The Songwriter Forum - songwriting reviews, tips and chat
Songwriter Forum => Recording => Topic started by: diademgrove on July 16, 2013, 05:47:44 PM
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Hi all,
I have recorded a short instrumental and would like to put up the stems for the first mixing exercise. I apologise if I have broken any forum etiquette by posting here. I have uploaded the stems in a winzip file to 4 shared. The link is http://www.4shared.com/folder/TVq8vYKK/_online.html
It includes the following wav files
1 x bass (kick) drum
1 x snare
1 x hats
3 x rhythm guitar
2 x lead guitar (1 being occasional support)
1 x organ
1 x tambourine
1 x crowd noise
You can pick and choose which files you use with one exception.
Please let me know if you have any problems. This is the first time I've used 4 shared and winzip.
The files were recorded at different levels, so some balancing will be needed.
The tune is untitled but used Fenland Gardener as a means of identifying the stems. The only rule concerns the crowd noise. I would like you to add bits of it to the finished track like the Beatles did to Sgt Pepper or Revolution No 9. Which bits you use are up to you.
Please note that crowd noise stem is not meant to be fit in with the rest of the stems in real time. It is meant to be cut up and the bits you use can be placed anywhere in the mix you think suitable. You could use a few seconds or lots of it. How much is up to you.
I look forward to hearing the results.
Any questions please ask
diadem
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Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this. I am currently away on holiday but will do a mix on my return in 2 weeks time.
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Thanks Allan,
I'll look forward to hearing the result. Apart from the crowd noise its not as weird as my usual recordings. That's no guarantee it isn't weird, though.
diadem
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BTW what is the track tempo. I think if you can supply the bpm it will save peeps a bit of time in trying to match it.
Allan.
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131bpm.
All the musical tracks with the exception of the tambourine and one of the lead guitars are introduced by a 1 2 3 4 played on the appropriate instrument. I started one of the counts early but left it in as its quite funny. I left one bar of silence after the count and started the tune.
I started with the bass drum and played everything else on top of this track. Once you see the stems in the DAW you should be able to see how it all works.
Hope this helps.
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Is there any chance you could upload to a site other than Livid? It forces users to install livid before they can download and I don't trust Livid. It has some extremely bad reports of malware and hijacking when I googled it.
Allan.
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Dropbox is very good, nothing dodgy..
Just upload the tracks to your public folder and copy and paste the links to each one.
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Second for dropbox. 4shared won't let me download anything without an account...
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I'm setting up drop box. I've had a look at the site and it talks about getting people's e-mail addresses. Presumably I just share the link on here and people can download the contents of the folder.
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Here is the link to Dropbox, hope it works
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bmbgdqxohfznjk7/5aeCwaEAhg
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That seems ok, on my phone at least (im at work at the mo) I can see all the files so it should be easy enough for people to get them downloaded.
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That seems ok, on my phone at least (im at work at the mo) I can see all the files so it should be easy enough for people to get them downloaded.
Thanks, that's a relief.
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Got the tracks. Rhythm Guitar 3 has nothing on it...
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One thing I should point out, which is too late now but useful in the future. Is that you have exported all your tracks as stereo wav files when in fact they are (mostly) mono sources, so should be recorded and exported to mono tracks.
Using stereo when not needed messes with headroom (a problem when it comes to mixing) and eats up disk space and CPU power...
I bounced down all the tracks to mono, which is no problem but takes a bit of time ;)
So..if you have a mono signal (1 mic, 1 output from a guitar or whatever), use a mono track...
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I've added rhythm guitar track 3.1 to the folder. Hopefully you'll be able to see it.
Sorry about the stereo. I never really needed to mixdown to mono before. I'll learn how to do it and make sure I don't make the same mistake again. Thanks for the tip.
diadem
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Fascinating title, really looking forward to seeing what's under the hood and how they all turn out..
Managed to download and import which is a 1st!!
BPM seems to be 131.02 I think but the 3rd bass drum beat is behind the beat - help......
:)
Neil
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maybe youcan also do a quick mp3 export of the song in it's current state, so we can listen to a before and after with everyones mixes?
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I wasn't going to. I wanted to see what everyone else came up with.
If other people planning on doing a mix would like to hear mine I'll finish it off and post it.
Please let me know over the next day or so. If people think its a good idea I'll post my mix on Friday. I'd rather finish the mix off than post an mp3 of one of my rough mixes if that's ok.
I'm not sure what anybody would learn from one of my rough mixes as I generally build up from the drums and bass rather than sketch out the finished product and work backwards. By the time I get to include all the parts the mix is almost complete.
