I guess this was the wrong forum section

[BluMusic]

* I initially placed this in the Cubase Section but maybe this should have gone here instead *

Yesterday I added two additions to my overall setup. Ok no big deal I suppose but I wanted to point out two things about this:

The first was a pair of badly needed Studio Monitors. Because of the deal, I settled for KRK Rokit 5 powered. The second is a set of VST processors by iZotop (Ozone3) & (Vinyl). And btw these are not cheap, at least in my opinion but I suppose for what they offer, it's a great deal as well but at the end of the day, I spent $600 USD and my wife is not too happy about it.

Now of course I understand the need & use for my Monitors however not certain if these are the best I could get but they sound great and like I said, the price was what I considered very good. I've already re-mixed a previous project using them instead of what I originally used for editing then burning to listen to in the home & car stereo systems, and it sounded ten times better than I had hoped for BUT still not as good as what I hear on the radio (just yet).

So then comes the VST Plugins, which I obtained because this is what they used on the Cubase tutorial DVD and I suppose if it's good enough for Steinberg, then it must be good enough for me.

Alrighty then, here's the THING. Aside from getting use to the Monitors over time, I have no idea if the plugins will enhance my work or even how to use them. I've only tried Ozone thus far but even that has more adjustments then the Space Shuttle.

So my question is, will Ozone be a valuable tool for me within SX3 or does SX3 already have built within, a suitable comparison for adding or subtracting various wetness in Reverb, Dither, EQ, Dynamics, etc. ? Also, do any of you use either of these products and if so, how do I get to learn how to use them?

 

[Ford Van]

Ozone is more of a "mastering tool" than a mixing tool. I suppose you could use it while mixing, but the complexity of a single plugin doing all of what it does on a single instrument most of the time is going to be over kill. Cubase most likely contained VST's and DirectX plugins that will get the job done. How good these included plugins are is up for debate, but I would imagine that they are of at least decent quality. I am not a Cubase user, never have been, and never will be, so I cannot comment much on their included plugins. I CAN however say from experience with many other DAW software that they usually contain "decent' but not "GREAT" sounding plugins.

I would think that the included plugins with Cubase will be a FAR lower hit on your CPU. Ozone does a lot of things in one, thus, eats up a lot of CPU power to do so.

Don't assume that just because a Steinberg tutorial is using iZotop products that somehow they must be "the thing to have". That is what they used. Whether they will work well for you and your style of production is totally subjective. Personally, I don't care for iZotop products. I have tried most of them, and to my ears, there are MUCH better products available!

Myself, if I didn't know anything about what products would "enhance my work", I would not have purchased a $250 plugin! Maybe your wife has a good reason to be a bit pissed eh? But you own it now. At least you didn't pay for Vinyl!

How good your work ultimately turns out has a LOT to do with your skills as an engineer. Since you are asking these kinds of elementary questions, have purchase "budget" monitors, I will venture to say that it will be many years from now before you produce music that is on par with major label releases, unless you are doing electronica type of stuff, but even then, you will need to gain a LOT of experience before you can produce results on par with much more experienced engineers who generally use much better equipment!

While your $600 seems like a lot of money, that is NOTHING in the realm of things! I spent $1000 my Event 20/20 monitors with a Halfer P3000 amp 10 years ago! That was JUST for a monitoring chain, and that is FAR from top of the line. Price out some Meyer HD-1's for the best studio monitors I have ever heard! http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/hd-1/ I have recorded tracks before with a microphone that cost $6,000!!!

So, not trying to lay my dick out here for comparison, simply, I am trying to illustrate that you have invested VERY little money in audio gear, have VERY little experience as a recording engineer, and should probably have expectations that are a bit lower eh?

Good luck.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Now of course I understand the need & use for my Monitors however not certain if these are the best I could get but they sound great and like I said, the price was what I considered very good. I've already re-mixed a previous project using them instead of what I originally used for editing then burning to listen to in the home & car stereo systems, and it sounded ten times better than I had hoped for BUT still not as good as what I hear on the radio (just yet).

It sounds to me like you're right on track, Blu. Unless or until you have the experience, environment, gear and budget of the productions you hear on the radio, sounding like them is a fairly unrealistic goal.

As you get more experience, the other factors will get less important, though will still remain factors. The important thing is as you get more experience, you'll be able to tell better hust how much and where the other factors play out. For example, you kow when your experience finally exceeds your monitor quality. In the meantime, you're doing fine, it sounds like.

I have no idea if the plugins will enhance my work or even how to use them. I've only tried Ozone thus far but even that has more adjustments then the Space Shuttle.

Sounds like a case of premature spending to me.

