Commodore Remix

...is currently #23 in the upload queue @ RKO. It's a remix of Rob Hubbards "Human Race subtune 4" and the name of the remix is Human Race #4 (strange diversion mix).

While waiting for approval/rejection I thought I'd make it available here for people to comment on. It's finished and I doubt I'll return to it and do more work on it, I'd rather move on to another remix project. I've been out of practice for the last 4 years so this is the first real recording project I've done and I've had to learn cubase from start all over again.

Instruments: My Fender Stratocaster (4 tracks) through the GuitarRig 2 VST-plugin (4 instances), DFH2 drums and B4 organ. I used Ozone 3 on the master output (I had separate instances for each channel but I reached 100% CPU).

My timing is way off and my playing is not what it used to be but I did a wholehearted attempt at making as good a remix of the original as possible while adding my own touch to it. By using guitars and the B4 the sound is quite different, but the melodies themselves are as authentic as I could make them on the guitar.

http://www.tormentorium.st/Human_Race_4.mp3

Sounds pretty good, nothing off on my ears in general there...

Aside from that the bass needs some eq'ing to cut off some bass at a sertain freq. and some disting now and then you have done a really nice job

Thanks for the kind comments..

I'll see if I can ease up on the bass frequencies and normalize the audio to -2dB so it doesn't clip..

Okay, I've eased up on the EQing. There should be no distortions and the bass isn't as "in your face" although some frequencies just have a natural tendency to be loud (when played on a guitar anyway).

The original link is working, I just replaced the file so if anybody would care to give it a go and see if it's okay now I'd be grateful.

EDIT: hmm, it took more than just a simple EQ-tweak to find and sort the clip/dist. out. But I think I've sorted it out now after changing various settings in the Ozone AMP (analogue mastering plugin) for Cubase. I'm not really proficient in shaping sounds, esp. not when it comes to mix + master procedures.

This is very good, mellow stuff. A bit 80s but in a good sense

You are a feedback guy, aren't you? That fender feedback adds a lot to the atmosphere of the track.

Nice track.

It sound better now though I think the bass melodie takes over everything, It's like on top (bassy wise) of everything so all the rest gets drown in the bass , if you know what i mean?

Scyphe wrote:I'm not really proficient in shaping sounds, esp. not when it comes to mix + master procedures.

The mixing and mastering takes a loooooooooooooooooong time to master.

It has taken me years to improve my music, just listen to some old stuff and compare them to my new stuff

trace wrote:It sound better now though I think the bass melodie takes over everything, It's like on top (bassy wise) of everything so all the rest gets drown in the bass , if you know what i mean?

Scyphe wrote:I'm not really proficient in shaping sounds, esp. not when it comes to mix + master procedures.

The mixing and mastering takes a loooooooooooooooooong time to master.

It has taken me years to improve my music, just listen to some old stuff and compare them to my new stuff

Listen to da man, Trace is pretty good!
(Just a bit of understating, actually.)

Now I'm not a pro when it comes to guitar and bass (actually no good at all), but to me the "problem" with the bass Trace is talking about is, that it seem to be rather high pitched, so that it take up the same freq. band as the guitar lead... I sit here and think, if the bass was an octave deeper?

but hey!... what do I know...

Now... if you play the keyboard as I do, the freq. mixing could be fixed if you just go by the rule, that no two instruments are played in the same keyrange at the same time... now that statement is just not allways applicable, since different instruments are usualy tuned differently, and they all have overtones as well... but it can be used as a general rule... or in other words, if an instrument is playin' at C4-C5 for eksample, then other instruments should NOT play that range... but there are exeptions.

...and when exeptions arise, you reach for the EQ ... remove some bottom og highs on instruments so that you can have everything there...

You could say it's like a can of sardines... now there are thin sardines and fat ones (the instruments), but the can don't allow for more than a definite size, so it's up to you to make them fit.... with audio it's just that "sardines" can occupy the same space as if they were ghosts, making stuff unclear.... now do I make myself clear, or am I rambling?

Thanks for all the knowledge and ideas, I'll definitely do the next one differently. The reason the "bass" sounds a little high pitched is because it's not really a bass, it's just the strat through a bass patch that I really liked. I do have an Ibanez SDGR bass but for this one I kinda liked the combination of strat + bass patch in GR2. In fact, I didn't use a keyboard at all (although I've got a studiologic sl-161 for midi), I just edited the drums in the drum editor and the B4 in the midi editor, the rest are just the strat (stereo channels) through GuitarRig.

Another thing I've had problems with is that while I'm recording the music using my Sennheiser headphones, listening to the song through computer speakers or the hifi system makes the mix sound different and various frequencies take different shapes depending on the way I listen to it. And finally, after sitting there listening to the song, mixing it after having worked with it, I get sort of "blind" to what I'm hearing. I bet you all know what I'm talking about, when you've worked on a song for hours and hours, it just feels like the ears aren't "getting it", forcing a break in the process.

I'll definitely keep in mind what I've read here for the next cover/remix I do.

