First Mix with Sonar X1 - Cakewalk released 12/8

[K-dub]

First Mix with new Sonar X1

Sees me right

The new Pro Channel tools are awesome. I applied compression across the drum tracks, and it really popped the drum sound. On the 2 buss, I also added light compression, vintage eq, and dialed in a little tube warmth. It just sort of glued it all nicely together, keeping the edges of the sound detailed and not blurry.

The compressor also seems to be able to squash well transparently w/o overly creating that pressed glassy sheen that often occurs. The depth of the sound seemed to hang in pretty well.

I just rewrote the lyrics to this one and tracked new vocals. Hopefully, I've got the mix dialed in right. If anyone hears anything that pokes out as "odd", please call it to my attention.

Thanks!

Best,

Kev-

 

[lastdays]

Very retro! I think you hit the sound you were going for.
That instrumental bridge before the chorus or whatever seems to repeat about one too many times. (towards the beginning)

Really didnt care for the guitar at the beginning, just too much noise, even accounting for the distortion.

Mix wise it sounds great everything fits!

 

[K-dub]

Yeah ... some folks have told me to leave the whole thing out entirely and just start with the lead. They feel there's too much of a shift from the noisy distorted opening into the main body of the song ... which is very different.

I like your idea about shortening the first bridge ... for although in the second bridge there's a vocal over the top, the first bridge is just "wait until it gets done".

I'm glad you got the retro tilt I was going for. It shows that at least in that aspect, I was successful.

Thanks for the two!

Best,

Kev-

 

[lastdays]

The distorted guitar is not a bad intro, its just too noisy, tone it down a bit and I think it would be fine.

 

[K-dub]

Originally, in keeping with the retro theme, the concept of the opening was vinyl ... old vinyl specifically.

I separated all the tracks in the opening and bussed them to a sub-section, and then hit the sub w/ Isotope's Vinyl ... with settings that were meant to mimic playing the intro on a transistor radio ...

When the drums came in, the whole "blossomed" into modern ... and I thought it worked kind of cool.

Unfortunately I upgraded my rig to Windows 7 64 bit, and Vinyl doesn't work in a 64 bit environment ... so I had to abandon that idea.

I'm upgrading my rig again ... this time going with a new mobo and i7 950 processor. I hope I don't lose anything else in the translation.

K-

 

[kcearl]

strangely it sounds a bit too polished imo...maybe it was just the beginning that made me think it was going to go in another direction...has almost a Phil Collins sound about it...


mix sounded good to me no nits, and good performances all round

I bought windows 7 64bit but cant bring myself to install it on my main PC

That new Sonar looks good....but I think 4 DAW programmes would be pushing it

 

[trumpino1]

Man K-dub this is really good. Did I ever tell you that you have a kind of Chicago feel to your music (which I like). I'll have to say when I heard the intro I had to re-check the name of the OP, but then it kicked in nicely.

I would also like to thank you for the tips you gave me on my thread, as well as the reply with tips you gave me on your last thread. It is really appreciated.

This was a real nice listen. I always enjoy your tunes.

 

[K-dub]

strangely it sounds a bit too polished imo...maybe it was just the beginning that made me think it was going to go in another direction...has almost a Phil Collins sound about it...


mix sounded good to me no nits, and good performances all round

I bought windows 7 64bit but cant bring myself to install it on my main PC

That new Sonar looks good....but I think 4 DAW programmes would be pushing it

Hi, my name is Kevin and I have an addiction to gear ... and yet even I wouldn't go to 4 DAWs.

As I alluded to above, I'm building a new rig around the i7 processors and I'm hoping that finally I can actually play my soft synths w/ no latency. What I've been doing as a work around is going midi out of the box to a couple outboard devices ... that sound mostly like shit, but at least I can play along in real time. Once I've got a part I like, then I go back into the box and see if I can find the right sound for it.

I hope to finally find the right sound and be able to play it on the fly.

Fingers crossed ...

 

[K-dub]

Man K-dub this is really good. Did I ever tell you that you have a kind of Chicago feel to your music (which I like). I'll have to say when I heard the intro I had to re-check the name of the OP, but then it kicked in nicely.

I would also like to thank you for the tips you gave me on my thread, as well as the reply with tips you gave me on your last thread. It is really appreciated.

This was a real nice listen. I always enjoy your tunes.

Last Saturday, T, I attended an Xmas get together at my old keyboard player's home. He'd set up instruments in his living room (w/ a P.A.), and folks were welcome to sit down/pick up and perform.

... so we're just sitting around and jamming (w/ a bunch of seasoned players), and the guitarist starts doing a Led Zep tune -- and the band follows w/ the drummer singing ... like a flock of birds following his direction.

About midway through the tune the drummer decided to switch to Chicago's 25 or 6 to 4 ... and we didn't skip a beat as we morphed from the middle of the Zep tune over to the new one. It's so much fun playing w/ folks (the keyboardist was killer -- and female) ... who know what they're doing.

K-

 

[joeym]

Beautiful transparent mix, Kev!
I like the element of surprise with the guitar in the beginning, you wouldn't imagine the song being so perfect afterwards. Nice drum sound!
Oh yeah, the song.....well, you know what I think of you as a songwriter, so I'll just say this is another gem.