So my question is, will Ozone be a valuable tool for me within SX3 or does SX3 already have built within, a suitable comparison for adding or subtracting various wetness in Reverb, Dither, EQ, Dynamics, etc. ? Also, do any of you use either of these products and if so, how do I get to learn how to use them?

As far as actual description of functionality, Ozone is just a collection of tools. 99% of those tool types are already available in Cubase (I'm not sure what the SX version does or does not have, though.) Most of those tools you mention (compression, EQ, reverb, etc.) are basic tools that can be used for anything; tracking mixing or mastering. There's no real intrinsic difference between a mastering limiter and a plain ol' limiter other than their name.

The difference is in the quality of the sound of the tools and in the interface design. Is Ozone "better" or "worse" than anything else? That's not only totally subjective, but also totally dependent upon which tool you're referring to. In general, external third party plugs like Ozone tend to sound better than your average editor-included tool (you usually get what you pay for), but that's not necessarily the case. I have had some free EQs that I prefer over Ozone's EQ. But that's a subjective opinion. On the other hand, Ozone's dithering is pretty darn good and tough to beat unless you go really top shelf, and very few will disagree with that, it seems. And Ford is right, Ozone is a CPU hog. If you have an older machine, it could give you some fits and starts there.

Don't be afraid of all the bells and whistles in Ozone; it's not doing anything that you aren't basically familiar with already; it's just a collection of EQs verbs/delays and dynamics processors, just alike any other plugs. They just bundle them together in an integrated and space age looking interface. What I'd recommend is reversing your priorities a bit.

Instead of trying to intrinsically learn Ozone, just work on your mixes and ask yourself what they may or may not be lacking. Once you ID the problem, you're halfway home; then it's just a matter of deciding which tool you need to fix it. is it an EQ problem, or a dynamics problem? Is it something that I should fix in the mix or in the mixdown? And so forth. THEN, you'll be able to turn to Ozone (as well as your other tools inyour overall tool bag) and figure just how to use that one tool for that one problem. If it doesn't work, then you can try another tool.

Think of it this way, one needs to cut open a body before they can learn how to use a surgeons tools. One may know what forecips are for and generally how they work, but you'll never really know how to use them on a femoral artery until you have one spurting blood all over your gloves .

G.

 

[BluMusic]

Southside & Ford Van -

GREAT REPLIES !!! Your assessment of my mixing / mastering ability is right on and I would never profess to know how to engineer my projects for the immediate intent of pressing as many do, when they have no idea what goes into it. I'm a very good musician who wants to achieve this goal someday sooner than later hopefully.

Yes, of course $600 (w/tax included) is not a huge amount of money at all when considering the overall cost of what I am hoping to accomplish. I have guitars valued over $3,000, all-in-all there are thousands wrapped up in my Home Studio and I'm looking at spending more down the road. For recording my acoustic guitars, I currently have decent condenser mics but there are mics out there that I would die to own soon. But for now, I'm working with what I have.

I did wish to point out one thing, after I finish a project and burn it to CD, I'll generally hear more bottom than necessary and the reason for that was because, I was mixing totally through Cans. The only thing that broke the hold back for us recently was, my wife's cousin is an executive at Sony and when she heard my stuff not too long ago, she asked why did I not tell her I could play & write like this before. She told my wife that I was sitting on a gold mine and I needed to get serious about doing something with these songs. So now when I say, Hey babe I think I need some monitors, she's ok with it but still we have the mortgage & stuff you know.

Other important issue is, I'm a very quick learner. I will dive into learning what I need to about mastering & mixing and I have NO intention of getting all of you to do it for me. For the purpose of this Forum, I would only ask small questions like do you think this is better than that kinda thing.

The Monitors were a good deal for me &^ my budget and there's always better. If I had bought a pair of $1,00 monitors, someone here would have said, they suK. Lastly, I listen to CDs of Artist I enjoy and I also listen to how they sound overall, for instance, if you listen to a Britney Spears CD, you'll notice the engineer tries hard to coverup her vocals with as much music overtop as possible, likewise Janet Jackson. I know I should go to school if I wish to do this seriously but i don't wish to become an engineer just get a well rounded knowledge so I can pump out some good sounding stuff with the budget I have. Let's not forget one of the largest selling albums of all times (Sgt Pepper) was done on a Four Track 2" machine bounced nine thousand times ...

So I paid for Ozone 3 and now It's mine to keep. You guy are pros it sounds to me and I'd pay you to learn what you know if you were in my part of the world.

Are the KRK's good or what ? They sure sound good to me

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Are the KRK's good or what ? They sure sound good to me

If they do the job you need them to, they're good. The key there is the definition of "the job".

