People Who Look Like Other People/Whatever Happened To The Citizens Of My Abandoned Evony City? – 280811

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

Whatever you do, don’t panic!!!

Having converted all the album track wavs to MP3 over the last few days, and having spent a little time “living” with the MP3s, I encountered two major problems.

Where PEOPLE… was concerned, I could hear unintended and unwanted distortion on one of the guitar parts, which was particularly noticeable since that part was solo-ed in the fadeout. I checked the master wav and everything sounded fine, so I reckoned that the problem had emerged as part of the MP3 conversion process. I’d converted all the files at 192, so I thought that converting to a higher bitrate might solve the problem. I ended up converting all the tracks at 256 in AA3 and I thought that had solved the problem with PEOPLE…, but on further scrutiny, the problem was still there.

I thought then that maybe there was a problem with the master and that I might have to remix/remaster the track.  But there was no problem apparent in the CE5 project, so there was really nothing I could do to fix the problem at the mixing/mastering stage. I then thought that converting to MP3 at 320 might solve the problem. If not, I’d either have to live with the distortion and pretend that it was intentional and desirable, or else drop the track altogether (when you hear the track, I think you’ll realise why I’d really not want to drop the track…). Thankfully, conversion at 320 worked a treat, so then I had to convert all the tracks at the same bitrate. Handier than remixing/remastering fer sho’…

Meanwhile, the problem with …EVONY was distortion on the Ebow-ed guitar parts. The distortion was apparent on the master wav (hadn’t noticed at the time of mastering), but it wasn’t to be found on the premaster wav. So I decided to use the premaster on the album – track sounds a lot sweeter now.

So now you see the advantages of having one’s own studio set-up and of not creating a physical product. If I’d noticed the distortion issues after having sent a disc off to be manufactured, it would’ve been too late to fix ‘em. Or too expensive.

That’s it now. I’m not going to listen to the damn tracks anymore!

Regards,

 

djp

King Fidget EP – 310711

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

Chuffed to announce the release of the King Fidget EP!

King Fidget EP artwork

Featuring 4 tracks in all – King Fidget (EP Version)/Braille For The Feet/On The Lake Beneath The Shoreline/King Fidget (Early Rough Mix).

The EP is available for streaming/download from a number of sites:-

Reverbnation – http://www.reverbnation.com/store/view_item_album/artist_35604?item_id=1160570

Bandcamp – http://danielprendiville.bandcamp.com/album/king-fidget-ep

Tunebreaker – http://www.tunebreaker.com/profiles.php?id=657

The EP will be added to more sites (hopefully) during the week.

Hope you enjoy it!

Regards,

djp

“In Heaven For A Conference”/”Vichy Circles” – 220711

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

Remixed/remastered both tracks in CE5, Cubase VST/24 and AA3.

VICHY… has been re-edited to lop some of the beats off the start (I was becoming conscious that a lot of the tracks on the album start with beats, so I decided to vary things a little) and I tidied up the last Rickenbacker 360 part which allows me to have a more “natural” fadeout .

Dropped the guitar part in …HEAVEN just a tad.

Now I need to do up yet another version of the tracklisting for evaluation purposes. Who’d be me, eh…?;-).

Regards,

djp

A Truth You Can Happily Accept – 080611

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

Back in the saddle after  a break for a few days, I mixed/mastered …TRUTH in CE5, Cubase VST/24 and AA3.

It’s surprising how much of one’s “touch” one can lose even after only a short break. It took me an age to get my act together to mix the track. There were a number of issues:- a subsonic bass line that threatened to dominate the mix, plus a rhythm track that was programmed using a possibly unfortunate choice of VST plugin. Then there were the various dub elements for the Les Paul parts which sounded rather tame during the mixing process, but which mysteriously (and miraculously) came to life in the mastering process. Don’t think I’ll ever understand the black art of mastering…;-).

Pleased enough with the final version. It’s not a major track for the album and, truth to tell, might have ended up on an EP were it not for the existence of more likely candidates. But it’s fine by me…

More work tomorrow.

