Learn me some stuff...

Slackmaster2K

Slackmaster2K

Gone
Ok, I've got a new recording and need some help on it. This one is totally different from the last two...and yes, S8-N, it is original so no need to get all huffy :)


First of all, a lot of definition was lost in the mp3 conversion which is disappointing. At 128kbps no less!

Here's what I need help on:

The bass guitar is way too heavy. I was looking for a deep full sound, but with definition. In other words, yes each note counts. Cranking the lower end of the bass helped with definition, but now speakers are exploding all over the place. How can I make the bass ring clear during the "chorus" when the guitars distort...without turning it up? Also, when this song is cranked, the levels are nice...but when I lower the total volume....goodbye bass, hello obnoxious guitar! What the hell do I do about that?

The drums are also way too bassy. I think I know how to fix that though.

Anyway, this tune was recorded like such:

1 drum track written with Drums! 2.01. Applied n-Track Reverb.

1 continuous bass line recorded with the bass running into a SansAmp DI box into my guitar amp and then MICED with an SM57. Applied BlueLine Compressor

The "main" guitar...the one you hear first is continous and the only guitar track between "choruses". I'm doing a LOT of semi-palm-mutes which require a bit of low end, is this interfering with the bass line? Applied BlueLine Compressor.

There are two guitars during the chorus and outro sections of the tune playing the same thing...pretty much, but one is panned half left. Does this work ok? Applied Blue Compressor to each...same setting.

There is one "ambient" guitar that's in the background during the chorus.

The guitar solo at the end is just straight garbage Peavy distortion with a wah pedal. Nothing funky there. Don't pay attention to it anyway...it's all cliche and I'm very disappointed with myself. My creativity box has a dead battery it would seem.

The whole mix has n-Track reverb and some compression added. I of course used n-Track for everything including the mixdown.

All the guitars are miced via an SM57 through my Fostex X-26 multitracker (my wannabe preamp)...except for the little ambient guitar which is miced with a $10 walmart microphone in a plastic cup behind the amp...gave a "far away" sound to it I think. Oh, my amp is a cheap Peavy Studio Pro 60 solid state. I also used the SansAmp DI box as an "effects" box into my guitar amp quite a bit. It sucks as a DI box but is ok for some pseudo-tube sounds.

So anyway, I need suggestions on cleaning up the bass and opinions on overall level. This tune is not yet complete but I'm not going any furthur until I get this much sounding good.

Big change from the bluesy clips I posted earlier...my taste changes daily it seems.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Oh man S2K...I swear I thought I was having a sixties flashback! That beginning is right out of After Bathing at Baxter's. This is great! And it sounds a bit indie modern too. You are very good...songwriter, guitarist, recordist...wow! Every time that guitar comes in it's like a rush! And you should hear it with Qsound...

No drugs, people. No kidding. This stuff just obviously scratches the surface of S2K.

Don't you dare apologize for the end, either, it sounds more like Jorma Kaukonen than I ever did, and I've been trying for...a long time. I'm very jealous, and here you are treating it like a throwaway. Sniff.

OK, now the bass stuff. I came up with a weird idea and it may not work. The bass sounds good, but it's already compressed and too thumpy, right?

Try this. Take the bass track and copy it to another track, then flip it out of phase and mix it with the first, but not as loud, during the thumpy parts. It should take the edge off it, but the sound itself shouldn't change.

[This message has been edited by Dragon (edited 10-22-1999).]
 
Yo Slackman: it passed the Marilyn test.
This happens when I immediately pick up my axe to work out a rhythm track on my acoustic guitar to go with your tune.
Do you still have the original tracks stored separately to do a remix? This might be among the fodder that Dragon was looking for to fuel the mixing competition.
 
