51m0n

Depends what you want from the bas. if anyone here wants people (ie punters) to be able to differentiate the notes they are playing (ie the pitches) in a live venue, then pay attention to the midrange of your bass. Its [i]all[/i] about Fletcher-Munsen curves (again - dreary isnt it). We hear best in the mid range of our hearing, we perceive pitches best in the midrange of our hearing, so if you roll off everything over 300Hz to get "that sound" then most punters wont be able to humm the bass line back at you, rhythmically yes, pitch wise, they wont hear what you want. "Cutting through" is a term with some troubling connotations for a lot of bass players - to me it means making sure that tehr is enough mid range and enough low end, in balance, and with a hole somewhere for the meat of the guitar at the same time. At the same time the guitar has to make a whole fo rthe bass pitch info, you kind of get a 'ladder' of important frequencies between bass and guitar a bit like this:- Bass - bass frequencies Guitar - bass frequencies && Bass - mud frequencies Bass - mid frequencies (pitch info) Guitar - mid frequencies (pitch info) Guitar - 'sizzle' If you dont make a space for that bit that says Bass - mids (pitch info) in the guitar (in other words the bass 'cuts through' at that point) then the punters cant hear the bass as well. Similarly if you dont pull back a little in the Bass - 'mud' area there is no where for the Guitar bass frequencies to pop out and you tend to get that mud inducing war for control of the low mids. If you take too much away from the Bass here then it sounds weak and has no impact - hardest area to mix IMO... Now one guitar on its own usually doesnt make too big an impact, but two guitars, or even guitar and keys with a heavy left hand can really take the shine out of your day unless everyone works together to make these spaces happen for each other, its about eq, and arrangement, and in a mix its about milliseconds of difference in attack time and so on. Lot sof tools/techiques are availabel to help a recording work in this way beyond eq that arent really available down the dog and duck unfortunately.

No, parallel compression is a completely different thing from changing the attack on an inline compressor. You can (and probably would) set up parallel compression with a (far) faster attack than you can an inline compressor, since the dry signal is going to contain all the transient info you will need, so you get all the benefit of that nice juicy spike with all its associated top end and so on, whilst at the same tame beefing up the meat of the sound as soon as the spike is passed. Even then this is a very differetn thing from carefuly regulating attack, since you tend to have enough of the dry signal to convey dynamics as if there were no comrpessor running at all. Its quite tough to describe precisely why and how it can be so different, but I promise it is (sorry!). Because the compressor is parallel you can 'get away' with far more overt compression than with an inline comrpessor, with all the benfits of massive amounts of compression (really fattened punchy sound) with far less overt side effects (diminished dynamic range, and asssociated nasty feel to playing into a really smashed compressor, implications of compressing the nuts out of the transients leading to a far darker apparent timbre than you want etc etc). Upwards compression is not striclty speaking, exactly the same as parallel compression, although there are similarities, to the extent that a lot fo the time people suggest parallel compression in place of upwards compression.

Any pedal you like with an SFX "split and mix"? Say with a Cali76 (ooooh now that [i]is[/i] a thought). Would be my way forward on this one

Exactly! I'm doing these as quick mixes by my standards. Thast still several hours of time right there (easily). You want me to track the bass as well? Why??

The difference betweeen a producer and a mix engineer may seem to be blurred, but it isnt really. A mix engineer is given a set of tracks that have been recorded with more or (if he's a name engineer) less rigourous instruction as to the desired result, and a couple of rough mixes (which he must choose how much to listen to) which he must blow out of the water. He can change the arrangement a little, (ie by choosing to leave stuff out, or fly some stuff in elsewhere) but he must absolutely be able to back those choices up, best if the missing parts arent even noticed. If that sounds unlikely, bear in mind that there were over 120 tracks in some of the songs on Pink's last album (for instance) - clearly some of those could have gone walkies and no one would really be sure. A producer on the other hand is there from preproduction, she gets to hear the initial ideas and shape the arrangements from the beginning before tracking, she is there to ensure the budget is stuck to (massive massive part of producing) and to make the bands efforts gel into her concept of the album (or EP or single or whatever). So if your engineer is tracking you and mixing you, they still arent producing you, because they arent managing the budget, and they didnt hear the preproduction, they didnt help evolve the arrangement beforehand, and they dont have a vision, they are flying by the seat of their pants. If they say they are producing you at that point they are talking baloney, dont let them have delusions of grandeur about tracking and mixing a session, it isnt the same thing! This is so different its a totally different ballpark. A good producer will hand off to an expert mix engineer to help that vision be realised. The mix engineer will be happiest to receive the fewest tracks possible with an outstanding arrangement that pays off the listener into and through every section, but more often than not somewhere in the process up to that point there is ususally more than there needs to be, and that is where a mix engineer needs to be an expert musically as well to recognise this and improve the final mix of the song by cutting or changing that little bit to realise the best possible mix. Thats the bit I find hardest to do, I love getting it all sounding great together, I love pushing the boundary on the sound and trying not to mix to safe (safe mixes are boring, you need to find something extra in there somehow or it wont convert into anything other than another fine but boring song). But actually by the time I'm doen with it I ususally love it, so I stick with every part up tp that point, and dont want to lose a thing.... Having said that ther was one track on No Second Chance that I nearly binned, I didnt like it at all, it stayed in the end, but it still makes me feel 'off' in there now. And we havent touched on editing at all either, which you wont get done by any full on mix engineer for you without paying (loads) extra. They arent there to fix the performance, they are there to make it sound the best tey can - its a different thing. If we can do mixes and find something that everybody wants to learn from in some of them each time, then as long as the people involved share their thoughts and ideas and how they went about achieving things, then there is a huge worth in what we are doing. Its not about who is the best at mixing its about provoking thought and questions and getting answers, and help fo ranyone who wants it. Well that was the intention from me anyway. The voting thing is just a bit of fun anyway, its the learning bit that matters!

