“No Position To Argue”/”A Truth You Can Happily Accept” – 210711

Sponsored by no letter at all.

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

…ARGUE should’ve been easier to remix than it turned out to be. After all, I was just replacing the bass parts, the rest of the mix was fine. Turned out that it took me most of the morning to get the bass to “sit” properly, EQ-wise, in the mix. Think it’s OK now – not too bassy, not too trebly, not too loud.

With …TRUTH, I’d realised that the “kick” element of  the beat parts was too gimmicky and prominent, so I adjusted the “voice” in MIDI and it sounds much better now. Took the opportunity to tweak the mix a bit, and I think the track is improved overall.

Having lived with the original mixes for a while and having made the adjustments which appeared to me to be necessary, I think I’m now in a position to do up a new version of the album with the revised mixes and listen to it for a bit. At this stage, any problems that might still be there will probably be down to me being a crap musician, and I can either live with the “problems” (on the basis that I’m being hypercritical and no-one else will notice the issues) or I’ll just drop the relevant track altogether and move on.

Cruel world, innit…?;-)

Regards,

djp

“People Who Look Like Other People” – 160711

Sponsored by the letters D and E.

Added a smattering of auto-tuning to the Jazz Bass parts in CE5. They were just ever-so-lightly off, but they sound fine now. Also cut back some of the 360 guitar part in the middle section of the track, as it clashed with the 4Front Rhodes part. Sounding much better. Finally, I edited the MIDI beat parts to de-emphasise some timing issues with the bass.

All ready to remix/remaster next week. I’ll be busy won’t I…?

And I think that’s the extent of the tweaking I need to do – hopefully…;-).

Regards,

djp

In Heaven For A Conference – 250511

Sponsored by the letter J.

What an awful day that was!

You’d think a track with two synth parts, a guitar, a bass and a stereo rhythm track would be a piece of cake to mix and master. How wrong you’d be…

The day started off badly with my having a mild but annoying headache. It quickly got worse…

I had to do an emergency re-edit of the guitar parts. I’d cut and paste a few loops throughout the track, but they didn’t sync up properly, so I had to redo that. Then I found a glitch in the bass parts which seems to have been a bit of bleed from my headphones on to the 4003′s pickup. EQ sorted that. I was pretty much ready to rock’n'roll after that and took a bit of time getting a decent mix together. But when I went to master the pre-master track, the JV880 Ice Hall part kept distorting. I had to do a number of different mixes to get the distortion off the monitors, but no matter how I tried, the distortion was still present in the headphones – NBG.

I adjusted levels and adjusted EQs. All to no avail. I then decided that the thing to do was to re-record the Ice Hall parts, but more cleanly – take out all the effect that were present by default on the part in the JV880. For some reason, I couldn’t record MIDI in CE5 for an hour or so. Then the software sat down on me completely – not before I had a repeat of the missing transport bar problem I’ve mentioned before.

When I finally got that sorted, I had to try and edit the Ice Hall part on the JV880. Not an easy task – it would be easier (and more logical) for an amoeba to give birth to an elephant, However, I prevailed and finally edited the part to my heart’s consent. When I finally got that sorted, I recorded the part to CE5 using the Behringer mixer and the Phonic Firely – only to find that the part still sounded crap.

At that stage, I made the fateful decision to find an alternative to the Ice Hall part. I decided to try out a few VST instruments and, after much trial and rather a lot of error, I stumbled upon the Tabular Bells voice in Kore Player. A lovely voice, but it completely changes the mood of the track and it exposed a certain clash between the MIDI part and my bass part. I had no choice but to edit the MIDI part to fit the bass.

Things sound much better (if rather different now), but I still haven’t mixed and mastered it. A job for tomorrow…

16 bloody mixes and all of them crap. Grrr!!!

Regards,

djp

On The Lake Beneath The Shoreline – 290411

Sponsored by the letters W and no letter at all.

Edited the guitar parts in CE5. Again, like yesterday, it took rather more time than the simplicity of the parts merited, but I got it sorted eventually. And then, having done all that, I took out huge swathes of guitar for a bit of variety.

Tweaked some of yesterday’s bass parts and edited the snare MIDI part.

The track is fine for a B-side. 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

Braille For The Feet – 140411

Sponsored by the letter A.

So I cheated a little bit, and last night programmed up a synth bass line in CE5, using the Native Instruments Kore Player (Evolving Bass). Not quite as fancy as the bass line I’d done with the 4003, but better all round.

This morning, edited the Les Paul parts. Things sounded a lot better than I’d remembered, particularly the 4 parts that make up the guitar solo which sounds really rather good (by my low standards at least). Spent a long time experimenting with moving the various parts around. I think I have it pretty much sussed now.

Time to move on…

Regards,

djp

Braille For The Feet – 130411

Sponsored by the letters W and no letter at all.

Spent the morning editing the bass parts in CE5, and have come to the conclusion that the parts just aren’t really good enough. A lot of issues with timing and harmonics. I’m going to have a go at programming a synth bass line over the next few days to see if that improves things. In the meantime, I’ll go ahead and edit the Les Paul parts and see what falls out of that.

The track may not be a keeper for the album, but we’ll give it a decent chance to prove itself…

Regards,

djp

Fly Me To Hecuba – 120411

Sponsored by the letter S.

Edited the Tele parts in CE5. After much to-ing and quite a bit of fro-ing, I isolated two alternating loops which I pasted throughout the track. Judicious use of the Chopper VST plugin (essentially, a tremolo/vibrato thingy – I could never tell the difference…) neatly covers up any guitar playing deficiencies on the part of moi.

Shortened the beats and the Reaktor 5 part.

All nice and cushtee (sp?). Time to move on…

Regards,

djp

People Who Look Like Other People – 240311

Sponsored by the letter A.

Finished programming the 4Front Rhodes VST plugin in CE5 and programmed a number of parts on the D-110 (Warm Pad). I’ll leave a bit of editing to be done when I’ve finally put all the guitar parts in place.

And that, folks, marks the end of the “principal photography”, as it were. From here on in, we’re looking at audio cleanup, editing, tweaking, mixing, mastering and release (with a spot of graphic design thrown in for good measure). I don’t think I’ve ever come so far so quickly on an album before. Hope it turns out to be worth it…

Something I might do pretty soon is  run up some rough mixes of all the tracks and start playing around with the running order. There are some tracks which are likely to miss the final cut, but which ones, dear reader…?

Regards,

djp

People Who Look Like Other People – 230311

Sponsored by no letter at all.

Programmed a number of keyboard parts using the 4Front Rhodes VST plugin. Quantized to 1/32, which makes editing fun…not. Had to resort to using the MIDI List Editor in CE5, which is something I haven’t done in around 20 years. That took up a lot of time, so I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped. But there isn’t really a whole lot more to do to the track in fairness.

More work tomorrow…

Regards,

djp