Sundown

Hi Craig, Good article ... I never thought about it explicitly, but I sort of do the same thing by starting with the section of the song that is the climax or peak. If that's the "big bang", everything other segment needs to take a backseat (from a psychoacoustic perspective and from a basic mathematic one). I too minimize ambience effects at the start of the process and I'll first focus on EQ and balance, and I often do my big EQ cuts in mono. If I can make some space and get the overall frequencies in-line with mono, I'll generally have plenty of sonic space when I work in stereo and start panning with ambience. I would love to say that I arrange and then mix, but invariably I'll find myself with a troubled passage and then I realize it requires an arrangement fix or a different sound. I know we traded thoughts on buss compression a few months back, but I still use it and I mix into it since it affects the bottom end. If I add an SSL-G compressor or a Vari Mu, it's going to have a sonic imprint that I need to plan ahead for with channel EQ. I only use a touch of buss compression (maybe a half dB) but it helps me glue things together. If I add it after the fact it throws the bass off. As a synth player, I'm also a huge fan of tape emulation as it really helps tame rough frequencies and peaky transients. I'll apply some judicious UAD Studer A800 to mid and high synth parts, typically with the 456 emulation and 15 ips. I don't use my Ampex ATR-102 mastering plugin much as I don't like the head bump on bass and low frequencies, but the Studer is gold for keyboards, particularly for mid and high parts. I almost never EQ in isolation and I don't do the typical 'high-Q--high-boost--sweep' method of finding trouble frequencies. I might do it a bit if a sound is really problematic, but I find that if you boost any frequency with a narrow Q it's going to sound like crap and then you'll wind up cutting everything by mistake. I prioritize mixing with speakers and I put a lot of emphasis on getting the bottom end right. It doesn't have to be booming or bombastic (my music is anything but), but it does have to be right. It has to fit the music, it has to be sufficiently tight, and it needs to have that warm presence that fills out a song without dominating it. If anything gives away an amateur or subpar mix, it's a bottom end that's out of control and boomy. I start my automation early in the process since channel-level variances can solve a lot of issues that might otherwise call for EQ. If a part is going to fade into the background with level, I don't need to worry so much about EQ'ing any clashes. I check a lot of different environments before I call something done and for me the car is the ultimate test. If the bottom end is right and details can be heard with road and wind noise (including reverb and delay), I generally know that I'm done. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I'll check an iPhone speaker to see if it gets overwhelmed. It takes a lot of effort to get a good-sounding track, and at the same time I feel like AI and advanced computing is going to address that challenge in ways we can't imagine. But I still hope that one day my kids will look back on the tracks I completed and published "the old fashioned way" and be proud of their Old Man and his persistence. Todd

It’s great to see that they are still enhancing and expanding this line-up. It’s an under-rated collection and good bang for the buck. I owned the original M1 and Wavestation recreations, and recently I bought the whole collection last year (v4). This particular update doesn’t grab me (I’ve never been a huge ARP guy), but it’s encouraging that they continue to do more. I’m a big fan of late eighties / early nineties ROMplers (they sit wonderfully in a mix) and I’d like to see a Trinity re-issue. I’d also like to see a Korg DS-8 FM re-issue. But overall, I think this is a great thing. Most of my compositions use something from the M1 and the Triton Extreme. Todd

Great sound! I think the M1 in particular stands out when it comes to soft sawtooth, brassy pads and comp sounds. I bought the Triton/Triton Extreme pair last Christmas and there are some good patches in there too, but for 1988 the M1 still does synthetic sounds really well. I almost always kill the reverb and use a modern plugin (e.g. Lex 480L or RMX16) to cover the ambience. Todd

Hey all, I’m trying to finish a track and as I listened to it, I felt like it needed another 2 BPM to hit the sweet spot. So to test my hypothesis I brought a mastered/finalized demo into Wavelab 11 and used the factory timestretch function to raise the song from 102 BPM to 104 BPM. I figured if I’m right, it’s not too hard to go back into Cubase and re-capture the parts at a slightly higher tempo (it’s all MIDI-based performances). Interestingly when I did the operation in Wavelab, it raised the overall gain by 2 to 3 dB. I was below 0 dBFS with the original demo (about -0.3), and after the timestretch operation it jumped 2+ dB and significantly exceeded 0 dBFS. I figured it was operator error and I must have a hidden plugin on the buss, but I cleared the Master section, reboot the software, and the same outcome occurred. This track starts with a highly resonant synth bass part (from HALion 7) and my hypothesis is that the time compression stacked slightly more energy into less time, resulting in a gain change. I tried the operation again but I lowered the gain by 3 dB before the time stretch and it worked OK. And it did confirm that I needed that additional 2 BPM to satisfy my wants. 😁 It’s an interesting phenomenon, but I don’t think it’s a bug. I think it’s a genuine artifact of the time compression process when using a highly resonant sound. Todd

