“Whatever Happened To The Citizens Of My Abandoned Evony City?”/”Vichy Circles” – 080711

Sponsored by the letters F, H, I and J.

Spent yesterday evening remixing and mastering …EVONY in CE5, Cubase VST/24 and AA3. For a track that isn’t hugely complicated, the mixing took me an age – sorting out the various competing EQs was a bit of a challenge, but I got there eventually.  An improvement on the previous mix. One valuable lesson I learnt (accidentally) while mixing was that a lot of the pops I hear in tracks on playback are caused by the Phonic Firefly. If I don’t route my audio via it, but via my PC’s default soundcard, the pops go away. Don’t know why, but it’s one to remember for the future…

Spent this morning remixing and mastering VICHY… I still haven’t fully removed the bass rumble at the start of the track, but it’s sounds fine over earphones, so I’m not too worried (when you hear how badly a lot of modern music is mastered, VICHY…sounds perfectly fine to me). The remix is significantly different from (and better than…) the original mix. Another lesson I learnt during part of this process was that there are limits to the compressor/limiter I use in Cubase VST/24. It adds a certain strange audio effect to bass parts (something I’d noticed before, but which I thought was caused by unsympathetic MP3 encoding). At a loss for something to use as an alternative, I experimented with the processing presets included in AA3 and found a nice multi-band compressor which I will use in future (it’s not as if I actually know what I’m dong when I’m mastering, but this compressor sounds “nice” to me, so…).

Right – that’s it. I ‘m going to spend a bit of time putting together the album running order. I have a fairly clear idea of what I want to do, but I need to hear the finished tracks to be absolutely sure.

Nearly there now…

Regards,

djp

Whatever Happenend To The Citizens Of My Abandoned Evony City? – 010611

Sponsored by the letter E.

Being somewhat euphoric after all the progress I’d made at the start of the week, I reviewed my work so far…and found, to my dismay, that the master for …EVONY had a number of rather annoying clicks and pops. Now, my sound system is inclined to crackle and pop of its own accord, so I’m rarely concerned if I hear some noise during playback, but when the same noise can be heard repeatedly at the same part of the track, then there is a serious problem.

I thought part of the problem might be noise coming from my Behringer mixer and going through the Phonic Firefly, so I shut off the mixer and remastered the track using Cubase VST/24. No joy – still noisy. Then I thought that perhaps I’d normalised the track too “high”. I usually normalise to -.001 dB, and generally there is no problem. So I tried lower settings, but to no avail. I then checked the “premaster” – no noise evident. So obviously there was some issue with the mastering process.

I tried to normalise the premaster, but when I did that, I got more noise. That indicated then that there was a problem somewhere in the premaster too.

After much trial and error, it occurred to me that the noise was caused by too much signal at the lower end of the mix, so I adjusted the EQ on the master using the aptly-titled ”Generic mud removal” preset in AA3. Viola, problem solved –  even at -.001 dB.

I can do without scares like that, I tells yer…;-).

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

King Fidget – 180311

Sponsored by the letters F, G, H, I and J.

A challenging day to say the least.

I had a tradesman coming round today (not that he was unconscious or anything…), so I decided not to track guitar parts. Instead, I decided to address the issue of programming synth parts for King Fidget.

And it was going so well…

…I programmed up a nice little arpeggiated synth line in CE5 using the MinimogueVA VST plugin (Big Drift). Purely out of idle curiosity, I started messing around with the LFO settings and came up with some very interesting variations that I wanted to keep. I tried to record these as automations, but for some reason this wouldn’t work. Being prudent, and dreading the possibility of losing the synth line I’d already programmed, I recorded it to audio using the Behringer mixer and the Phonic Firefly.

I kept working at my LFO variations, but to no avail. Since the automation angle wasn’t working, I got the bright idea of recording the synth line to CE5 and adjusting the LFO ”live”, as it were. But as soon as I started trying to record the adjustments, all types of crap happened; either the adjustments wouldn’t “take”, or the Minimogue refused to work at all. Most frustrating. I tried to copy the MIDI part onto other VST plugins, but they either didn’t sound right, or they wouldn’t work – in any event, I couldn’t recreate the arpeggio off the Minimogue.

