The remake is out...

[FireBall]

Hello there...

With help from Cynical One, we have a remake of the song that I posted back a few months ago wanting help with remixing. Mr. One laid out the bass and drum tracks and I did the guitar work. Mr. One also did the final mix while I was off doing something nonproductive to the cause... Check it out and see what you think.. the song title is "BluesNA". So, while listening to this piece, tell me what the name stands for ;D Anyway, hope you guys like the song, I'm proud of it!

BlueNA

Have a good one!
FireBall

[sumgai]

Firey,

Gets my squeal of approval!



sumgai

[cynical1]

Thanks sumgai.

FireBall really worked hard on this song. I just had to get close to the G-DEC drums and bass from his original posting. All the heart and sweat in this song comes from him. It's always a pleasure playing with someone who makes you sound good.

Glad you liked it.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[newey]

I moved this thread to Sound Samples as requested by the principals involved.

BTW, I like it too.

FB is smoking (as usual) on this one!

[cynical1]

newey -

Thank you, sir. You are a scholar and a gentleman.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

PS: And yes, FireBall does rip it up pretty good on this one.

[ashcatlt]

I finally got a chance to crank this up. I'm afraid that much of this post is going to sound kind of negative. Please take it in the spirit of constructive criticism from which it comes.

First the good stuff.

Great playing all around.

Fireball sure can play! As much as I don't usually dig this kind of "wanking" I find this to actually be quite tasteful. You do a good job of staying out of the realm of meaningless self-indulgence and keep to sort of lyrical delivery I find interesting.

Cynical's bass is tight and punchy and plays just enough to hold down the groove and keep things moving. Good job on the drums too, what did you use for this?

Everything seems to have been recorded pretty cleanly, with good individual sounds all of which fit the overall mix fairly well.

This leads to the not so great stuff, though. My speakers here in the living room are a bit boomy sometimes. I'm not particularly happy with them, but I've come to understand what they're doing pretty well. This mix, though, is pretty dark and dingy, kind of muddy and very bass-heavy. Seems like the bass guitar could maybe come down just a tad, but that's not going to fix the whole thing. I turned on my TV watching EQ setting - lows all the way down to cut the boom which carries into the baby's bedroom, and a big boost to the highs where speech intelligibility lives - and it started to sound about right.

This is probably something that could be addressed in a mastering capacity without much trouble. I'd want to address as much of it as possible at the individual track level, though. Sounds like there's some mix bus compression on there which is reacting to this exaggerated low end, so that just turning down the bass and boosting the treble at this point causes the high end "air" to pump and breathe in a way that's not exactly pleasant.

I suspect I know where the EQ issues are coming from (small speakers). I don't think it's unsalvageable at all. I'd be happy to take a shot at polishing it up a little, right after I get that Potluck thing mixed...

[cynical1]

Thanks for the nod on the playing. Fireball carried this one...I just thumped along.

The drums are a midi construct with samples I pulled from God only knows where off the net...I went through a period of pulling samples from any site that put them up. I honestly don't know where these came from.

No offense taken on the critique. I figured it would be off on a real system...and it seems I was right...

And you're dead on with the mixing. All I have is is a pair of old headphones and my Yamaha PC speakers. If the great Gods of eBay smile on me I should have an integrated amp to start using the real speakers to mix with again. The old 1986 Luxman amp just gave up the ghost, and the right channel, about a year ago and I never got around to replacing it.

And the bass and drums could fall back a bit. It's tough trying to hit it right with the set-up I have, so I rely a bit too heavy on on Sonalksis FreeG and the Classic Master Limiter plugins. And yes, there is compression through the master. Again, tough to nail just the right amount through the 2" woofers...

Once I have my real speakers back I'll re-mix it and you'll have to let me know if I hit it closer to the mark.

Thanks for the insights

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[ashcatlt]

Cyn, what are you using for a bass amp? Most solid state bass amps are reasonably flat, and had ought to be able to reproduce the lower frequencies that your other systems are lacking. If nothing else it would give you a different perspective while you wait. Also, there's the old trick of taking it out to the car, assuming you've got a way to play back through its stereo.

[cynical1]

I tried the trick of taking it out to the wife's car. That was the test subject for the mix you heard. And the truck...well...I don't use the truck for music appreciation much...

The bass amp I have is an old Crate BX-220H. It will drive the twin 15 inchers in my stereo cabinets, and the bass cabinet I'm using is a 2 x 10 with a horn, so it should reproduce most of the mix, but it's a tad shy on the stereo side. I may try the line out of the computer into it to see what happens. I think I have enough cables and adapters to pull it off. If nothing else I'm sure I can piss off the wife...

The idea for a new, or new to me, amp for the stereo was to port the computer in to it for mixing and to play the mp3's I've collected over the years. That may not be the answer either, but it's got to be a helluva lot better then what I'm using now.

Baby steps...

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[ashcatlt]

I was talking about just using the bass cab. Stereo is overrated. You don't really need the stereo thing for a little "reality check" on the low end every now and then. Anyway, it's a good idea to check your mix in mono along the way, since not everybody will be listening on headphones or sitting right in the "sweet spot" of the stereo field.

You can't really hurt much running even the headphone out from your computer, but I'd use a line out if available. Try to avoid shorting out either of the output channels - for instance by using an adapter that ties the ring to the sleeve. You can probably get away with "mixing" the two channels by tying tip to ring, but it'd be better with resistors between the two to keep the two outputs from loading each other down. Better yet is to use a stereo splitter, which will send the tip to one connector and the ring to another. Sum to mono inside the box and only connect one side of this Y.

This into the low-gain or "active" input should work just fine. Please turn off any compression the amp might offer. I'd probably zero out the amp's EQ (set it flat) to start with, too.

Then playback some music with which you are fairly familiar and get a feel for what this system is doing with it. Tweak the amp's EQ sparingly if necessary. Then check your mix.

You know, in the meantime, until you get your amp.

I've been using a computer as the main "stereo system" at my house for over 5 years now. The built in soundcard on most systems nowadays is at least as hi-fi as your typical consumer grade CD player, let alone an iPod. For the last 3 years it has in fact been our entire home entertainment center. We watch TV, movies, play games, listen to music, and conduct the bulk of our social lives through this thing.