Are they the most accurate loudspeakers in the world? Nope. Does that matter as much as it sounds like it should? Not really. One of the legendary famous and popular studio monitors of the last 25 years or so is the Yamaha NS-10. They are about as accurate as a local weather forecast for 8 days from now. Many people think they sound like crap (myslef included.) Yet, some of the best engineers in the world won't mix without them (sme actually carry their own pair with them to different studios) because they know that if they sound like "A" on the NS10s, that they'll sound like "B" in the real world.

What matters is if they give *your ears* what they need to make mixes that translate the way you want them to in the "real world". That translation is the key. For me, I *love* my Mackie HR 824s because my ears can translate them very easily. Others who are fairly my equal in mixing experience and skill hate them becaue they don't sound like what their ears prefer to hear.

How well your KRKs wind up fitting you is not completly unlike how well a given pair of shoes fit your feet. If they are comfortable for you, you'll be able to walk on them all day, whereas they might blister the feet of the guy next to you. You'll just have to wear them and walk in them for a while before you'll know for sure whether they are holding you back or not.

An equally important point to consider - far more important than many new to this racket realize - is the quality of your room acoustics. Depending on your room dimensions and your layout, if you don't treat the acoustics at least somewhat (it doesn't have to be a million-dollar room, as nice as that would be , but at least some tuning of bass modality and reflection), you'll still be crimping your style. In a poorly-set up room and mixing location, even $4000 a pair Adams monitors will sound wrong and straightjacket your mixes.

G.

 

[BluMusic]

Yeah I hear ya .. it's like I'm a Strat guy and can't stand Les Paul's. Wouldn't take one if you gave it to me.

Let me ask this, I can listen to a CD and actually hear differences in how it was mixed as in some tend to feature the bottom more than the top & vice versa. When you say "How it translates to the outside World" or something like that. There's where I have a problem. Because I play many different instruments, mainly guitar but also drums & keyboards, I tend to hear music in its' entirety. I listen for the subtle sounds mostly lost on untrained ears.

So the term MIXING is where the magic happens I would imagine. There you take the recordings of what was played and instead of presenting it to the World as one piece, a great engineer, separates those signals and spreads them out over a spectrum to give a more uniform balance. To obtain that is what you mean by years of study I suppose because just understanding what to do is very different than how to do it.

Years back before the countless mixing toys, plugins & filters were available, guys like you were able to make pretty good sounding music, so why is it so hard now just to achieve that?

Products like Ozone or whatever is an attempt to accomplish what exactly? According to what it touts, all you need is this and you should be able to establish any type of sound you're hoping for. I've already purchased Ozone and there's no refund because I bought it via the Internet so now it's mine.

I want to create a nice smooth less boomy but sometimes punchy sound in a less than perfect recording environment. I don't have a sound-proof room, I wait until no one is home before I record acoustic instruments or vocals. And all my other instruments are run direct into the Board then into Cubase.

What is it that gives your music that nice spread out sound? Is it just know which instruments should be placed left or right of center?

 

[chessrock]

What is it that gives your music that nice spread out sound? Is it just know which instruments should be placed left or right of center?

Hmmm ... "Nice, spread out sound" you ask?

I think you need to ask Walters that question:
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=249958


As for all your other questions ... I get the feeling you're taking this stuff way too seriously. Try to enjoy it and have fun with it. Of course your family is going to tell you you're the shit. That's what family is for. Don't let it get to your head.

So you wasted a wad of cash on some stuff you didn't need ... welcome to the world of recording. Don't forget to have fun.

But there is good news in all of this! Your recording chain probably sucks, your accoustics are a joke, and your technique is probably worse. Don't forget to have fun! Bla bla bla bla bla ...

.

 

[BluMusic]

Hmmm ... "Nice, spread out sound" you ask?

I think you need to ask Walters that question:
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=249958


As for all your other questions ... I get the feeling you're taking this stuff way too seriously. Try to enjoy it and have fun with it. Of course your family is going to tell you you're the shit. That's what family is for. Don't let it get to your head.

So you wasted a wad of cash on some stuff you didn't need ... welcome to the world of recording. Don't forget to have fun.

But there is good news in all of this! Your recording chain probably sucks, your accoustics are a joke, and your technique is probably worse. Don't forget to have fun! Bla bla bla bla bla ...

.

You see, there's where you don't get where I coming from, actually I do enjoy it. First & foremost, I'm a musician who knows how to play for the rush music gives me and those who hear it. I'm very interested in recording & mixing. It's just another step in the whole process of creation. During my college years, I took up photography and found that most of my time was in the darkroom. Amazing stuff can be created in a darkroom. So if you think I'm getting crazed by all of this, nah I love it and to say I bought a lot of stuff I don't need, who's to say I don't need it?