I even tried running the MIDI part through the Juno-D, but the LFO adjustments wouldn’t take. Total bummer. I couldn’t record the adjustments, but I could play them. Occasionally…

…it was very late in the day, when I finally got the bright idea to record the adjustments “live” onto the Tascam 2488. After much trial and error, I got things working smoothly. The only complication was the fact that I had to solo the Minimogue while making the adjustments, so I had no idea, while recording, whether the adjustments would work properly within the context of the track. When I eventually transferred the wavs in CE5 and played back my efforts, I found the adjustments worked well enough, for the most part. I may, or may not, run both synth lines together from time to time in the mix and at other times switch between the two.

Oh, and I almost forgot – I programmed 3 nice ambient-sounding parts off the JV-880 (JP Heaven) and recorded them to audio.

After the day’s efforts, I now find that the track has taken off on a somewhat unexpected direction – the power of synths, eh? Editing and mixing should be fun…

Regards,

djp

Perp Walk/A Truth You Can Happily Accept – 170311

Sponsored by the letter E.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all…

PERP WALK

Recorded the previously-programmed JV-880 (JP Strings) and D-110 (Recorder) MIDI parts to audio in CE5, using the Behringer mixer and the Phonic Firefly. The track is now ready for audio clean-up and editing.

…TRUTH…

Programmed 4 MIDI parts off the JV-880 (Arasian Morn) and recorded them to audio as above.

Also programmed 1 MIDI part off the D-110 (Windbells) and recorded it to audio.

For some mad reason, I recorded the metronome to audio as well. No particular reason why – maybe I’ll drop it in and out of the mix (rather like King Tubby’s signature “tone” – anyone who knows what I’m talking about will know what I’m talking about).

Finally I programmed a section using my old favourite VST plugin – Majken’s Chimera (the Ultraslow voice). For some odd reason, when I open up the voices in Majken’s Chimera for editing, I can neither move the editing screen around nor close it down. So in order not have a stonking great big screen blocking my view, I had to record the section to audio and then delete the plugin altogether. Not what I’d normally like to do, but since I was just holding down one note, it’d be no biggy to recreate if necessary.

That’s enough for one morning, I think…

Regards,

djp

On The Lake Beneath The Shoreline – 290111

Sponsored by the letter K.

New track. Programmed up two organ parts using the Purple B voice off the Juno-D. As the name suggests, the voice sounds (vaguely) like the type of distorted sound Jon Lord from Deep Purple would’ve got off his old Hammond organ. Obviously, my programming resembles Lord’s playing. In. No. Way.

Edited the parts in CE5 and recorded them to audio via the Behringer mixer and the Phonic Firefly.

Might be busy tomorrow doing something else. But that depends very much on someone else…

Regards,

djp

Whatever Happened to The Citizens Of My Abandoned Evony City?/Braille For The Feet – 240111

Sponsored by the letter E.

WHATEVER…

Decided it was high time to break out the 4003, so that’s what I did…

Accidentally "arty" photograph...

Recorded a bass part in one (actually several) takes onto the Tascam 2488 using the Bass Pod XT. Basically, we are  talking about a repetitive bass line – I will find the best version of the line and cut’n'paste to taste. Nice one…

BRAILLE…

Recorded a rough mix in CE5 using the Behringer mixer and the Phonic Firefly. Transferred it to the Tsacam. However, when I went to record bass parts, I found I had severe tuning issues. I eventually diagnosed this as being the fault of the bass drum voice I’d used, which had a very distinctive (and somewhat off-key) pitch. I changed the bass drum voice and recorded another rough mix. However, by the time that was done, I’d run out of time to track the bass. In any event, I was happy neither with the tone settings I’d used on the Bass Pod, nor with the bass line I was trying to play. Mild bummer I suppose, but I’ll try again tomorrow (hopefully…).

