So i have written some new songs and have some new recordings. This time it's with real band members.
www.myspace.com/audiopuppy
We play grunge, i guess. You'll either like it or hate it :) Anyway if anyone has any tips for next time i attempt to record my monkeys then it would be much apreciated!
Or if anyone thinks they can do a better job on the mastering i have all the master tracks in Audacity native format and a gmail account.
I'd like to try and re-master it in order to bring some points across about mixing and frequencies and such. Please e-mail the tracks to me at checker_at_work (at )web(dot)de, split them up if they get too big or something, don't know what size mails and accounts can take. Also, what does Audacity native format mean? I have Audacity but don't use it too much, can they be extracted to .wav or .mp3 or something or does this mean I have to work with the freeware-tool?
For the record, it's says nice and reasonably motivating for me to try and give it a last push through my mixing abilities... :P
Last question: did you use several mics on the drums or one overhead? This is crucial for the mix.
Oh, the first song you have one myspace will do it for the moment!
Sweet, i have sent you an email dkh.
If anyone else has got something to say feel free!
Didn't get anything yet... How big is that mail? I don't think my account can take the load... :( Can you upload the zip-file somewhere like http://www.mediafire.com/ maybe?
The .rar is 20 meg over the upload limit on mediafire. You got msn?
With http://www.filefactory.com/ (http://www.filefactory.com/) you can upload up to 300MB per file.
I would like to try and remaster the 3rd song. PM me with it's master tracks if you're ok with that.
I am uploading the tracks you have requested (dhk and Damien) to filefactory and will edit with dl links soon.
http://www.filefactory.com/file/4ad33d/n/halfempty_data_zip
the other upload failed, i will try again later tonight
Tried it twice, archive is broken... :(
EDIT: Third time did work, trying out some stuff now.
Thats ace to hear! Ive been trying to get msn running on xp sp1 with no luck (yes i know, im a target). If you want the others i'll try and find somewhere better to upload.
What do you think of this?
(http://www.tindeck.com/audio/image/b/qhff) (http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/qhff/half_empty)
Only spend an hour, so it's not fine-tuned or anything, but I like it. I'll come back and tell you what I've done if you're interested!
Just wanted to let you know that the download link worked for me. So far, I separated the tracks into their own .wav files and started tweaking them (removing the glitches in the vocal track and adding a bit more punch to the drums through filters, for an example) before they get added into the final mix. I'll post the steps with the completed mix.
dkh, the site you uploaded the track to seems to be down.
Yes, everyone's having a hard time with hosts... :)
Works for me, try to download it if the streaming won't start.
Cant get to any part of tinfeck.com dkh, magor bummer as i really am excited about hearing these remixes.
Okay, alternative link to my remix:
HERE (http://media.putfile.com/half_empty)
Hope this works for you! :)
Sounds sweet dkh!
A few questions, the vocal track sounds a lot clearer but at the same time sounds a little strange in places (high in pitch?) i'm not sure but i do like it!
Also some of the vocals are missing in the last chorus and end part of the song :)
Drums sound much better!
But yeah, good job man might have to send you the others at some point ;)
Still looking forward to yours Damien!
Thanks!
Quote from: Chicky on Sat 13/09/2008 22:59:50
A few questions, the vocal track sounds a lot clearer but at the same time sounds a little strange in places (high in pitch?) i'm not sure but i do like it!
I didn't change the pitch of the vocals (at least I hope I didn't), what I did was add a very late reverb/delay. It's pretty wierd and experimental but I liked it as well, so I went with it. Think it fits the grunge-genre. Could've left it out for a more conservative mix though.
Quote from: Chicky on Sat 13/09/2008 22:59:50
Also some of the vocals are missing in the last chorus and end part of the song :)
That's true, I didn't cut them on purpose, I ran out of disk-space while exporting the tracks from the Audacity format to mp3 and thus, the last vocals were replaced by shrill noises and beeps. I could've just exported it again but ran low on time, so I decided just to cut it for the moment. Also, it gives a better impression as to what the instruments sound like in the mix without the vocals in the foreground.
Quote from: Chicky on Sat 13/09/2008 22:59:50
Still looking forward to yours Damien!
So am I! :)
Some general pointers as to what I did and what you can do to improve your mixes:
- Get good studio monitors or headphones, preferably both. You can not create a good and balanced mix without hearing what you're doing. Laptop speakers and cheap music speakers don't do the job.
- Your main objective when mixing a project is to clean out. Get rid of the mess and try to give each instrument its space so that it doesn't collide or overlap with another instrument...
- ...for doing this, you should know that there are actually three dimensions in music productions (just as much as there are in real life): left/right panning, volume (sounds nearer the louder it is) and how much reverb you use (sounds nearer the less reverb you use).
