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Sundown

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About Sundown

  • Birthday 11/30/1999

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  1. It would be the Oberheim OBX8, or the “lowly” Sequential Rev2, which I think is a phenomenal package for the money (and has 16 voices).
  2. Hey all, We’re all on a journey, and mine right now is mixing and mastering (and more specifically EQ proficency). I’ve been working on a track for a while, and having hit a few roadblocks, I pulled up my Wavelab Spectrometer to look at some of my reference tracks. Despite what my ears were telling me, I was surprised to see a very even, very present frequency balance in the 10-16K range (or higher) with some of my reference tracks. Very clearly the tracks I had chosen were dipping unpleasant frequencies on key parts (and perhaps dipping with a wide Q), but they were remarkably even in overall response up to 15K or more. I pulled up my song and I saw that I had no frequency energy in the 10-15K range. I employed low-pass filtering too much and I sucked all the air out of my mix. I made changes tonight, and while I’m not quite there, I have a new appreciation for the 12-15K region of frequencies. The biggest surprise came from Enya’s “On Your Shore”, which I posted about recently here. If you look at the opening synth pad on a high-quality spectrometer, you’ll see an introductory part that doesn’t eclipse 3500 to 4000 Hz, with the rare exception of a narrow but very visible blip at 15K. That 15K wasn’t put there by accident. I applied my learnings to my latest mix, and while I still have some things to fix, I have a new appreciation for the 12-15K region of frequencies. With the right application, Boy, those frequencies can really open up a part. Todd
  3. I think I’ve got the bottom end right now … It’s not perfect, but it’s leaps and bounds better. I’ll post the finished track soon. The fix was to use a very simple General MIDI patch from my XV-3080, recorded mono, and played with light velocity. It was actually a Slap Bass patch but as long as I kept the velocity low it sounded like a fingered bass without the slap twang. Then I cut away what I didn’t want with EQ and ran it through a Distressor plugin (UAD) and just mashed the hell out of it (6:1 or Opto 10:1). I compressed it not to raise the level, but to anchor it and keep it steady as can be. I don’t have a kick drum in this section, so I couldn’t use a drum transient to emphasize the bass at low playback levels, so I just added a bit of boost in the 1.5K range to raise the string resonance a bit. With all of these pieces combined, it sounds pretty good across multiple environments. Thanks again. Todd
  4. It’s the wrong business model for a company like Apple. It’s extremely capital and resource-intensive, it’s low margin, it’s slow and expensive to scale, it’s logistically challenging, and there are countless legal/regulatory hurdles to manage. There’s a a reason there have been so few new entrants into the market, and the few that try don’t often survive for long. Apple has a lot of cash and tremendous borrowing power (and an obvious software advantage), but I don’t see them investing in factories and thousands of skilled people to earn less than 10% margin (and 10% is the best you can hope for). Todd
  5. Hi Craig, I’m in between. I typically mix with a bus compressor set to a very light setting (2:1 with maybe a dB or two on peaks), because it fundamentally shapes the tone of the song. If I use an SSL recreation or a Vari Mu, the choices I make with channel EQ and levels will change depending on which bus compressor is present. Most often I use the SSL G (UAD or Waves) and I use it primarily to glue a mix together. The only time I’ll use a bus EQ is for momentary checking (and it’s always the Manley Massive Passive from UAD). I won’t render with it, but it gives me an approximation of what the mix will sound like later. It really glues a mix together, but i prefer to make overall EQ adjustments during mastering. My general adage is, if I have to use an EQ on the master bus to fix a mix, there’s probably something wrong at the channel level I need to address. Occasionally I will check the mix with a limiter as well, as it sometimes influences my level setting. But it’s a momentary check, never rendered. Todd
  6. I feel like I need to suck some low end out of the Electric Piano chord part as well. There might be some build-up that isn’t helping. Todd
