OK...no problemo...ya know it's hard to communicate what you "want" to hear and not offend the artistic muse....LOL.
Just as a reference....in your mix John that I listened to...there were parts I really liked, so I think if you can get the clear sound audiokid is getting along with some of the "tricks" you employed it will really come together.
I thought the chorus on your version was a tad overdone with the warbling effect but they were gel'n there in parts!...especially at the end of the chorus they all "clicked"....so maybe a happy medium..I always find just a touch of the right reverb fills out the raw parts and smooths them all together...

I'm actually hoping to engage people here, trolling for more members like Don and John with tracks to come forward.

I'm hoping more people will be willing to mix songs, not just me :) ( ITB or OTB) for a variety of mutual benefit's, all intended to work towards problem based learning and a mix contest. So far the response has been disappointing and odd.

Maybe posting this now will shed some light on things a bit more and we will start to get some chat going. After-all, nothing happens unless someone starts something and we actually do it rather than type all day. So I'm starting something and going with the flow. I happen to be learning more about my hybrid rig but this is also for 100% ITB too. I just want to start real examples and start hearing mix's and discussion about mix's taking place.

I've been thinking about this for year. So, I'm finally feeling this out, learning how Dropbox works, how RO could host tracks and getting some idea's on future mix contests.
I'm learning how tracks can be imported into a variety of DAW's without trouble.
I'm learning what kind of song or tracks would be the best overall for a contest. At first I thought we would get a studio to provide them but after signing up with Indaba Music, I soon saw how we could do it here.

1.) I've been thinking about giving a nice mic package away to someone that will provide tracks ( something like John's song). This song has a nice mix of vocals, acoustic and electric guitar's, some keys and drums. There is a lot of room to produce this song into something commercial.
2.) I would get something nice for the engineer who wins the best mix..

How we decide the winner, not sure yet. Could be the track provider ( what they envisioned their mix to sound like) or a vote of some sort by the members or a board.

Things we would learn during these discussions:

I'm discovering latency caused during the recording and overdubs in Johns studio set-up. This makes it very difficult to line these tracks up and do my thing on them. In my system, I don't have sync issue. When I record, I make sure everything is lined up dead on and its also why I invest in a good monitoring system and interface.
The latest question I have... is this an issue caused during the import to my system or does John have some, what I would call, "serious" latency issues that cause this some to phase and sync poorly which I can help improve. Syncing MIDI to this song a big challenge. We both learn hwo to solve this and others following this thread lean how important latency is if you are thinking about your song being mixed by someone like myself. That wants to add new MIDI tracks.
So we all gain something here. Which I call Probem Based Learning.

Remy talks about the SM58 all the time but wow, this Nady ribbon John is using sure tamed down the metallic sound I think his system would have accentuated using a higher end LCD. But it also is really wooly making is really difficult to get things to cut through. Why would I want things to cut through, Well, I would love to open up the vocals and add a huge space top them but I can't get it much better than this. Maybe someone else has an idea?

I'm very impressed how great a mix I am getting with an $80 mic. I mean wow... But is this partly because I am using some nice analog gear or is it because I am a bit better at mixing this or mabe just different ears.
Can you imagine how great these tracks would sound with some high end equipment and the tracks being recorded in a better space.

I'm not sure how much better I can get this mix , there are so many things that I would redo. I believe this song has great potential, I would like to see it happen.

When I use BFD2 for drums, OMG, what an improvement. But I first need to tighten the tracks up before I can get it to sync to my standards. I could spend a 100 hours on this. Do I have time. Maybe someone else does. Maybe John could get this song published. Maybe he doesn't want to take it any further.

Lots of iead's are floating in my head while I work on this. The next question I ask myself, how much more should I do?

If this was a song for a mix contest, wouldn't it be interesting to to learn how different engineers could take this song to pro level with its current tracks, OR.... if we or he allowed additional tracks to be added. All in the name of learning and improving our skills and helping a song be born.

I'll stop now... So many ideas here.

djmukilteo, post: 386861 wrote: I hope neither of you mind my input, it's only my thoughts and opinion...so please take it with a grain of salt!
I'm not a big fan of the delay...the vocals to me are a little too dry and the delay is a bit distracting.
I think a little reverb (plate?) on the main vocal and BGV would blend and mix nicer.
In the BGV chorus there is a distinct high part and a distinct low part and the low part jumps out at me.
They all need to be blended and balanced to get that harmony resonance and gel. They don't sound combined enough as one part.
Oh and I don't know if you just haven't gotten around to any of this yet, but I would like to hear a fade in on the intro.
All of this IMHO...carry on...the "sound" is so clear!

Ah, good. I see you posted this while I was writing my last. So while you all chew on that, I'll continue with Don's response.

While we know how awesome this song is, I need to point out some things I'm having trouble with, that may be because I need to improve or the tracks needed to be recorded better. But thats what this is all about. We're here to learn and to help make this song the best we can.

There are some real inconsistencies with the harmonies and they are wooly.

