51m0n

One of these days I may get around to adding some more to this, once I'm not tied up running the mix comp

Make it private on soundcloud. Make sure its downloadable. Send me the link via a PM Better send a wav rather than an mp3....

That sort of defeats the object though. Billy Sheehan used to hav a fantastic explaination of how he does it on one of his videos, with awesomely bad hair everywhere, and terrible jumpers too IIRC....

The track needs to measured with a K-meter at K14, and not go over 0. Yes it will result in a damned quiet track, this isnt what K-meters are really about - and there really isnt space here to go int that! - the reason for using a K-meter at all is that they have strict rules govering the algorithm controlling frequency sensitivity and blalistics (or they should have) so we are all playing the same game of dropping the main out level to the same level as perceived by the same meter. It shouldnt peak over 0, it shouldnt light up anything over 0 at all, at any point in the song.There is no limiting involved in any of this at all, its all measuring.... If you cant figure out how to get Span to do that submit what you've got and I'll sort it in Reaper...

A couple of hundred to mix and master one song would be more accurate. Still think someone else should do your mixes?

Not without getting some genuine mastering software like Sony Cd Architect, no....

The DDP is the real unadulterated truth of what you recorded/mixed/mastered, its the data and nothing else that makes up your songs in the right order, with the exact right gaps between them etc etc. If they derive their effort from the CD, then it will be from a CD audio read (not a CD data read), and that means it has far more 'tolerant/lenient' data comparison, basically an audio cd can accept wrong data in lieu of a perfect read of the disc. This is to help maintian the myth that cds are bullet proof for as long as possible.... If at all possible work from the DDP. A really really great burn to a mint fresh CD blank (from a quality company) will do - chances are you'll never hear the difference. But it is not guaranteed to provide [i]exactly[/i] the same output as you put on to the CD, but bear in mind a reference CD was pretty much the defacto way of doing this for years and years and years....

This may float your boat a bit more Bilbo? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zmi2LJqfrQ

The TDR feedback compressor is excellent, uber clean and really really nice for level riding sections. I use it a lot (have used all the betas up to its release too).

I've seen him live, thought he was excellent, both the material he played with his band throughout the evening, and his entire personna, very natural, very unaffected, and annoyingly 'cool' as a bandleader (jealousy clearly has something to do with that). He wrote the themes to both Letter from Iwo Jima and the other one of those two films for his dad, and they are pretty darned good film soundtracks as it goes...

Wish I could have been there Nige, give my love to Kit and all the rest of you, just listened to the EP, sounds fantastic, lovely stuff! Si

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1367187547' post='2062448'] Did you get my resubmission? I didn't see a reply to the PM yet.... [/quote] I havent had a chance to download it, but I got the PM, and another one, which I also havent had a chance to downbload, I'll let you know when I have so you can get your cloudy space back for whatever else you might want it for...

I too am loving this track - definitely worrying!

Reacomp has sidechaining capabilities - actually it's all around one of the best vanilla get compressors out there - read the reaper manual on how to set it up, it's very well written IIRC...

Yep, that should be kool and the gang...

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1366820802' post='2057680'] im gonna try this now i have a bit of time one question on k metering i set voxengo span to k-14, as said... now... when making sure it don't go above 0db, is there a way to set a ceiling, or is it just a matter of watching the meter and adapting the mix level to suit? [/quote] Yeah, it is a meter, it does nothing but show you how loud the track is (in a very average level way), set it to not go over 0 and you're done, render that. Simples!

Yeah dont just put out the LR mix, thats the rough mix you're supposed to do better than

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1366714365' post='2056248'] I think the situation is a bit different in London: most people don't have a car - or daren't drive it through the centre - so a lot of rehearsal rooms have realised they have to provide amps of at least passable quality. So I've played through some decent Trace Eliot combos in some rooms, and had to put up with some hideous Line6 amps in others. Bringing a 115 combo on public transport is something I'll grin and bear for a gig, but for a weekly (or even twice weekly) rehearsal, I'd rather spare my back. We've been quite fortunate, however. Since our drummer started teaching in his own rehearsal room, we've been able to park our own amps in there. So nowadays I can play through my Laney at rehearsals and be content in the knowledge that if it sounds awful, that's probably the fault of the idiot holding the bass! [/quote] Interesting - I'd be inclined to look down the BF midget route (or similar) or a public transport type rehearsal, and a micro head I guess. Only if I absolutely had to though

Looks awesome Nigel, sounds fantastic too, ace job the lot of you! It looks ever so slightly slow-mo but its not distractingly so. I like it