I’ll say a few things … You can still get some great analog-ish pads and comp sounds from a Korg M1 (I own the software version). The acoustic emulations sound dated and cliché, but there is something great about the late 80’s and early 90’s ROMplers when it comes to sitting in a mix. The “width” of the sounds makes them easy to arrange and mix and there’s something about the 12-bit/16-bit content that sounds right in an arrangement. But there are also times that older instruments fall short, and if I try to use my original Roland D-20 in a composition today, excluding a few sounds, it’s going to sound thin or tweezy. And I’m going to spend a lot of time trying to manage resonances with EQ to get it to sit properly. So a lot of it depends on the specific instrument. I wouldn’t mind a vintage D-50 or D-550, but the sluggish response to MIDI data (which sounds like transient smearing) makes me pause. I actually don’t own any hardware instruments newer than my Kurz PC361, unless you count my digital piano. I own a lot of software instruments and software samplers, but being that I’m a studio rat, I haven’t bought any new boards. Part of it is the cost barrier, part of it is the sheer overload of sounds I already have (largely from software), and many of the modern boards are too fat for compositions. They’re tremendously fun to play in the store and they sound great if you’re just playing some riffs, but they’re far too bloated for a dense mix. I would have to strip the sounds down to make them more useable. Patches that are most valuable for real work don’t sound fantastic on the shop floor, and that’s no doubt a challenge with the manufacturers. They have to present the board in a way that gets attention, and these huge stacked bass sounds and swirling pads win-out over more practical sounds. So I think it’s a balance in the end. You can get a great, aggressive lead sound with a TX81Z with some EQ and delay, and you can get a phenomenal EP from the latest offerings. And hopefully when you blend them both you get a great arrangement. Where do I think it’s headed next? I think AI will have a huge impact on articulations and note expression. The “machine gun” effect of playing repeated notes on an older instrument will be non-existent on boards in a few years. The realism that will come from small variations in tone will really take some ROMplers into new territory. As long as I feel like I’m still the player, I’m cool with it… Great sounding boards are great sounding boards. Todd

Thank you Nat for listening to my first “published” track and for the great feedback. I know who Patrick O’Hearn is but I’ll confess I’ve never listened to his music. I’ll check it out on TIDAL. I share your passion for the space program. I wanted to fly in a capsule but I was born too late. If I had the ambition or drive I guess I could have pursued the space shuttle, but my interests shifted. But I still have an encyclopedic knowledge of the first three space programs and in a pre-internet world, I read and watched everything I could about the early astronauts. I certainly have seen “The Right Stuff” over one hundred times, perhaps even 300 times in my life (it has a great score by Bill Conti as well). Thanks again for the feedback and for taking the time to check it out. Todd

Hi Craig, Thank you very much for the detailed feedback. I really appreciate it. And with your experience and depth, the comments on the mix really put a spring in my step. 👍 I agree with you on the dialog. I could have gone either way (and I could easily mute them and adjust the ducking). The video was an afterthought and I just did it to try and hold the typical listener’s interest a bit (which are really just friends and family). But your feedback is spot on and there are some frames that have the annoying boundary or letter boxing. I just threw it together in Davinci Resolve and learned as I went. I also agree with your 70% comment. The differences in demos over the last few weeks were only noticeable to me, but when I could hear some bloat or lack of clarity, etc., it was driving me crazy. I finally reached a point where I could call it done. Again, thank you for taking the time to listen and I hope to post something new in the general thread soon. Todd

Thanks Philbo. 👍 I’m not in love with the song (partially because I’ve heard it 1,000 times), but I am proud that I finished something and put it out there. And I learned *A LOT* from all the time I put into it. I was in the studio today mixing my next track and I accomplished more in one hour than I ever would have before. To be fair the arrangement I’m working on has already been optimized for blend, but tasks like EQ, leveling, ambience, etc. went a lot faster knowing what works and what doesn’t. And i had the confidence to mute or delete parts that were just getting in the way. It will be a better track and then I can continue to grow and try new things. Thanks again. Todd