My head hurts. :)

Dragon: Thank you very much for the compliments. I have to admit that I had no idea what "After Bathing At Baxter's" was or who Jorma Kaukonen is until I did a quick search. I never listened too much to Jefferson Airplane aside from the standard radio cuts. Unfortunately I'm too young to have 60's flashbacks. My sadass flashbacks involve the Culture Club and Devo...not fun. :)

So, what do you mean by flip it out of phase? Man, I'm totally new at this. I did a quick lookthrough of the webpage but to be honest I didn't even know where to start. Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks again. (And I still think that the solo is pretty lame :)

Slackmaster 2000
 
Drstawl:

1) Yes I have the original tracks.
2) What is the mixing competition?
3) What the heck does fodder mean? :)

Slackmaster 2000
 
A while back someone suggested that Dragon place a bunch of synced mono tracks on his server in mp3 format. Then members could download the raw tracks and mix them to an mp3 stereo pair. Members would then vote on the best mix out of the tracks available. I guess the requirements of hosting a large number of mixes at his site to vote on nixed the project. How many participants would be willing to download and compare 20 different mixes? Or 1200?
Fodder is feed, as in IAMS for my cats, scratch and greens for my chickens or creative ideas for my HD.
 
Sorry, drstawl, I never gave up the idea but there are more important things still cooking for this site yet, not to mention that I was traveling for a week and then sick for a few more. It's still in the "to be done" pile along with finishing my own CD and a few hundred other things.

S2K: no, there's nothing specific here on the site about phase, but any decent audio editing program should have this function, probably buried in a menu somewhere. It reverses the polarity of the signal so that it sounds the same, but if you added it to the original signal, they would cancel out and you'd hear nothing! This trick can be used to remove background noise sometimes.

If you can't find it in your particular program, tell us which you're using and one of us will be able to find it I bet...I'm not even sure this will work better than just turning down the volume, but it might. It's purely a thinking exercise...
 
Slackmaster! While waiting for your bit to download, I went back to college and graduated, only to come home and find it was still downloading. So I went back to school again, and with masters degree in hand I finally got to listen to your tune...Uh, it's probably my cheapass slow computer's fault it took so long, but it was worth the wait! Screw Jorma. Has a young dude like you ever heard any Quicksilver Messenger Service? Way back band with total guitar emphasis...you'd like 'em...Your tune is excellent, lots of control and just the right use of effect. A friend of mine has always said a wah and a volume pedal are the two most important gadgets he has for playing...good stuff...gibs
 
See, S2K, there goes another old fart who loves your sound...even if it's not the solo itself, we love the sound. And even if this new gibs fellow doesn't like Jorma, he does have enough class to like Quicksilver. As a matter of fact I just got their "Happy Trails" CD from Amazon. They have a cool but way-too-long version of "Who Do You Love" (which is one of my signature songs for way too many reasons to talk about in public) and also a killer version of "Mona" that the other night I played for 3 hours straight while attempting to work. In fact, here I go again....wooee!

Sorry, it's the mindless hypnotic bass and drums that get to me on that one, and there's something about the chord change.
 
Ouch,Dragon, that's the second time this week I've been called an old fart. Once by you and once by a cousin who disagreed with me when I said Limp Biscuit was a bunch of poseurs. Fred Dirst an arteeeest, indeed...I know now I should have never mentioned Quicksilver thereby raising red old fart flags all over the place...And don't get me wrong, Jorma was good, but I think Slack might be better, and for guitar-oriented mixes, QS is a good band to refer to. Now that I've been (self) exposed as one of the elderly on this site, wouldn't it be cool to know about everybody else...think of the possibilities...like maybe S8 N is really a grandaddy Baptist minister...or drstawl is actually a precocious fourteen year old whose peeps have a lot of money...that's the neat thing about the internet...we're probably all just a bunch of hairy-palmed fat guys glued to a computer screen. Uh...except for me....gibs
 
On one had it would be nice to know a little background of everyone here....but on the other hand that can be dangerous. If I had a nickel for every time someone used their age as weight in an argument I'd be a rich man. One thing that I've come to learn is that wisdom and age do not necessarily go hand in hand. Respect is earned not handed out based on birth date. I'm even guilty of it...There's a song by Silverchair that I really like; but man I wish I had never found out how young those guys were when they recorded it...I find myself thinking, "oh quit your bitching and go clean your room." :)

I do, however, think it would be worthwile to know a little bit more about the people around here. Specifically how long they've been playing, their influences, and what they do in "real life".

Risking loss of validity, I'd rather not even bother stating my age...just that yes I'm younger than you :) I've been playing guitar for about 10 years with 2 or 3 years off right in the middle. Living with my ex-girlfriend took a real toll on my guitar ability and I'll never quite forgive myself for it. (one of the reasons my guitars have male names) Anyway, my parents both loved music so I grew up listening mostly to classic rock. The first album I owned was Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. That's why I have a hard time relating to the whole new "rap rock" and "gothic" scenes which I find to be musically infantile. It's just too "look, I learned a new note today!"