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no, I meant the raw tracks as they are now. It's more about being able to hear what different people have done to the original tracks to achieve their mixes...
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I think this is already starting to prove its worth as an exercise and we havnt even started. Already some folks are learning the different merits of mono and stereo tracks. Cant wait to get home and get started.
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no, I meant the raw tracks as they are now. It's more about being able to hear what different people have done to the original tracks to achieve their mixes...
I'm not sure I work like that. I uploaded the drums, including the hats, into Cubase. Added the bass. Adjusted the levels and added some individual effects to everything but the snare. When I was happy with the overall sound I printed the result to stereo. I then opened a new session and produced a stereo mixdown of the rhythm and lead guitar. I opened a final session imported the mixdown tracks and added everything else into the mix. So my processed raw tracks are all mixed together.
I'm currently checking the levels to achieve a compromise between how it sounds on the computer and my hi fi. Once I'm happy I'll print the master and eventually put it on the forum. If I'm unhappy I may revisit the individual effects, but that doesn't happen very often.
I use different sessions because of my small computer screen. Not perfect but it does me.
I'm not sure if anything I post would be of any use if you want to identify what I've done to the individual raw tracks.
I have a way of working that suits me. It may not be technically correct, but I generally produce a mix I like. I think I'm making a stew, albeit, one where you can take things out without affecting the taste.
If you think some of it will be of use let me know. From your post I'm not sure how they could be without the finished product to compare them against.
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Fascinating title, really looking forward to seeing what's under the hood and how they all turn out..
Managed to download and import which is a 1st!!
BPM seems to be 131.02 I think but the 3rd bass drum beat is behind the beat - help......
:)
Neil
Sorry Neil, that's what I get from trying to be helpful and using quantise. Usually my drums are all over the beat.
I'd not noticed it, but most of the music I listen to is ancient, well before everything had to be exactly on the beat.
;)
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Fascinating title, really looking forward to seeing what's under the hood and how they all turn out..
Managed to download and import which is a 1st!!
BPM seems to be 131.02 I think but the 3rd bass drum beat is behind the beat - help......
:)
Neil
Sorry Neil, that's what I get from trying to be helpful and using quantise. Usually my drums are all over the beat.
I'd not noticed it, but most of the music I listen to is ancient, well before everything had to be exactly on the beat.
;)
Diademgrove, no problem. Its fascinating exercise already.
I always use midi drums to time everything when I record audio even if i dont used them.
I tried to cut and quantise each drum ( and also considered putting in a new drum track against the rules I imagine ) but then I realised that the audio will all be against these recorded drums not quantised ones. :(
I'm wondering how others are dealing with this timing issue as I dont think I can proceed without a fix?
???
Neil
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manual editing.
There are timing discrepancies between instruments (e.g. bass and drums) anyway, so needs to be done.
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manual editing.
There are timing discrepancies between instruments (e.g. bass and drums) anyway, so needs to be done.
That's what happens if you use humans, their timing is usually off.
I've uploaded a wav file of an early drum and bass mix called FG drum and bass mix1, surprisingly. After sleeping on it I thought it might be helpful to see how I start building a track up.
Its going to be interesting to see the results. I've kept all my timing discrepancies in.
Good luck.
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I have to say I think with the amount of editing required its beyond my skill and resources, which is a shame as I would like to have done a mix :(
However that's not to say that I haven't learnt something already, namely the ability to import other peoples songs and get them into my DAW which was a first for me.
So diadem thanks for the opportunity and good luck to everyone, I am looking forward to hearing how it turns out and what you all learned, and having ago at another one in a while..
:)
Neil
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Thanks Neil. Its a shame you couldn't put everything right.
My mix is done. I didn't edit the tracks to put everything on the beat, just mixed it as it was recorded. I do have an advantage though, I'm used to recording myself and mixing the tracks.
Maybe next time,
diadem
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Mixing this now.
Can you give some ideas as to what you are after with regards to the feel and tone of the piece? A bit of history/explanation of the track ?
Are other people going to post their mixes? I suggest you just go ahead and post them in this thread...
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Thank you for taking the time with my tracks.
I would post my mix, but feel it best to wait until other people posted theirs. I'm also waiting to give seriousfun enough time after his holidays to see what he could do.
I sometimes end my guitar practice by playing over a random track. I came up with the lead guitar riff and didn't have much else. I read the thread about mixing and thought what a good idea. It then occurred to me that people wait to see who goes first and a good idea disappears because nobody wants to go first. I just added some more lead guitar and the other instruments. The rhythm guitar was just one chord to keep it simple. The drums were kept simple as well (lack of talent). The bass guitar was just noodling and playing fills during the times the guitar was quiet.
