Spotify? Just I want to put them in my daw and you can't get information technology in to daw from Spotify

level i

Near lossless sound format works great. Ex: FLAC, WAV.

Itunes Store has lossless format music files for sale.

level ane

Whatever music i think is relevant is a reference mix for me. I purchase or download from wherever, including ganking from YouTube if needed. Doesn't have to exist amazing quality to be useful (for me anyway)

level 2

Thanks! Too, if you want to go weird, if yous have the original tracks you can A/B those with your steaming references and go a sense of what the compression algorithm is going to do to your mix.

level 1

I actually bought concrete CDs of my favorite mixed albums for the first time in probably 15 years and so that I could have the files to import into my DAW. You could probably just buy digital copies of the same files online, I but felt like having the real thing for some reason

level i

Terminal I checked Amazon lets you download the mp3s you buy at that place. And they're most $1 each. The process isn't super easy just they let you do it. I think you demand to download their desktop app to make information technology piece of work.

level 1

7Digital is a company that I buy my references from! They have a app actually that stores the purchases on my phone. My references are ordinarily music that I dear and have a deeper technical understanding of, so I'grand oftentimes just listening to lossless versions of my favourite song while I go for walks!

level 1

If I'grand referencing it a lot, I'll buy it on Amazon music and download the mp3. If I just desire to reference a role of a vocal for one runway, I'll set my DAW to tape the organization audio and and then play information technology on Spotify and tape it.

I pay for spotify and I set up information technology to its maximum quality and turn off volume normalization.

Usually I but get the spotify road if I'm just messing around and experimenting.