 

[K-dub]

Beautiful transparent mix, Kev!
I like the element of surprise with the guitar in the beginning, you wouldn't imagine the song being so perfect afterwards. Nice drum sound!
Oh yeah, the song.....well, you know what I think of you as a songwriter, so I'll just say this is another gem.

I checked out your Bandcamp page, Joe. It's terrific! How did you do that intro page before it goes to the main page? I'm on BC too, but it doesn't look anywhere near as slick as yours.

I'm glad you liked this tune. I really like the Pro Channel plugs included with the new Sonar. Some of the folks on Gearslutz complain that the program as released was buggy -- and that would be true. Yet CW is pretty good about getting new products stable quickly ... and if folks can actually see the program as it will be (versus its current less than perfect state), then it's another solid improvement for very little money.

It's a curse though. Every time I get new tools I like, I have to go back and remix all the works in progress underway. I listened to this mix with the new tools, and then others that I'm currently working on -- and I said to myself, "No, that just won't do."

Sigh ...

 

[Tobe]

Love it! Really nice clear vocal. Great mix.

Perhaps a bit do-be-do for my taste, but I think that must be what you are going for...

 

[K-dub]

Love it! Really nice clear vocal. Great mix.

Perhaps a bit do-be-do for my taste, but I think that must be what you are going for...

It may be a bit do-be-do for even my personal taste too, T, but some times there's no controlling where the song wants to take itself.

 

[Tobe]

It's funny K-dub, I keep trying to be guitar legend, but the songs my friends like best are all ballads.

 

[K-dub]

It's funny K-dub, I keep trying to be guitar legend, but the songs my friends like best are all ballads.

Ha ... what we do takes on a life of its own after we're done with it, T. I can imagine the surprise McCartney had after Ob-la-di Ob-la-da became a hit.

Here he writes this bit of light pop fluff and afterwards says, "THAT'S the one people like???"

 

[TripleM]

Sounded great. Loved the drums especially. Tom rolls were awesome. OK maybe add just a little low end back to the snare. I loved that lo fi guitar thingy in the intro.

There is a little "hollowness" to the lead vocal. Just a bit. I suspect it's a version of your delay problems from a while back.

I thought the clean guitar was "too clean" if that's a way to put it. I'd like just a bit of "cleanliness" taken off. Just a bit of grunge.

At 3:06 there is a weird vocal note on the word "I" in "I found another..." It happens again a few seconds later. Just some weirdness on the way you sang the word.

 

[K-dub]

Thanks Trip! You know I listen. I'll check those areas out and experiment with other settings.

K-

 

[lastdays]

I'm building a new rig around the i7 processors and I'm hoping that finally I can actually play my soft synths w/ no latency.

Comes down to your interface drivers, and how well they work in that environment. I am running that setup (almost identical, slightly slower proc) but I have to use the Asio4All drivers with my interface if I want next-to-no latency with my Komplete 7 stuff. I works great, just not with the interface's intended drivers! I switch to the Asio4all for my midi stuff and go back to the regular drivers when I want to record more than 2 tracks at a time.

Conclusion:
I7 great! Perfect? Not even close, but probably alot closer than you are used to especially if your interface has really good win7 64 bit drivers!

 

[K-dub]

Sonar and my Echo Layla 24/96 interface don't play well in WDM land well together in W7 64 bit. Back in the old 32 bit XP Pro days, they were fast friends and played frequently on the WDM playground. Then XP turned 7, and suddenly the three old friends discovered they were growing apart. It took an ASIO to pull them together, but the latency to keep the friends working together runs at 2048 samples ... with a latency of nearly 40ms ... unsuitable for playing live through a soft synth.

My rig was quite powerful ... 6 years ago. It's an AMD dual Opteron workstation server running at 2g (x2) ... with a (then) AMAZING 3g of ram. I've no complaints ... it's been a rock solid rig.

The main drive in the new rig is going to be a 120g Intel SSD. It was on sale for a net cost of about 164 bucks ... and I'm hoping that it improves the overall ability of the system to respond fast ... in a no latency way.

It should arrive tomorrow or Thursday ... and I'm hoping that I've got latency during soft synth performance solved. I know it's possible, but if it doesn't work in the fashion I hope ... I'm not stopping until it works the way I want it to.

 

[joeym]

I checked out your Bandcamp page, Joe. It's terrific! How did you do that intro page before it goes to the main page? I'm on BC too, but it doesn't look anywhere near as slick as yours.

I'm glad you liked this tune. I really like the Pro Channel plugs included with the new Sonar. Some of the folks on Gearslutz complain that the program as released was buggy -- and that would be true. Yet CW is pretty good about getting new products stable quickly ... and if folks can actually see the program as it will be (versus its current less than perfect state), then it's another solid improvement for very little money.

It's a curse though. Every time I get new tools I like, I have to go back and remix all the works in progress underway. I listened to this mix with the new tools, and then others that I'm currently working on -- and I said to myself, "No, that just won't do."

Sigh ...

Hey Kev,
don't exactly know how I did that, I just logged in, went to the profile settings and started uploading scripts and stuff.....I just followed the instructions.
Yeah I know that feeling and it's not just when I have new stuff...months after I've recorded something and get the feeling that I've learned something new, I feel like starting everything all over again! Oh well, I guess in audio, the road is endless......