Blah blah, Dragon...I haven't had time to look into the Phasing thing yet but I'll let you know if it works. I'm using n-Track which I don't think comes with this function, but I also have GoldWave which might.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Gibs- once you stop getting carded, don't fight it; relax and float downstream. The harder you squirm the more "old fart" becomes "curmudgeon" and "the wisdom of age" becomes "the vacuous void of senility." And you're partially right. I was a precocious 14 year old; ~30 years ago. But I grew up in the South Bronx where peeps with money meant both of your parents had a job.
 
Hey, forgive me if I don't blow ya... but decent song.... As far as the mix... The kick drum level isn't consistent... It is laid back in parts and THUMPIN' in parts... That'll wreak havoc when you are trying to EQ the CD on your stereo... I have that problem cause my drum machine has pressure sensitive pads and it's just not possible to hit them the same way through a part...
If you think that the conversion to MP3 took away some of the clarity of the recording, It must have been crystal sparkling clear to begin with... I can't get that kind of headroom in my mixes...
Which brings me to a topic that I was gonna post anyway... Does anyone know how much difference there is between the various MP3 encoders out there? For my last piece I used a strange and ancient bootleg program called SCMPX and it seemed to chew up the audio quite a bit...
I recently downloaded an MP3 from a band in Atlanta that I know and I swear it sounded DAT quality... And at 128KBS!!!
Someone should do a comparison...

P.S. Nice job on the mix... you'll get that goatee yet...

S8-N
 
Man, this song kicks - I dig the guitar sound. Slack, sometimes you've got to sit back and enjoy your music rather than concentrating on the next tweak. :)
 
S8-N:

Thanks. I don't know what the problem is with the kick....I didn't even notice it in fact. I used software drums so it *should* be consistant....I didn't vary the levels during the song. I did use Blue Compressor and Blue EQ and n-Track reverb on them however and they might not be consistant. It also might be the mp3 conversion. Damn mp3 just sucks...I'm not going to trade in my CD player just yet :) I use the one that comes with n-Track...it's a popular one...can't remember the name however. I had some hope for WMA but it produces about the same quality at the same file size once you encode at 128kbps or better...

jitteringjim:

Thanks, but this shit's already in my head where it sounds perfect...of course :) The trouble is trying to reproduce that sound as well as possible.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Well, going back to S2K's topic of "about ourselves", I am nineteen and recieved my first (oldie but goodie) acoustic for my 16th birthday. I haven't looked back since (haha). I purchased my electric just under a year ago, and that was three years after I got my acoustic, so I suppose that would make me 19 years old. I'm not the youngest here, am I?? :) Ah well.. I grew up in the eighties, which was just WONDERFUL let me tell you, oh wait, you were all there.. Anyway.. Yeah as S2K said.. Devo.. Boy George. Anyway, while that was going on, my aunt got me into the Beatles, which I thought was the most incredible music I'd ever heard. I think I still agree with that (well, except for S2K's song, of course) but in the past few years I've expanded on that, and started listening to music other than the Beatles. A friend of mine greatly influenced the music I listen to, and the way I play guitar ... Although he's also into the Beatles, I was shocked to find out he doesn't devote 100% of his time to them!! What!! Blasphemy, there is no other band worthy of listening to.... Right? .... Anyway, he played me some Zeppelin, Hendrix, early Queen.. And so I guess I've expanded my horizons a bit. :) Well, somewhere in there I started recording stuff and I've got the most incredible story to tell about the start of my "recording" days, but I won't speak it until provoked. :) Ciao!
 
I may be the only one to notice this... but the beatles suck...
I know that they carved the path for pop music today... but that sucks too!!!
They were into the "Formula" method of songwriting which robs so many people of the balls to create something unique... The same chord changes... the same harmonies... the same song structure...
The only saving grace that they have is that they were closet satanists... And that isn't enough to deify them to the godlike status that they seem to achieve...
Sure, their 4 track stuff sounds good... It was recorded with handmade tube mics and amps going onto huge tape...
Anyone can do vocal harmonies... even the Spice Girls...
Get over them... They had opportunities we will never have...

I am sure you will all agree...
S8-N
 
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