51m0n

33 stems is not that many chaps Get sections about right then render them and move on. Eventually all the groups are rendered and you can go back and tweak each group until it's right. Takes ages but it is possible...

Right, here we go, February's competition will be mixing Butlerk02's band's rather excellent track Mission Ray. I expect we will have a whole different set of issues with this one, but the approach and ground rules are the same, mix it to sound the best you can make it sound as a production, enjoy every minute of it and expect to disclose exactly how you made it work at the end of the month after the poll is done. Butlerk02 will stick the link to the stems in here as soon as he's sorted it out. Good luck to everyone! Here are the links to the final mixes for easy access:- 51m0n: [url="https://soundcloud.com/51m0n-1/mission-ray/s-xnnqG"]https://soundcloud.c...ion-ray/s-xnnqG[/url] Chrismanbass: [url="https://soundcloud.com/chris-hallam-1/mission-ray-final"]https://soundcloud.c...ssion-ray-final[/url] lurksalot: [url="https://soundcloud.com/lurksalot/mission-ray-v2"]https://soundcloud.c.../mission-ray-v2[/url] butlerk02: [url="https://soundcloud.com/butlerk02/mr-basschat"]https://soundcloud.c...k02/mr-basschat[/url] moonbass: [url="https://soundcloud.com/makossaband/mission-ray-4"]https://soundcloud.c...d/mission-ray-4[/url] OldG: [url="http://soundcloud.com/mickhastings/mission-ray-final"]http://soundcloud.co...ssion-ray-final[/url] VasDim: [media]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/70048273/Basschat.co.uk/Mission%20Ray%20-%20VasDim%60s%20Mix.mp3[/media] skol303: [url="https://soundcloud.com/skol-mixes/mission-ray-by-dientes"]https://soundcloud.c...-ray-by-dientes[/url] Remember this is about the mix not anything to do with mastering, so final level isirrelevant, its all about the sound of the production.

Carlsbro and Peavey here, god awful useless rotten garbage. Closely followed by the weak as a gnats p*** Hartke head and cab at Monster studios, yes its a decent step up from a Carlsbro but its not even remotely close to good enough for sensible rehearsals...

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1359566768' post='1956792'] Fair enough, the only other problem with protools is you can't use VSTs [/quote] Oh man I know, another reason why I hate ProTools so much

Ok. I tend to strap a copy of Voxengo's SPAN across the 2 buss and use that whenever I need more frequency spectrum info and am looking at a specific track or two and need that help (Reaper's eq has a similar interface though, in that it shows the output underneath the EQ curve on the graph which is very useful smetimes. I also found a couple of very neat oscilloscopes which can take multichannel inputs - awesome for setting up ducking compressors, or release times and pumping effects! Cant remember what they are called now, but if you do a search you'll find what I am talking about I'm sure.

Acoustics biting you on the arse? Only solution is to sort out the acoustics, any other solution provided in this thread is not really going to sort it out and leave the bass sound unscathed. You would do well to get some more (plenty more) absorption in the room. Basstraping too if you can find a way. However if you have parallel opposite walls and ceiling/floor, and the dimensions of the room are conducive to bass frequencies ringing longer than you would like then this is going to be an uphill battle. As you have already found out eqing doesnt solve the issue, because the physical space you are in is causing certain frequencies to ring too long (the energy in those frequencies is bouncing around for longer than you want). However as much as this can be (is normally, ie almost always and completely) caused by the room itself, it can also be exacerbated by the position of the sound source in the room. Try moving the amp around all over the place int he room and see if the issue lessens anywhere. Then try moving you around and see if you can find a place where the nulls and peaks and you and the amp can be so aligned as to give the impression that its all ok or at least significantly better. Give youself a few hours to try and figure this one out.

I dont really get plug in GAS..... I dont buy plug ins at all though, I've found nothing thats on sale that I cant do something simialr with with the stuff I've legitamtely got for free, so why waste my money (especially for shiny graphics, no one listens to an album and sees the plug ins, they hear the efffect they have, so thats what I always have to remind myself to concentrate on - so easy to be seduced by fancy GUIs). Given that digital equalisation works on the same principles regardless of the vst, what is it about those two waves EQs that gets you so excited Charic?

Top work chap! I used to use stereo wideners quite a lot (I did for som eof the backiung on Kits stuff, because so much is going on). I find it works really well on seperate components (ie a BV group) of the the mix, but if you apply it to the whole mixit sort of cancels itself out, it still works, but not as mucxh as if one or two parts of the mix step super wide. And it tends to not collapse to mono so well - not that that ever worried Bruce Swedien, and if he didnt care why should I Love the way these software plugins call themselves things like a FET compressor, there isnt a FET in there anywhere, and I bet it doesnt actually behave like a FET (does it raise the noise floor significantly for instance?) - it will be a fast attack compressor, with a very short RMS time on the sidechain 'circuit' (sub 1ms or even just peak), and will be supposed to feel like an 1176 a bit. I suppose they are trying to get people to understand what they are after, but I've come to prefer names like The Glue, and Thrillseeker LA, they dont realy tell you what is supposedly emulated, but they give you a clue as to what the intended use might be. Weird about the eq on the 2buss, and then to reverse it on the rendered file. Never tried that, but a lot of eqs have slightly diferent curves on a reduction as opposed to an increase (in the analog domain anyway). Theoretically the sake digital eq applied at the same frquency with the same Q to add a reduction of n dB of gain and then applied again with an addition of n dB of gain should null with the file with no eq applied, however its possible rounding errors may get in there somewhere, although I doubt you'd hear the difference. If I get the time I may try that - interesting... I really thought youd re-amped the keys, was it 'quite a lot' of tape saturation going on?? Ta for all the details!!