I've covered Hard to Handle, fun song to play that, never really got punters boogeying away though, not like LaBamba did (the shame)...

All good then, as you were, carry on etc etc

Walk This Way - the RunDMC version, still got the hugemongious guitar riff, but funky as hell if you can pull of the hip hop feel...

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1358439340' post='1939195'] Funk, but not from the '70s?! Does not compute? :-D IMO funk became dodgy with the arrival of disco, and has only declined since ([b]happy to be proved wrong[/b]) How about something from the '60s like Lee Dorsey? [/quote] Meshell Ndegeocello - funky as anything ever created in the 70's (IMO):- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_0SU2jLTjY

Interesting points. But its a different discipline from composition, so it will be a different experience to find a preferred version. You can not like the track and still find the mix that either conveys the track the best to you, or seems in some way better on a technical level (if you really cant stand the music). That is, however, very much the nature of mixing, and I actually think that people who bother to try and find a favourite in this kind of thing will end up gaining a new found respoect for mixing as it finally slowly dawns on them that sometimes mixers can create great fabulous engaging mixes of songs [i]they[/i] dont like either. That is a part of the challenge of mixing, its finding a way to like what you are doing irrespective of whether or not you like the song or some aspect of it very much. If you read the entire thread about it (and why would you) you would have seen the question of remixing turn up. The idea is to do the best mix, so that is not to replace everything with new parts and create a new arrangement from scratch, effectively using the multitrack as a set of samples to dip into as and when you feel like. Having said that it is well within the remit of a mixer to alter arrangements here and there, by dropping a part they cant stand, or feel doesnt improve the song at all, or leaving it to come in later as an added boost to a song further into it. Furthermore the use of drum samples to beef up drums isnt disallowed, although I have never ever liked this approach, I'd personally rather take what is there and make it the best it can be and find something in it to love, however bad it is , it is at least unique, and uniquely of that song/band then. Of course if you hate the song, or all the mixes, then dont bother getting past a couple before deciding voting on this is not for you. I think its fair to say that whilst the compostion competition is focussed on the very macroscopic creativity of writing the piece, and if the recording of it doesnt sound great then thats fine and shouldnt stop a track doing well, the mix competition is incredibly microscopic, looking at tiny details of how a song is presented to the listener, and if the song isnt your cup of tea, then thats not relevant, the quality of the mix is what matters. It requires an ability to seperate the soudn of a mix from the content of the song, I honestly think some people just cant do that very well at all...

Ta! OldG's entry is working again now for anyone waiting to hear it before casting their vote...

Living in America by JB....

And for me the GS112 is way too scooped Horses for courses you see...

When Doves Cry

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1358430406' post='1938964'] The original link is working for me (unless you've just altered it?) [/quote] OldG has replaced his original mix, nothing to do with me other than the moaning

Furthermore you've removed the original and now peopl ecant hear what you had there in order to vote on it

Hmmm, I am pretty sure that as a sanity check I opened every one when I built the poll. How tedious!

That link isnt working, it requires people to log on to soundcloud....

Isnt that Silddx on bass??

If you want to be able to 'do it properly' that Alesis doohicky isnt even close to as expensive as its going to get. The current "best of the best" interface for an iPad is the RME UCX. Incredible bit of kit, and way beyond what you need, being the only interface for an iPad currently that has 8 ins and outs (full USB2.0 complient connectivity in other words, all the rest dont), but it is what it is...

The effort is properly appreciated!

No one else ready to vote? All you need do is have a listen to each track off soundcloud and choose your favourite........ Go on!

Still digging the exceptional Zainichi Funk:- [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5umJNq3PhU[/media]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1358369200' post='1938091'] Stop thinking...... drive to Bassdirect and try the cabs out. Mark is very helpful. [/quote] +1 Take your wallet!