[andy5544]

Ramshackles was kind enough to remix this for me , it does sound superior to my efforts , the guitars sound great !!! see what you think of james's mixing skills .

Rams remix -  http://soundcloud.com/compass-plane/copper-coated-heart-ramshackle

original  - http://soundcloud.com/compass-plane/copper-coated-heart-andy-ron

[Kafla]

That's excellent Andy - great clarity in the guitars

The drums sound ace

Laid back sound, man those guitars are awesome 

This is superb mate!

[digger72]

Hi,

That sounds really good. Love that bass sound - just constant and solid; works well with the guitars.
The vocal reminds me of They Might Be Giants. I can hear you singing Birdhouse in my Soul or Istanbul.

Digger

[Ramshackles]

Andy asked me to explain a bit about what I did to mix the song, so here goes, hopefully it can be a bit helpful:

I just worked with the tracks which were given to me, which were:

Drums
Bass
Rhythm guitar
Acoustic Rhythm
Acoustic Lead
Lead Vocal
Ending Guitar 1
Ending Guitar 2

I loaded this up in Cubase 5 & they all lined up correctly - that makes my job much easier!

Cubase is setup so I have a I/O bus for each of my inputs and outputs on my audio interface - so 16 input buses and 16 output buses.
I routed each track to inputs 9-16 on my Allen & heath System 8 - a big old mixer I'm slowly upgrading (the first 8 channels havent been changed yet, which is why I used inputs 9-16).
Plugins and the like were then used as insert or send effects from the mixer.

Each track had at least a couple of plugin instances and a few hardware units were used. The plugins I used were:

- Cubase Vintage Compressor
- Cubase Limiter
- Cubase 'Rotary' Effect
- Cubase 'Flanger' Effect
- PSP audioware nobleQ (a pultec-style EQ for $69 - great plugin company IMO)
- Waves Kramer Tape (Tape simulator for $100 when its on offer)
- Voxengo MSED (a very useful freeware plugin - voxengo have quite a few nice free plugins)
- SPL Twintube (distortion plugin for $100 when its on offer)

Hardware used was:
- EQ from the console
- SPL Vitalizer processor
- DBX 118 compressor
- Lexicon MPX200 reverb
- home made distortion pedal

The reverb was setup as a send effect which I sent varying amounts of different tracks to. With a bit more time I would've probably setup 2 or 3 reverb returns as well as a couple of compressor returns

The processing chain for each track:

Drums                :: Kramer Tape -> Vintage Compressor -> MSED
Bass                  :: Console EQ -> Limiter -> distortion pedal -> Vitalizer
Rhythm guitar     :: (I duplicated the guitar and offset one of the tracks by a few ms, to give a very     nice stereo effect, then processed both tracks together) :: DBX 118 -> flanger
Acoustic Rhythm :: NobleQ
Acoustic Lead     ::  EQ -> Kramer Tape (for a tape delay) -> Twintube
Lead Vocal         ::did some pitch correction, then, EQ -> Limiter -> Vintage Compressor -> nobleQ -> Vitalizer
Ending Guitar 1   :: EQ -> Vintage Compressor -> Rotary effect -> MSED
Ending Guitar 2   :: EQ -> Vintage Compressor -> MSED

And most of the tracks (except bass) had some amount of the reverb!

I then bounced down the stereo mixdown into cubase and used PSP Xenon and Kramer Tape again to 'master' it...

[tina m]

i like the acoustic guitars with the rumbling bass line they work realy well altho they did sound a bit like the guitarists were having a fight at the end
 but this is probly the worst lyric ive heard you write i much prefer your funny stuff andy....it was a bit to long aswell altho your mate ron is never boring on the lead guitar

ramshackles that mix sounds great but i wish you wouldnt take all the romance & mystery out of music & reduce it to a science by listing every bit of equipment like its a chemical process in a factory...its art isnt it?