If I add too much reverb, I loose the lead Vox. It is really wooly too. If I pull out the lower mids, the high end starts to rip. The upper Mids start piling up with the other tracks. The entire track is heavy in the mids. The mids is where the verb sits. So once I add the verb, we instantly loose the presence. Its a challange from here on in. But I know I can make it all blend better. Just not sure what to do yet.

I love this new Forum.

I love this new forum too.

Can you explain "wooly" to me? I don't hear it...but we know why.

As for latency...I wouldnt think it would have issues. Want me to re-print all the tracks with the FX switched in but set to neutral? Cubase does latency comp automatically - maybe printing w/out FX threw it off?

Sure, I'll explain :

(Stealing Fab Dupont's terms lol!) wooly as in, like if you put some cotton in front of the vocals. Decreasing the proximity between you and the mic aids in the open sound needed to get great sounding vocals. Harmonies sound great if you sing back further, (get air happening), and have a mic and pre that pull you into the sound. Hard to explain. You need a good room for starters otherwise you'll get a comb filtering effect.

There is a fine line between too much or too little proximity. Each singer and mic/pre has a sweet spot. Too close yields a wooly/cotton sound and too far gets a thin , excessive room sound. Also, your micpre and converters aren't super open sounding. This all effects the ability to open the track up more. Right now everything is in a small bandwidth. Its hard to know where good enough is and then just start mixing/producing. This includes effects because the more I add effects, the harder it is the hear the clarity I want in the first place. Everything just starts washing together, MUD.

More on the sync:

I should have the drums in place by now but I can''t get started programming a new kit because the tracks don't feel solid enough. Drums tend to be hitting before and after the beats all the way through. Some of your tracks are tighter than others. It sounds like you are tracking to a system that has latency. Like you are hearing a sloppy timing and it was all done one at a time so over the course of 30 tracks, its hard to know what to set the drums to. Nothing lines up to dead center. As the song builds, you most likely don't notice it because you are in the moment. The timing difference between your monitoring and the DAW is causing this I believe.

Being said, your stereo drum track is tighter than I am able to get so far. This has never been an issue for me. I should be able to load the tracks, line them all to zero, set the tempo, set the grid and sync dead on.

I started programming back in the 80's. Its still hard to believe how great the old MIDI systems were compared to what we have to deal with today, but that's another topic only 80's generation engineers know what I'm talking about. Being from that generation, I'm effected by timing more than others. Whining about it is useless. I need to solve this, that's all. :)

I think I can fix this by jogging all the tracks to line up with dead center. I started this last night. New tracks from you won't help. Its part of how the song was constructed. I'll maybe take a screen shot of this so we have a visual of what I'm talking about.

I would love someone like Remy or Davedog to tackle this. Including IIRs if he would have been able to act mature and I not blocked him from turning, yet another good topics into his BS null tests and headroom debates. I would charish hearing what his endless headroom ITB sound could do with these tracks.

Boulder, who else? ( just naming as they come to my head) Lots of great guys here. Bob Rodgers. Many members who share so much info of mixing, I'd love to hear what they can do in real life. But, we also have jobs and mouths to feed so our time is limited. Including mine...

This is where things would start getting interesting because we would get different engineer going at it. That would get seriously interesting.

And I suppose that would be a mix contest wouldn't it!

Hey, it is always an honor to have someone levels up form me look at my work. I appreciate audiokid doing this, just like I appreciate everybody who has contributed to this thread so far. Others, please chime in. Davedog, Remy, and all others...mix it with your gear or give us input....whatever you want.

As for non-tight drums - I always quantize my drums to a grid! Always! But I am not a drummer, so some of my choices may be non-standard. I like a groove but I always like to '**** with it', so to speak. It is an artistic decision, but hey, I'm open to criticism on that. Maybe I've gone too far with it...

So it should all be quantized nicely...I'm puzzled. As for timing on real instruments, it could be my sloppy playing. I wallow in slop. I never was a technical player, I always played by feel. Sometimes I feel too much and loose discipline. I also left music for about 8 years and did nothing. When I came back, I gained great 'feel' and "soul' but never regained what 'technical' playing I had. Hmmmm.

Hey John, please don't take what I'm saying personal. I'm just picking right now because I'm trying really hard to get better than I've gotten so far ( sound wise). I'm in the grind with this now.
I don't think you know what I mean about the drums. Yes, quantize them, absolutely! Its not the drums timing on your end, Its me trying to get my drum track to sync up to your tracks in a spot where its in the sweet spot of the beat. Your vocal and guitar tracks are shifting a bit looser than I would like. Does that make better sense?

I'm adding a few processor right now. Trying the A Design Nail on the 2-bus. Its an awesome comp. I love what this thing does to the bottom end. And it helps glue things too. I'll upload what it does just as soon as I get it to where its sounds right.

It helping I think. How long are you up tonight?

Check this out for fun.

Added the Nail and did a bit of EQing

EDIT: Files removed , onto another mix fest.

(Expired Link Removed)

EDIT: Files removed , onto another mix fest.

Don, Reverb is happening now. New drums are helping with space. How does it sound guys. I'm so tired but excited to get more input from you both!

Well I think that sounded pretty fab....I think that has "glued" things together nicely.
Very smooth....
Somebody in the chorus isn't singing the same words as everybody else though...Hehe..