So no real history, no intention other than to see what people did with the tracks.
I had a tone and feel in my head which ended up in my mix. But I'd hate to limit you to what's in my head. I thought the object was to take the bare tracks and make something different to show what could be achieved from the initial takes. I tried to include enough variety in my playing to make each mix different.
As to my mix, I don't know how much corrective work you did on the tracks but I didn't do any. If the beats are sloppy then my mix is sloppy as well.
I'm genuinely interested in what people come up with. I'm not going to turn round and complain because it doesn't sound like mine. To be honest I don't want the mixes to sound like mine. I feel it would be far more educational (and interesting) if we ended up with mixes that sounded different. Once the mixes are up it would be nice to get questions about what the mixers have done to get totally different sounds. If we end up with similar sounding mixes, what's there to ask?
Sorry I don't feel I've been much help. If you have any more queries please ask.
diadem
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i missed this...?? can i still join... ??? please :P
if there is a lot of editing, and that is allowed...
i would like to join very much, because i can really mess (strech, chop, delete, combine, pitch, smother, burn, kill, shift etc.) things up highly efficiently ;D ;D ;D....yes, that is what i make myself believe
so where can i get the tracks ;D ;D ;D ;D
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ok, i see, they where in the intitial post
sorry
but i think they are no longer
sorry for coming late (i had reasons for that)
but can i still get the tracks, i will try to make something weird and different
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found the tracks, this looks more like a RE-mixing excercise than a mixing excercise
just by reading your posts and the responses
cool for me, so i am in, and i have the tracks now, i think
deadlines? are there any deadlines so that we can break those?
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No deadlines, almost no rules about what you can do. The only rule is that you must use at least some of the crowd noise. You are not supposed to use all of it, unless you're that weird, just sprinkle it where every you want.
You can stretch, chop, delete, combine, pitch, smother, burn, kill, shift etc if you want to.
I look forward to hearing the result.
diadem
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Back from my holiday and really looking forward to participating in this. Have just downloaded the files so will start work on it asap.
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Back from my holiday and really looking forward to participating in this. Have just downloaded the files so will start work on it asap.
Looking forward to hearing the results. I'll post my version after yours if that's ok.
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Okeedokes... I'm downloading right NOW :)
I'll see what I can do to mess this lot up :D :D :D
hab..
btw, is it allowed to add anything? ie vocals/harmonies/ooh's etc...?
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Okeedokes... I'm downloading right NOW :)
I'll see what I can do to mess this lot up :D :D :D
hab..
btw, is it allowed to add anything? ie vocals/harmonies/ooh's etc...?
I don't see why not. As I said earlier, only one rule. You must use some of the crowd noise and that's the only rule.
I look forward to hearing the result.
diadem
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Ok, well, I'm really pressed for proper concentration/headphones time but I REALLY wanted to have a stab at this...
I have used Audacity.. with ANWIDA and Sweetboy plugins...
Here is what I've done...
I moved some of the drum tracks to line up better (in my own mind :) )
I have also done this..
FG drum and bass mix 1 - added ANWIDA whitechapel effect
FG lead guitar 1 - added ANWIDA whitechapel effect moved RIGHT
FG lead guitar 2 - added ANWIDA chapel effect moved LEFT
FG rhythm guitar 1 - moved hard left
FG rhythm guitar 3.1 - moved hard right
FG tambourine 1 - moved hard left
Crowd noise was moved and duplicated to use throughout
I then added Sweetboy b&t master, then Sweetboy maximizer +3Db
I think that's about it. I really have NO IDEA what I'm doing but if this can act as a POOR example, then so be it :)
Hope you like, and I hope it spur's others on to have a go..
http://soundcloud.com/whitewinter-habitat/fenland-gardener-jb
hab...
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Thanks hab. I was beginning to wonder who was going to be first. I think your mix is interesting.
I notice you put my awful bass playing up front ;) I liked what you've done with the crowd. Its a bit difficult to really comment too much as I've lived with my version for so long it sorta becomes ingrained. I'll put my version up a week today to allow any one else to put theirs up. We can discuss the differences then and some of the reasons I made the choices I did. Hearing your version I can see why people may be having difficulties mixing the track, it may have been better to have put my mix up first, but you can't uncrack eggs.
Thanks again, its appreciated,
diadem
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When I post my version on Sunday I'll also put up some of the lessons I've learnt from the thread, which may be helpful.
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I'll be quite late with this - sometime next week probably.
We started moving before I could get it done so speakers are packed away. I just have to set the reverb and do the final master bus processing and it's done.
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I have no problem postponing my version until the Sunday after. I would prefer putting mine up after a few are already up as I think the discussion would be so much better.