I take my rig to rehearsal. Intially the present band were a little non plussed, after all there is a Hartke 410 and head in the room, a rig I might add that has been defended as a pretty decent piece of kit on this forum before now, a position I would suggest is optimistic at best. Then one week I couldnt get my rig there, and used the supplied Harke stack of sh**. I wasnt the one complainign, I was stood right in front of it, could just about hear myself (and we are a three piece funk band, a with a light drummer ffs!), but the guitarist and drummer were both horrified by the change, I have been asked to always bring my rig please, because it makes an enormous difference to their enjoyment of the evenings shenanigans. I wouldnt dream of plugging my head into an unknown rig, knowing my luck the previous player will have melted a voice coil shorting the cab out completely and I will be looking at an expensive bill for a new power amp section in my sa450. No thanks. For me having a tone I know, and a rig I can rely on to deliver it at the required volume, is vital. Also it really does make a huge difference to me (and my band) to be able to work in rehearsal with the sounds we are going to be getting live. We dont do many gigs so we want to match the gig vibe as closely as we can when writing and rehearsing. And I spend as much time as our guitarist on selecting a sound for a part. I only run about 4 fx pedals these day, but that turns out to be a lot of combinations to think about, especially when combined with all the different sounds I can get out of my hands and pickup blends. And I have never ever found a reheasal room with a rig that was really up to the job IME.

Ive used ER20s for over 4 years now. It took a long time to get completely used to them, and to be honest I think I need to replace mine now, they dont seem quite as effective as they once were (especially when I am gurning like a Neanderthal). Love them though, they are superb. Loud music always sounds better with them in. Rehearsals are a breeze and I walk out feeling as fresh as a daisy.

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1366625454' post='2054908'] Ok, stupid question ahoy...! The stems for this track include stereo pairs of some instruments - each of the guitars, for example, has a left and right channel stem. I've never encountered this before (I've led a sheltered life...). Looking at the waveforms, each L/R pair seems almost identical. So... if I sum them I'm assuming I might encounter nasty phasing issues (cancellation, weird tonal changes, etc). So what's the advantage of using stereo signals for these instruments? Or rather - is there any significant disadvantage to using just one of the channels as a mono signal? I've always assumed that mono is best and stereo should only be used in rare instances when the instrument really requires it (a wide pad sound, for example), but of course I could be very wrong. [/quote] They may have recorded them with a stereo pair of SDCs (or whatever). There is a good argument fo rkeeping things as point sources rather than stereo spread. I have never experienced a single guitar as a stereo experience really, other than being over there (points to an specific part of the stage), same with piano, yet we often get stereo outputs from digital pianos, because 'thats how the player hears it', which is totally irrelevant in a mix, because the audience hears a piano over there (points to other side of stage) not spread across the whole stage. However counter to this is the entire argument of double tracking guitars, and spreading them as wide as possible, - but this works because the guitarist has relatively poor time and the fluctuations in his playing add to the sense of big wide guitars, and lots and lots of them. So really its a judgement call - how you want to make this sound. You could pick the channel that sounds best , you could mix both to a very slightly spread point (phase issues be damned), you could just spread them as wide as you can, wider than LR even. You choose...

BBC white papers are your friend. They ahve done exhaustive research into the most effective bang for the buck sound attenuation with different partition wall designs. You must decouple walls from floors everywhere, and ceiling too. You absolutely do need to caulk everything, and to take into accoun that you need air from somewhere. The number of layers and even more inportantly the number of spaced layers (never three, two is significantly better) is hugely important. As is using different density/thickness material (plasterboard and soundboard layers together v. effective) for each layer (each layer has different resonances then). Always always fill any voids with insulation, definitely RW30 or RW45 (again investigate those white papers) as otherwise you get lots of resonant pockets in the walls which carry sound. Surface mount all the sockets, because anything that involves a hole in your wall lets air through. Do make a proper sound deadened channel for air into and out of the room or you will struggle with over heating. Doors are the biggest loss poitn, and good sound proof doors are mega expensive. A solid soor with a couple of layers of plasterboard/sounboard on each side over a layer of sound matting will get you a long way if they seal correctly when closed. Two of these a few feet apart and you are as good as you can get without spending silly sill money. You could consider a floated floor (on tennis balls) it works....

Any time you are boosting more than a few dB with an eq its going to start sounding a bit 'obvious' that something ahs been done to it that istn altogether natural. Especially with the kinds of eq in most basses. I run active basses, I tend to keep them very flat on the bass, and use the amp for eq-ing live. Sometimes a song requires a very different pup selection (like lots of bridge) and then I may use the onboard pre to bring in a little more low end to compensate, but generally I dotn want to fiddle to much with all of that live, I just want a sound thats great and then alter it with how I play the thing more than anything else.

Still ahead of me, note the deadline is 15 of [b]May[/b] this time (so you still have time, but do get on with it)... Largely cos I'm busy and cant enter this if I'm also doing all the uploading and admin side and I only have a month to do it all. It just uses up all my 'spare' time.