  7. Great observation, Josh. And particularly relevant/important as Tina’s track has a rhythmic drone on G#. I agree with you that I probably need to change the sound. When I find that I’m EQ’ing the hell out of something, generally the arrangement is wrong or the sound is wrong. I’ve struggled to find something simple and thin enough. The D-20 sound is literally one partial/oscillator. When I listen to Tina’s track, I hear a real electric bass, almost certainly played with fingers (as opposed to a pick). Her track has an advantage with a kick drum, in that it helps define the notes. With Fletcher-Munson, bass really disappears on my track on small devices or at low volume and there’s no drum to keep it present. But I’ll keep trying. Thanks for the input. Todd
  8. Hey all, I’m trying to finish an instrumental track and the synthetic/sampled bass is still just too thick. I’ve used everything from sampled HALion basses to my Roland D-20, which has some simple but effective bass sounds I’ve created over the years (and it’ s one of the reasons I keep that instrument). My current approach is a layer of the two with some drastic LPF/HPF to eliminate clash. The closest sonic match I’m shooting for bass-wise is Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It”. Her track has a kick drum and mine doesn’t, but her song has this very steady, non-intrusive bass. Her song is in G# minor and I’m in C minor so my fundamentals are a bit different, but there are shared notes as my bass line has C, Bb, Ab, and F in it. I’ve looked at Tina’s track in Pro Q3 to see what’s peaking and what’s absent, and it seems like 100 Hz is strong, 60 Hz has some presence, and 80 Hz is low/non-existent. I’ve tried cutting in the mud range (250 to 800) but I’m still missing the target. I don’t believe this is a problem of not hearing the bass accurately. My room is purpose-built and treated and I can hear the problem. I’m just not sure how to fix it and I’ve tried a lot of parametric and dynamic EQ and even a bit of very modest transparent compression (Waves C1). I’ve included Tina’s track below along with an MP3 snippet of mine. Any suggestions on how I can tighten up this bottom end? Is it a level problem, or an EQ problem? Thanks in advance. Todd JB Bass.mp3
  9. Talk about songwriting pressure … I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but that whole thing came together *quickly*.
  10. We watched it a few days ago and loved it. My wife isn’t a musician, so it appeals to everyone. She loved it too. I hadn’t seen your post and I posted something in Craig’s forum. It’s definitely worth watching. Todd
  11. I bought one new in the early 2000’s and it’s still a part of my studio rig. I don’t think there is an instrumental or track I’ve written that doesn’t have at least one patch on it. I find it quite easy to edit and navigate and often I can get what I’m looking for by just turning off a partial or two, or changing the cutoff and envelope values. It also has a pretty deep modulation matrix that is easy to use. I typically use the XV for analog synth pads, synth comp sounds, and a few synthetic EPs. I will say that you have to watch out for pitch instability (some of those presets have a lot of “Analog Feel” on them), and I always turn off the onboard effects when I record the audio. I also find that I have to use a lot of EQ and dynamic EQ to tame resonances. Tape in the 90’s helped smear some of that off, but with digital, those nasty resonances get captured and require some surgery. Todd
  12. Hey all, If you have Netflix, I highly recommend watching “The Greatest Night in Pop” which is a documentary about the making of “We are the World”. It appeals to non-musicians as well (my wife loved it). Todd
  13. I won’t kid you, for having a 12-year-old PC, it’s a sweet setup … I can run a lot of CPU-hungry plugins without consequence. And with ASIO-Guard and the native conversions, even an old Core i7 does very well. I plan to get a new PC in 2025 (Audio PC Labs Rok Box MCx), but this small investment has allowed me to use some CPU-intensive reverbs for very little cash. Todd
  14. Pretty maids, all in a row … I installed it today along with my Duo, and all ten chips are singing now. I had ten instances of the Lexicon 480L going without issue. Not that I would run ten instances, but that’s as hungry a plugin as they come and this will give me tremendous flexibility. I could see running four or five instances of the AMS RMX, as that unit does some amazing things. UA also includes this awesome, bound, printed catalog of all their hardware and software. They know how to cater to GAS. Todd
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