Regards,

djp

Vichy Circles/No Position To Argue – 200111

Sponsored by the letter A.

Mixed fortunes today…

VICHY CIRCLES

Some of you may recall that I made a number of attempts to record this track for my Raw Mesh album. None of them were satisfactory, so I abandoned the track. In the intervening time, I’ve felt that the track deserved another chance, so this morning I had another pop at it.

Recorded a metronome from CE5 as audio on CE5 via the Phonic Firefly and the Behringer mixer and transferred it to the Tascam 2488, and attempted to record the Jazz Bass through the Bass Pod XT. For some reason, I just couldn’t get my head around the bass line – when I eventually remembered what it was (which took longer than you might imagine), I found I couldn’t play it cleanly enough for long enough to record it as a single take. And the bass line is not one that lends itself easily to splitting into separate parts which can be looped.

I gave it about 10 minutes and then I jacked it in as a bad job. What I intend to do now is to go back to the old Cubase project file (Cubase VST/24, I reckon) and see what is retrievable from the old versions. Maybe I can work up something useful this time out. It’s worth a try at least, otherwise, what’s the point of hanging on to the old project file and wavs, eh? I’ll have look at this over the weekend.

Moving swiftly along…

NO POSITION TO ARGUE

…I thought I’d try (another) new track. Programmed a rough rhythm track using HALion One, recorded it as audio and transferred it to the Tascam 2488. I then attempted to record a bass line in one take, which sounded rather ropey. Luckily, this time out the bassline does lend itself to splitting into parts, so I recorded 4 separate parts which I will cut’n'paste to my heart’s content. The bass line is somewhat in the Joy Division style, but obviously not as good as Hooky might have done it.

The old transport panel problem reared its unlovely head again today (so much so that I actually worked NO POSITION… up in CE4 rather than CE5), so I decided to contact Steinberg support to see if they could offer any suggestions. A nice German lad suggested that a combination of adjusting my screen resolution and resetting the preferences might do the trick. Seems to have worked so far, but I will keep the situation under close observation, so I will.

Might be taking tomorrow “off” – depends on the family, doncha know…

Regards,

djp

Whatever Happened To the Citizens Of My Abandoned Evony City?/Fly Me To Hecuba/Braille For The Feet – 130111

Sponsored by the letter P.

Keeping this brief, I recorded the various MIDI parts off the D-110, JV-880 and Juno-D to audio on CE5 via the Behringer mixer and the Phonic Firefly. No need to bore you with the details. Everything went tickety-boo…

Regards,

djp

In Heaven For A Conference – 120111

Sponsored by the letter O.

So the plan tonight was to record the MIDI parts to audio on the Tascam 2488. Unfortunately, due to some naughtiness relating to my audio patchbay, there was a lot of crosstalk between the Soundtrack voice on the D-110 and the Ice Hall voice on the JV-880. I quickly decided not to use the Tascam for this, but instead to record each voice separately via the  Behringer mixer through the Phonic Firefly directly into CE5. This took a little bit of time, but it was worth it, especially since I didn’t have to go to the trouble of transferring the WAVs from the Tascam to my PC. It also meant that I could record each voice in stereo rather than as a pair of mono tracks.

I also recorded the Sawstrings 2 voice off the Juno-D.

One small confession to make:- I only realised after recording the bass parts a few days ago that the tuner on the Bass Pod XT had been set to 438 Hz instead of 440 Hz. For safety sake, I recorded two different versions of each of MIDI track to audio – one in the original tuning setting for the relevant synths (442 Hz for the D-110, 440 Hz for the JV-880 and Juno-D respectively) and another for each synth in 438 Hz. All the synths are now set to 440 Hz. Well, it was either do this or re-tune the bass and record the bass parts.

Not exactly whether this will make a huge amount of difference at the end of the day, but I’d hate to be caught out on something really dumb…

…not that that hasn’t happened before…;-)

Regards,

djp