Scyphe:

Well... first off, when you do music you should see the whole process as three different stages:

1. Creative phase, where you make the music.
2. Mixing phase where you set levels, EQ etc.
3. Mastering phase where the overall mix is "brought to the front"

now, the creative phase you can do pretty much the way you want it... just have fun. with time you'll learn what to look out for in this process, so that your mixing phase (next one) will require less tweaking afterwards.

the mixing phase should NOT be done using headphones, since it's hard to set levels, EQ and FX correctly and this is most likely why you are experiencing the difference in frequency response (or at least some of it). Another thing is that you say you playback using computer speakers... you REALLY would do yourself a favor, if you got a pair of decent speakers. The problem with PC speakers is, that they do not reproduce the frequency spectrum very well, and in PARTICULAR the bass area will be missing, which is VERY LIKELY why you cannot hear the bass problem as we can... we're probably hearing bass frequency your PC speakers do not reproduce at all ... you should be able to hear down to at least 50Hz... most bass freq. is from 70 to about 300 Hz and many PC speakers do not reach that low at all... actualy, to reproduce the lower frequencies, some PC speakers shift some of the lower energy up in the area they CAN reproduce, to give you the illusion of bass... instead they color the thing... also, the reason some feel your bass is dominating may be because you have exagerated the low frequencies to hear the bass on these PC speakers... so in fact, it may sound perfect on your speakers, but just simply translate badly to speakers with a proper bass response...

In fact, just this aspect is the mastering aspect of things... had you sent your music to a record label, they would have sent your work to the mastering lab... and they would make sure your work sounded equal on as many systems as possible... that is in fact a great part of the mastering process.

And then you mention the problem we probably all have making music ear fatigue... happens all the time! ... it's like this: You do your stuff, and you say to yourself "Yay! I'm cool! this sounds AWESOME! "... and then the next mornin' when you turn the volume up, and press play it sounds ... fear not! we all experience this ... the problem is, that when you compose music, you tend to do one instrument at a time, and you focus on one instrument at a time... just try listening to a certain instrument in a song, and all of a sudden it becomes prominent, and you can suddenly find, that it sounds anoyingly loud! ... the reason it sound different the next day is because you listen to it as a whole! ... it translates from being many instruments into being one piece... this is unfortunately the way everyone will hear it.

To get around this problem you can do some fine touching to your mix here... if that cowbell is just a bit too loud now, lower it! it will be at this time your ears tend NOT to cheat you! but do it FAST! don't fiddle too long, or you'll be back at ground zero again!

If you canot wait until you've had a proper nights sleep, you could also do this: play some other music! make your ears "forget" your track and then return to it...

another way to prevent it is to lay down idears quickly... as soon as you feel your idears sound good, record them and don't touch them again... it's when you start fiddling for longer periods with your work that you get "tone deaf"... in my case, much of the stuff I made quickly is the stuff that sound the best when listening to it after a break.

just a "little" more from me

It's all received here with gratitude. I've been doing Cubase on/off since 1994 but only to record ideas and experiment, never to go more professional as in advanced mixing and mastering. The material I've released (with bands) have always been mixed & mastered by someone the labels paid for, all we had to do was play our instruments..

Scyphe:

I thought so guess many rock type of bands do it this way... just play music, and let the geeks about the other stuff... but that is exactly why electronic music is usualy cheaper to produce. A rock band would have to pay for mixing engineers and mastering engineers and studio time in general... that's why it's "harder" getting through as a rock band I guess... it's pricey and involves a lot of people.

Electronic music seem to be populated more by geeks who want to do everything themselves, and if you have the skills to do most of the job yourself, then the actual producing will be less expensive. I've though seen more "guitar men" putting themselves to the learning bench lately... maybe because of the internet opportunities where they see the benefit of learning these things... there is quite a few examples here on the scene actualy.

so in general, if you go commercial, it does not really matter if you understand mixing and mastering... but if you're on your own on the internet, it will come very much in handy, if you know a bit about everything, as your work will sound more pro.

razmo wrote:Now I'm not a pro when it comes to guitar and bass (actually no good at all), but to me the "problem" with the bass Trace is talking about is, that it seem to be rather high pitched, so that it take up the same freq. band as the guitar lead... I sit here and think, if the bass was an octave deeper?

but hey!... what do I know...

I have problems with the bass also, the bass lead collides with the bassdrum and so on.
What i resently have started with is that i cut the bass freq at 100hz on every bass stuff (bass, bdrum cords, etc) and then i tweak with a eq on each instrument til i hear each instrument "clear" from mudd.

Sometimes on a sertain note on for example a basslead it gets extra high pitched. (likes screams in your ears, and we don't want that, don't we? )

So what i do is that I loop that sequence with that note and with an eq I cut with a wide Q value and sweap across the spectrum til I find that specific freq on that note that is higher and gets lowered down, then I narrow the Q value and maybe upper the gain some if the bass note is too low til it sounds like I want and like the rest of the bass seq.

It's hard to explain but I hope you know what I mean?