[Ramshackles]

i like the acoustic guitars with the rumbling bass line they work realy well altho they did sound a bit like the guitarists were having a fight at the end
 but this is probly the worst lyric ive heard you write i much prefer your funny stuff andy....it was a bit to long aswell altho your mate ron is never boring on the lead guitar

ramshackles that mix sounds great but i wish you wouldnt take all the romance & mystery out of music & reduce it to a science by listing every bit of equipment like its a chemical process in a factory...its art isnt it?

Lol...well...yeah the songwriting and performing side of things is total art. When it comes to the technicalities or recording and mixing though, 'science' does have to creep in a bit

Although I think there is art in choosing different ways to mix stuff etc....but art does not have to be mystery!

Anyway something I wanted to convey on my post was that there isn't a tonne of plugins and $$$$$'s that have to go to creating a good mix....I dont have a room full of gear and only 3 or 4 plugins that I've paid for

[Paul]

Hi James,

You've definitely enhanced/made improvements to the original mix without steering this song in a new direction.  There is greater clarity all round.  It's most noticeable in the drums, bass and vocal. Overall, a bigger and clearer sound. 

Well done!

[habiTat]

WOW that's a massive difference 

Really good. I love the drums at the beginning, so much clearer now.

I've got about twenty songs that could do with some work if Mr Ramshackles fancies it

Good work 

[Ramshackles]

WOW that's a massive difference 

Really good. I love the drums at the beginning, so much clearer now.

I've got about twenty songs that could do with some work if Mr Ramshackles fancies it

Good work 

I'll happily do 1 for free 

[habiTat]

WOW that's a massive difference 

Really good. I love the drums at the beginning, so much clearer now.

I've got about twenty songs that could do with some work if Mr Ramshackles fancies it

Good work 

I'll happily do 1 for free 

Really??

That would be great!

If so, what would you need to do it? all separate tracks as .wav files?

[ronalr]

i like the acoustic guitars with the rumbling bass line they work realy well altho they did sound a bit like the guitarists were having a fight at the end
 but this is probly the worst lyric ive heard you write i much prefer your funny stuff andy....it was a bit to long aswell altho your mate ron is never boring on the lead guitar

ramshackles that mix sounds great but i wish you wouldnt take all the romance & mystery out of music & reduce it to a science by listing every bit of equipment like its a chemical process in a factory...its art isnt it?

Lol...well...yeah the songwriting and performing side of things is total art. When it comes to the technicalities or recording and mixing though, 'science' does have to creep in a bit

Although I think there is art in choosing different ways to mix stuff etc....but art does not have to be mystery!

Anyway something I wanted to convey on my post was that there isn't a tonne of plugins and $$$$$'s that have to go to creating a good mix....I dont have a room full of gear and only 3 or 4 plugins that I've paid for

Hi Ramshackles and everyone...this is Ron  (Andy's partner from America....thanks for that remix ..I really liked it a lot  and thanks to all for the great comments on my playing....I have always been a performer doing other peoples music until I met Andy on the net  and he has inspired me to write for the first time..the mixing thing is new to me  (I recorded in the 1960's..remember 45's...and no computers then!!!)  I am 62 and retired and having a blast playing and collaborating with Andy.
this is a great forum...

Ron

[tina m]

omg ron you actualy exist! i always thought you were andy being humble about his amazing guitar playing so he invented the name ron ...while he humble as ever just did a bit of groaning vocals to hide his big talent......oh so this means that... oops how embaressing 

[man of simple pleasures]

good work! sounds great! even more pychadelic!  amazing what ya can do init!

[ronalr]

omg ron you actualy exist! i always thought you were andy being humble about his amazing guitar playing so he invented the name ron ...while he humble as ever just did a bit of groaning vocals to hide his big talent......oh so this means that... oops how embaressing 

Yes Tina,  I am real not just a figment of Andy's imagination
and yes....you are wonderful!

[andy5544]

omg ron you actualy exist! i always thought you were andy being humble about his amazing guitar playing so he invented the name ron ...while he humble as ever just did a bit of groaning vocals to hide his big talent......oh so this means that... oops how embaressing 

What a cow !!! 

Hi Ron