Nah, sorry yes the gear we use can only make the input signal we put into it sound louder, but it can also degrade that signal immeasurably. Tell you what, you give me your Roscoe, etc etc and pick up one of those cheap as chips starter packs from Tescoe that are your favourites and see what that does for your tone matey Personally my ability to produce the sounds I want to has been a far shorter road than most peoples on here, mainly because when I decided to get back into playing bass my mindset was very much "no compromise" on kit quality, I got the sa450 first, massive improvement over the old amp I had, then the ae410, total and utter revelation, and finally my Roscoe, and that took a few months to really start to get my head round (being a 35" 5 string) but timbrally it was all there the minute I plugged it in. Still makes me grin like berk every time I play through the whole rig.

ae410 Cos its the business

Why did he join [i]your[/i] band again?

Nah, when I said "export the stems", that meant the raw audio, you would want to then reapply all the effects as you re-rendered everything. Delay times should be fine, reverb tails may well need to be adjusted...

Cause I dont call her 'her', she has a name you know...

I've done this with Reaper on seriously complex productions (well over 50 individual tracks) My advice is to get the stems of the track in question and do the tempo change on all the stems, then reimport them into logic and render the mix. If you just do the stereo mix it will be far more obvious that its been 'played with' than if you do the individual stems then redo the mix. The results I've had from this approach has been staggering...

<SHUDDER> Oh I remember this....

Brian Ritchie from The Violent Femmes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToxmbOr00co

Using auxes saves on cpu horsepower massively for one thing - a single (stereo) channel of reverb can add reverb as required for 200+ hundred channels - the system merely sums everything at the insert of the aux channel then passes the result through the vst once. Also some fx definitely sound different to my ears when you use them like this rather than on inserts. The only problem comes if your channels you are sending from are in groups and you want to be able to control the volume of the entire group by its fader and not change the fx balance - at that point you need cleverer routing than the standard choice - Reaper lets you do this (and pretty much any other routing) although its not trivial. Insert fx are normally fx you dont want to blend with the original - so EQ and comrpession (when not parallel compressing) - again a good DAW will let you blend any and all insert fx too, which further confuses the issue. I use Aux sends etc because I'm used to real mixing desks where you couldnt plug 5 fx into every channel insert etc etc, but also fo rthe CPU savings. IMO its a must have technique for getting the most out of your rig and your mixes....

[quote name='rogerstodge' timestamp='1359219450' post='1951806'] are you saying my interface is crap??.ha ha i think you could be right Simon. It won't work no matter what i do, right where did i put me hammer? [/quote] As if I would besmirch the big B....

I've used tapping on stage as well as fingerstyle, chordal strumming, slapping, patting, ocatve slapping, harmonics, 'false' harmonics, even in the same piece. As long as it grooves and there is a musical reason to do it I couldn't care less what the technique is I need to use to achieve my goals.

Look for info on aux sends in your DAW manual, Lurks...

ASIO drivers would be the number one must have to lower latency. That and a decent interface of course........

Its all in your ears, listening, learning how to use the tools and then experimenting.... You will only get better the more you are doing thins stuff. What DAW software are you using?

The x32 doesnt have Midas pres in it, thats for definite, according to all the threads I've seen, and so on. It looks like a really really impressive bit of kit, I'd love to see one in action with the break out boxes too (which by definition are going to be exoensive, they ahve DAs in them for all the channels they break out to as far as I can tell). If it can handle the punishment it is going to get it will be a game changer I think. Of course the FOH will be even more dependant on the skills of the engineer in question - with that much per channel processing going on it will be that much easier for Captain FOH to balls up the mix totally.....

Bergantino ae410 Yes, in a straight A/B over a few hours in a band setting it even beat the Barefaced Super12T tonewise (for me - this stuff is subjective as hell). Clearly the S12T is lighter, but that isnt the point of this pointless survey It is my absolute dream bass tone, whatever style/technique I've used with it. Thats why I own one. If I played differently or had a need for (much) more low end (which I really dont) then maybe the Barefaced Bigtwin would get a look in.

[quote name='lurksalot' timestamp='1359074897' post='1949679'] UH I think I will have to read that post about 5 times to understand the jargon , still , I am not sure exactly what the answer was going to tell me, as I guess I didn't really understand the question. hey ho , whats the next track I can sort out for you [/quote] Sorry if its all too jargon heavy mate. Its really hard not to use the terms I'm familiar with. If there are specific bits that leave you competely non-plussed after a couple or three read throughs [i]dont hesitate to ask for clarification[/i]. This is all supposed to be a learning exercise for [i]all[/i] of us (still waiting to read Skols in depth how to for his mix, will learn a lot from it I'm sure!), if anyone cant follow the terminology of an explanation then it is up to us to help them.