Future Plans For Yesterday – 140611

Sponsored by the letter A.

Mixed and mastered the track in CE5, Cubase VST/24 and AA3.

Took me rather a long time to do this, as apart from one or two unavoidable interruptions, I decided to do a “spot” of re-editing of the track, which ended up being “a lot” of editing. Ended up with a bizarre mix which sounds like Jean-Michel Jarre in a dub stylee. Experimented a lot with effects automation and even got to use a ring modulator plugin for (I think) the very first time. Interesting results!

So, this, effectively was the last day or mixing and mastering. I have a potential tracklisting in my mind, but I won’t announce it until I am absolutely sure that I’m happy with the final tracks. I also want to take a bit of a break before going down that road, so I will not listen to any of the masters until the start of July, just to clear my head. Instead, I will concentrate on doing a bit of design/artwork.

You might think that I’d go and have a quiet celebratory pint tonight to mark the effective completion of the album. Unfortunately, tomorrow is a work day, and there are a tough few days ahead of me au bureau, so I’ll need to keep my head clear…

…for now…;-).

Regards (and thanks for sticking with me so far…),

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

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

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

Fly Me To Hecuba – 110411

Sponsored by the letter R.

Last night I had to download my Native Instruments VST plugins (including Reaktor 5) onto my laptop. This was in between watching Lewis on ITV and poor Rory Mc.Ilroy imploding at the Masters on the Beeb. Didn’t have time to set the plugins up last night – waaaay too late.

Took me about an hour to work out what to do with them this evening (the acronym RTFM springs to mind), but I eventually got it sorted and started editing the bass parts in CE5. Experimented with a few loops from the first and second parts and eventually got a loop together that was pretty damn tight. The loop repeats itself all the way through the track apart from an end section which I had to edit together from various scraps of bass. Works rather well, if I do say so my self (and I doooo…).

Tomorrow, I’ll have a go at the Tele parts. Hopefully should be handy enough to do.

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

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

Private Sector Weather Forecast Service – 140311

Sponsored by the letter B.

Programmed two further VST plugin parts in CE5, to wit, Gargoyle (Horror Cat) and MinimogueVA (Emerson’s Tarkus).

Job done. Time to move on…

Regards,

djp