Hey all, I’m terrible with finishing music projects and I rarely share anything. This is my inaugural (first-ever) share so I figured Craig would give me a break. I know you’re normally supposed to share music in a dedicated group thread. This is an instrumental track that I’ve been working on for a long, long, time and finally I decided to finish it. I learned *a lot* and made a lot of mistakes along the way. My hope is that all of the learning will help me finish other projects much quicker. Is this the best I can do? It’s the best I can do with this track, right now. I’ve got better material in the works and sometimes you just have to call it done. I learned *a lot* about EQ and it amazes me how much audio was cut away to make things fit together. When I shut off the channel EQs the track is a bloated mess. Even with the right sound selections, it takes a lot of cutting to make space for parts. I also learned the importance of tape simulation for synths. Synths and ROMplers have a lot of nasty resonances, and you can tame some of that with EQ and dynamic EQ, but knocking the transients down and smearing the audio a bit with a good tape emulation (such as the UAD Studer) goes a long way. I definitely have more to learn with gain staging as I had to boost the overall mix at the end substantially, but since there was very little noise on the track I could get away with it. But I would have definitely liked the mix to be a bit hotter heading into Wavelab. This particular track was tricky for me because it has a lot of dynamics. Some of my other works-in-process are much more even. All of the instruments and sounds are me on keys, excluding the electric guitar parts at 2:15 and 2:37 (my brother played these parts). I broke one of my rules which is to never use a synthetic guitar, but the HALion acoustic guitar was exactly what I wanted and I don't know a finger picker who could play the part the same. I just wanted to be done and I can ultimately live with the choice. Enjoy, and any constructive criticism or feedback is of course welcome. Todd

I have a PC361 and generally if you modify one of the first ~1,000 factory programs, it gets an asterisk in front of the name. Todd

I feel like actors and actresses can still reach a peak late in life, and perhaps some instrumental musicians (e.g. jazz or film scores). I think it’s really tough for a pop/rock act to peak at an older age, particularly vocalists. I almost think it’s unfair that vocalists are expected to continue to perform well into their 50’s or 60’s (and even 70’s), and many just can’t do it … We wouldn’t expect a baseball player to be as sharp at that age. When it comes to pop/rock, I rarely hear an album as fresh and vibrant as the early work when they are regrettably poor and hungry. Once the cash and rewards tumble in, the work can sometimes suffer, or the ambition isn’t the same. Todd

It’s exciting, as I have no interest in getting another weighted board. I have a great one, and one is enough. I do record most of my parts from a Kurzweil PC361 (both as a MIDI controller and as a sound source), so if the K2061 is a worthy successor, it’s exciting. Todd

Thanks guys - Much appreciated. I recently rolled my PC from Win7 to Win10, and I re-downloaded all of my software as part of that process. If my tower was cooked and I got a replacement, I would follow the same process. I don’t have anything worthy of Clarion coverage (though they are a good company for very valuable instruments), but I am doing a separate rider given the value of my gear. I have a great agent and everything is based on replacement value vs. original purchase. Thanks again. Todd

Hey all, I’m changing insurance policies, and like many of you, I’ve amassed enough gear to warrant a rider for it’s protection. My question is this: Given how well software companies recognize/catalog purchases, would you include the value of software in your studio? I figure I’ve spent at least $3K over ~25 years on UAD plugins, probably another $2K on Waves, $2K on other plugins, and probably $2K for the latest Steinberg collection (if bought new). But if my rig went up in smoke and I got a new PC, most of that would be recoverable with a few mouse clicks and some download time. My gut says most of this is recoverable without insurance, but I’d be interested in other opinions/perspectives. Todd

There are still quite a few I would like to see in software, both from a nostalgia perspective and from a modern UI perspective. I’d love to see Korg add the DS-8 4-op FM synth to their legacy collection, and perhaps the Trinity. The Z1 would be a nice add as well. A Kawai K5000 would be awesome (previously mentioned). And I’d love to see whatever remains of Emu released as software (Proteus, etc). Arturia recently did the Ensoniq SQ80, but it would be cool to have a true VFX as well. Last but not least, I’d love a model of the Roland JX-10. IK’s Syntronik/Sampletank has a sampled version that is OK, but that simple digital/analog hybrid has always been special to me. On the modern front, I’d love to see Kurzweil do a native VAST-based soft synth. They won’t, but it would be awesome to edit on large screens. Todd