- Concerning left/right panning, you should: leave the bass in the middle (as long as it's not double-tracked, ie. recorded twice), leave the drums in the middle (as long as you only recorded the drums with one microphone/overhead) and leave the vocals in the middle. Anything else can be panned. In your song, I took the dist. gtrs. and panned one -60% and the other +60%. Cleans up the guitar-sound in an instant.
- Concerning reverb: there's no need to reverb low frequency tracks such as the bass or the bass drum (if you have it on a single track), because the human ear can not localize low frequencies very well anyways, just keep it dry. Everything else should get reverb, because whatever has no or little reverb sounds very, very close, and if we hear something very close, we feel insecure, just like somebody using a cone to whisper something in your ear. Don't use too much either. Compare the track your putting reverb on with the whole mix all the time.
- Be careful that your final file (mp3 or whatever format it's in) doesn't exceed but stays just under the 0dB mark. This makes sure that it's not louder or quieter that other music. It's a standard.
- Don't forget to clean out your frequencies. This step is crucial. It's about equalizing where you can boost or cut off certain frequencies. The exact numbers are always subject to change and vary from one person's taste to another, but roughly, bass should go between 50-150Hz, guitars should be 150-450Hz, Vocals 450Hz-2kHz or something. It's important that you create holes in the drum-frequencies (say, from 150-350Hz) in order to bring out the guitars which are present there etc.
- The drums were a little inconsistent with the volume and intensity of the snare drum hits, so I used a compressor with a ratio close to 30:1 meaning it worked almost like a limiter (because I had no limiter-plugin available) - in order to understand limiters/gates/compressors all the way, you should read up on some reference material, all I have time to say right now is that this equalizes your drum hits, because it makes everything that's louder than a certain threshould more quiet, so that a light and a hard hit on the snare sound the same volumewise. This kills dynamics but works very well if you want snare-hits to sound the same every time.
- For other recordings, I would strongly advise you to try and use several mics for the drumset. If you end up with one mic for your bass-drum, one for your snare, one for the hihats and maybe one overhead for a general overview, you can make drums sound way better.
That's some real roughly put together information for now, hope it helps and feel free to ask further questions if you're responsible for the mixes in your band or are interested or whatever. :)
Thanks for the advice dkh, some solid tips there and a lot that i didn't know!
Damien, have you given up on us ;)
Quote from: ChickyDamien, have you given up on us ;)
No. Actually, I've put Ubuntu on my laptop, combined with Rosegarden (http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/), it's only that I have a lot of crap paddled in my direction so you'll have to wait, atleast, until the weekend for my "paintover".
Sorry and be patient, and sorry again.
No need to be sorry man! Take all the time in the world and if you get sick of it then just go work on ags instead ;)
Seriously, it's cool that you offered but don't feel you have to do it!
Also i'm working on a song at the moment that goes:
durr na, dum dum dulladum dum dum, durr na, dum dum dulladum dum dum, "you make me nautious won't you stay the night", durr na, dum dum dulladum dum dum, durr na.
Its pretty cool, cool like an ice bong. I will record that soon with some better mixing thanks to dkh's advice!
Some spare time flew into my hands:
http://media.putfile.com/Audio-Puppy---Half-Empty (http://media.putfile.com/Audio-Puppy---Half-Empty)
I was adding the track in the new mix in this order:
Intro track - Just added a flanger effect, pan remains in the middle
Drums - Like Dkh said, using more mics helps a lot, drums sound much more interesting when they feel spaced out. For the current mono recording, I used a stereo enhancer but pushed it only so far until the snare was moved aside a bit. After that, a compressor was applied to bring out the snare and the kick. Pan = middle
Bass - a bit enhanced, pan = middle.
The guitars - at this point, I just wanted to remove the low frequencies so they don't clash with the rhythm section. Pan -40/40.
Vocals - A bit of reverb and a bit of delay just to "widen" the track.
I could have payed more attention to the volume of the track, it should be louder. Low frequencies could be lower, but I feel that would make the current bass track "invisible".
Dkh said everything else.
Awesome Damien, i really like the vocal track in yours, sit's in the mix a lot easier than before.
If you guys were interested the drums are actually my roland electric kit, running through a mono cable so that's probabally where the dynamics were lost.
And recording the vocals with a cold wasn't the best idea.
But anyway, thanks for all the advice and your time; i will keep everything in mind when next recording.
QuoteIf you guys were interested the drums are actually my Roland electric kit, running through a mono cable so that's probably where the dynamics were lost.
Since you mentioned that, why not use a MIDI cable to connect the module with your sound card? That way you could record the drumbeat sequence itself and change the drum samples, dynamics, tweak every element (snare/kick/hat/...), etc. afterwards.
Yeah man i was planning on doing that next time but my current soundcard is a bit wank.