I'll use it just as I've used everything else I have. Already I think the Reverb settings and adjustments via Ozone are much better than what Cubase offers. I'm very satisfied with what I bought and someday soon, I'll learn how to drive it better. I have NO intention on having you guys teach me because I respect that you all had to invest years to get where you are and I'm not the kind of guy who thinks this should all happen over night. I read and apply what I read, if I'm stuck on something, I guess I do come here to ask what could be the issue and I'm also hoping someday soon, I'll be able to offer info.

Actually I can in other areas of this Forum but not in the Mixing & Mastering Section. As for Cubase, I can & have given information but at the end of the day, I'm having a blast.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Yeah I hear ya .. it's like I'm a Strat guy and can't stand Les Paul's. Wouldn't take one if you gave it to me.

Change the word "Strat" to the word "Fender" (I don't want to leave out Tele's do we? ), and I'll buy you a freakin' drink, you breath of fresh air you

Let me ask this, I can listen to a CD and actually hear differences in how it was mixed as in some tend to feature the bottom more than the top & vice versa. When you say "How it translates to the outside World" or something like that. There's where I have a problem. Because I play many different instruments, mainly guitar but also drums & keyboards, I tend to hear music in its' entirety. I listen for the subtle sounds mostly lost on untrained ears.

That's going to happen; people in lousy listening environments (car interiors, mePod earbuds) and with lousy ears are going to miss "the good stuff" all the time. We just have to live with that disappointment and enjoy it when people *do* actually recognize our work.

But, the more important facet to translation, IMHO, is not that it sounds perfect to everybody everywhere, but rather that it not sound bad. What I mean by "translation" is the knowledge that what sounds best in the control room is not always what will sound best elsewhere, and the further knowledge that if you want it to sound like "A" to the rest of the world that it really needs to sound like "B" in the control room.

Get used to your KRKs, take care of your room acoustics at least to the basics, and learn how they actually sound together. Get your mixes sounding as good as you can at your desk, then take them into your living room, your car, your mePod and absorb the differences. Finding out that maybe you need to mix the bass a little different or the bids a little tamer than what you think is right in the CR in order to get it to sound the best overall on average in the outside world, and then you'll have the translation working for you.

So the term MIXING is where the magic happens I would imagine.

The magic happens everywhere,mostly in your head before you even push the record button. Plan it out.

But as far as the engineering process goes, the REAL magic is in the tracking. If your tracking os off, no mixing magic in the world is ever going to make the mix sound as good as if you get the tracking down solid first. If I got a dollar for every interview or conversation I have ever had with a better engineer than I who said in one way or another, "The longer I'm in this buisness, the more I realize that I want to get the tracking down so I can throw up the first "faders up" rough playback and say, heck, that sounds just about done," I'd be able to buy myself a nice steak dinner.

Years back before the countless mixing toys, plugins & filters were available, guys like you were able to make pretty good sounding music, so why is it so hard now just to achieve that?

Because all that crap just makes it more complicated, not easier. And all that crap has also made the technology cheaper, putting it the hands of The Great Unwashed. So we have a combination of higher complexity going nto the hands of the lesser trained, While that's very nobly democratic, it doesn't serve well towards the actual goal of making great recordings.

It used to be that there were no overdubs, no punches, and even, not long ago, no compression and only bery basic equalization. Everything was recorded direct to disc in single takes (the cutting lathes were right in the control room.) They had to get everything right mabe not in just one take, but in a whole take, and without the "benefit" of having a box full of fancy tools for "fixing in the mix". What they understood was that if you had quality musicians in a quality room with quality tracking technique, that was all you needed. It's no different today.

The problem is the average home recorder does not practice long enough before hitting the record button, is doing it in a bedroom beasement or garage designed for anything other than sound quality, and recorded by someone who has been told by the manufacturers that what they lack in experience can be made up for in expensive hardware and software. Which leads us to...

Products like Ozone or whatever is an attempt to accomplish what exactly?

Make money for the company selling them to unsuspecting home recorders as magic fixes for their lack in the important stuff.

Not to say that your Ozone is useless or anything. It will still be very helpful for you as you go along. Just don't buy into the idea that it is a substitute for technique and that it can do on the mixdown what you failed to accomplish in tracking or mixing. It can help polish you mixdown, but - as is said often around here - you can't polish a turd.

G.

 

[Ironklad Audio]

Let's not forget one of the largest selling albums of all times (Sgt Pepper) was done on a Four Track 2" machine bounced nine thousand times ...

FWIW, Sgt. Pepper was also recorded in a great studio, with great consoles and microphones, with great musicians, and a great engineer in the chair