Regards,

djp

Private Sector Weather Forecast Service/Hosanna In The Hiace – 300511

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

Another happy day in the gulag!

Mixed/mastered both …WEATHER and HOSANNA… in CE5. Cubase VST/24 and AA3. Couldn’t have gone more smoothly if both tasks had been smothered in pure Irish creamery butter, with an extra layer of whipping cream for added smoothness. Added a few slight dub elements to both mixes and did a little bit of audio slidearound, but not much effort required. Both mixes are very, very satisfactory.

I’m so delighted to get these two key album tracks sorted so easily. Why wasn’t last week like this…?

Regards,

djp

Braille For The Feet/On The Lake Between The Shoreline – 220511

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

In what must surely be an unprecedented burst of feverish activity, I mixed both BRAILLE… and …LAKE today in CE5.

Both tracks sound somewhat better than I’d thought from the rough mixes, but neither are really good enough to pass muster on the album. Nonetheless, they’ll provide a nice bit of auditory stimulation on the EP.

I came up with a neat little wheeze to fill a few gaps in BRAILLE… – flicking a tight delay on the beats on and off at various points through the mix. Works fine – I’ll use that again at some stage in the future.

..LAKE was tough to mix, as there were a lot of instruments fighting for the same frequencies, and it wouldn’t be possible to tweak them radically, but I think I achieved a pretty decent compromise. The mix sounds remarkably “rockin’”. Overall, the track sounds like what I imagine the classic Deep Purple Mark II  would have been like the first time they might have got together in rehearsal after all the members had got a stroke. No Ritchie Blackmore I…:-).

Compression/limiting in Cubase VST/24 and tidying up in AA3.

More mixing and mastering  next week.

Regards,

djp

No Position To Argue – 010511

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

Edited the guitar parts in CE5. These essentially were various harmonics played on the Tele, so it was a question of picking the best parts and determining where they should appear in the mix. Done and sounding very satisfactory.

Also did a slight tweak on a number of the bass parts. Quite an improvement.

Track done – time to move on…

Regards,

djp

A Truth You Can Happily Accept – 230411

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

Started work editing the bass parts in CE5, only to realise that there were major tuning issues which couldn’t be covered up using auto-tuning and a mofo chorus. So I took an executive decision and programmed up  a quick and nasty synth bass line to correspond (near enough) to the original bass line. I used the Native Instruments Kore Player (B-Low Bass) which, as you might guess is of the sub-bass variety. Tweaking the EQ helped me make it acceptable to my old ears.

The programming came together rather quickly, so I had a go at editing the guitar parts. These fell into place pretty easily, but I had to alter the new bass line to tie in with some of the guitar parts’ eccentricities.

All sounds rather grand now. At the start of today’s session, I really thought I’d be jettisoning the track from the album, but I think it has put in a plucky effort and so stands a very good chance of making the final cut. Time will tell.

Another track sorted. Time to move on…

Regards,

djp

Private Sector Weather Forecast Service – 150411

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

I was able to devote a bit more time to editing today, so I got the all the guitar and bass parts edited in CE5. Luckily, they were played pretty well (by my poor standards), so the most I really had to do was slide some audio around and do a few little cuts and snips. Everything sounds pretty damn fine now!

Time to move on to the next track…

Regards,

djp

In Heaven For A Conference – 070411

Sponsored by the letters B and C.

Further editing in CE4.

Finished off editing the bass parts. Lots of tweaking and swapping around of sections between parts. Unexpectedly found myself using a segment of the fourth part. Who’d've predicted that, eh?

Did a bit of cut’n'paste in respect of the Soundtrack part.

Edited the two guitar parts. Having spent an age trying to get the first part nearly right, I found that I actually preferred the second part, which was much easier to edit. But I might swap between the two parts for a bit of variety during the mixing.

Also edited a few errant kick parts in the beats. Might be some more to do.

The track is effectively edited. Time to move on, I think…

Regards,

djp