I'll take no response as a please wait. I don't think waiting another week will make any difference.
diadem
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Moving got delayed so I decided to just throw on some headphones and quickly rattle something out.
It was a fairly difficult one as it was not a song per se, as diadem says it's more just a repeated riff.
It has a fairly hazy psychadelic feel so I decided to go with that. Keeping true to the idea of a mixing exercise I didn't add in any extra tracks or develop the song further - just pure mixing :)
I did some rough editing of bass and drums to knock them into shape a little and then set all the levels and panning I wanted. I EQ'd just about every track a little and added some compression here and there - mostly on the drums to give them some extra crack and weight.
I also beefed up the lead guitar and bass tracks using the free version of Amplitube.
I screwed a fair bit with the stereo field of the organs to make them sound wiiiide and psychadelic.
Then I just put liberal amounts of reverb on the two lead guitars with Epicverb (cool freeware reverb) and finally passed it through a tape machine for some distortion/compression and the standard Cubase limiter to bring it roughly up to the same level as modern music.
I didn't really know what to do with the end where it started falling apart so I did a harsh chop! I also didn't really get the purpose of the crowd, so it's in there at the start only...
Compression either came from my own hardware recreation of an LA-2A style compressor or Waves' RComp plugin.
EQ was either from the desk (I was using a very cheap Yamaha MG16 for this track) or from PSP NobleQ or Waves' RChannel plugins.
Tape machine is a Revox
It's very quick and rough and ready, but it's turned out ok IMO ;D
https://soundcloud.com/ramshackles/fenland-gardener-ramshacklemix/s-t1que
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Thanks Ramshackles. I enjoyed listening. If you don't mind I'll give a full response when I put my version up. I think there's only seriousfun left. I could put my version up on Sunday if he has no objections, but I'd rather wait until he's ready.
I think its interesting that both you and habiTat used my count-in markers in the finished version.
diadem
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I think its interesting that both you and habiTat used my count-in markers in the finished version.
diadem
I thought, since you wanted to crowd noise included, the best way to present it was as a live gig recording, hence the markers, they also sound quite cool, a bit in like 'Smooth' by Santana.
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I think its interesting that both you and habiTat used my count-in markers in the finished version.
diadem
I thought, since you wanted to crowd noise included, the best way to present it was as a live gig recording, hence the markers, they also sound quite cool, a bit in like 'Smooth' by Santana.
I meant interesting in a nice way. I wouldn't have thought about using them in a million years, so I was pleasantly surprised when I heard them used.
I'll explain why I included the crowd noise when I put my version up and say what I've learnt from the experience. I wouldn't want to change the rules whilst seriousfun is trying to make something of my playing.
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Hi, time for my version. Apologies for the playing and the lack of instructions but some of that was deliberate.
The first lesson learned, I would suggest, is that it is far easier to mix yourself then somebody else. Unless we are really lucky most of the mixing we'll do is for ourselves or for bands/performers we know. If you branch out and approach your local studios to mix for free any work you get may be worse than my recordings.
I'd like to explain how I approached mixing this track in particular. First off I had a vague idea of how everything would fit together when I recorded the individual tracks. I knew that the bass playing was awful in parts and that the second guitar lines didn't work very well either. I left them in because it was an exercise in mixing and I wanted to see what people would do with them.
If I was mixing for somebody else I would have imported all the tracks into my DAW and listened to the full song raw. I'd have identified musically what I liked and what I didn't and worked to bring those parts I liked out and mask those I didn't.
As I'd recorded myself I didn't really need to do that so I moved to the next stage. I mixed the drums and bass together. I didn't like what I heard so decided to put them lower in the mix. This meant that the rhythm was pushed forward by the guitar. I mixed all three tracks together to produce the hybrid you hear on my mix. I liked the tambourine so that became another rhythmic instrument. The bass sneaks out now and again, which was ok.
I liked the riff and treated it as a chorus in a song, the bits in between were the verses. I found that because of my limitations as a guitar player it was boring over the 2 and half minutes. That may have been because I'd worked on the track a lot but I doubt it. I used the crowd noise as a way of breaking up the music and adding a bit more interest to the track. That's all it was there for, like a spice you can add to a meal, or not, as you see fit.
My mix isn't as bright but that's down to my personal taste.
I liked what habiTat did to the instruments. The bass and second guitar sounded really good, unfortunately you could also hear my playing really well. Not a good thing.
I thought Ramshackles transformed my bass playing and the drum and bass fitted better together. It had a nice bass heavy feel, which I like. I could also live with what Ramshackles did to the second lead line.
If anyone has any questions or comments on my mix please ask.
Thank you all for taking part.
diadem