NICE!

Love the Nail. It does act like glue!

I WAS taking it personally, because it was about my stuff, but I was NOT offended. I did think you were talking about my drum performance, rather than re-syncing on your end. No worries, mate!

As for people singing different lyrics, remember the lyric "Till the future is at one [with us my dear.] If the sun don't shine," has some overlapping parts to it.

(Unless I made an actual mistake - in which case I oughta be shot for releasing that to the public!)

Sorry I wasnt up last night - I had to do some work with my new chainsaw. It's a wonderful Craftsman 20" 50cc that my girlfriend bought for the farm. It is very powerful, but heavy. I call it the "Bicep Buster". So I came in from the forest, had a drink, and went to bed. LOL!

Just throwing this out there...but I would love to give Johns tracks a try, if John doesn't mind.
It wouldn't be anything like what audiokid is doing it would be strictly ITB using Cubase 6.
And I don't have any special plugins at all, so it would be a pretty basic Cubase mix.
And I have no idea if I could even do it properly, but it would be a cool experience for me if John has no problem making the tracks available...Like I said this isn't to compete or anything like that, I'm no audiokid, Remy or Davedog etc...I just have the time right now and curious to see what I could do with my setup and John's tracks.
It might be totally embarrassing...LOL....for me!
And if you're not comfortable with that, I completely understand too....I will continue to try to contribute and listen to the mixdowns..

Thanks for the compliment Don, but I'm more a littetree, a guitar player that started this journey because I needed to record my songs. I stopped to have children and I'm just getting back into it again.

Both you and John have been so cool for doing this! Thank you!

audiokid, post: 386952 wrote: Thanks for the compliment Don, but I'm more a littetree, a guitar player that started this journey because I needed to record my songs. I stopped to have children and I'm just getting back into it again.

Both you and John have been so cool for doing this! Thank you!

Haha....were all so humble....I like that!
It's all good...enjoying the audio fun..

I'm all for anyone who wants to mix this having the tracks. But my Dropbox account won't hold all the tracks at once. Does anyone have an account that will hold ~4 gigs of tracks that I can upload to?

-Johntodd

John,

We should be able to use my Dropbox account. I'll create a new public folder and upload what you gave me. I think I have all but a few tracks before I converted them into Sequoia that you will need to give me again. Stand by, I'll start the process. ( I have a fast upload) :)

Track Talk: We need to improve your sound quality. Apart from your song, a few things I wanted make note on and help you with if I can.
These are recorded at was it 24/96 which I see no point. You are using a mass amount of system resources when I'm pretty sure 88.2 or even 24/44 would be close but that would be dependant on your converters. How does your system sound at 24/44 or 24/88.2?

How many tracks (mics) do you generally record at a time?

Well that sucks, forget that... I cleaned them out of my system. You'll have to re upload it all again. So sorry, I know your upload is slower.

John, put them in here:

EDIT: Files removed , onto another mix fest.

I've tried it at a lower rate/depth, and I could hear a difference. It was like listening to a CD vs. vinyl and hearing that "CD bite" that they have. I always try to go for 'quality' when I can afford it. I figured the 96K@24b would give me some 'wiggle room' in case I barfed something up when tracking and make it have less digital bite. But that was a long time ago (~2009), so my lack of skill could have messed it up too.

Yyou think I could try lowering the rate now, but still keep it at 24b?

As for room treatment, my options are few. Money is extremely tight right now. Everything in my life is absolutely great except for money. I think I have no choice but to place a few wall panels and string up heavy blankets on mic stands behind me when using a mic. I can probably do something about the CPU fan noise. That's about it. I'd love to run across a great one-channel no-frills preamp. On the Firepod I can plug in with 1/4" and go straight to the converters, skipping the XMAX onboard preamps.

And my system is stuck, for the meantime, in the corner of my room. Best I can do. I can put panels up but I'm still stuck in the corner. However, when I use a mic, I go out into the room with it to get away as best I can.

I generally record 1 track at a time when using a mic. I used to record 2 tracks back when I was using an SGX2000 to run my voice through a tube. You can hear that sound on my very first ADL-600 contest entry, the country song. It is on the lead vox only.

Ideas? Thoughts? What more can I do? I solicit EVERYBODY's advice on how to make things better. Think of me as your living experiment in no-budget recording! It'll be great!

My mic locker has an SM57, Nady RSM4, and an MXL990. My interface is the PreSonus Firepod (FP10 version). My software is Cubase.

Thanks!
-Johntodd

I'll get right on it...must re-render them first!

UPDATE:

Look here for the individual drum tracks and some MIDI files, so you can grab them now if you like:

EDIT: Files removed , onto another mix fest.

We need to improve your vocal chain. Is this what you are using?
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.zzounds…"]PreSonus Firepod | PreSonus at zZounds[/]="http://www.zzounds…"]PreSonus Firepod | PreSonus at zZounds[/]

Okay, I'll upload those in the new folder so no need tp dup that. Don is using Cubase so will be able to take advantage of your midi tracks. They appeared useless for me however, I didn't experiment on converting them.

audiokid, post: 386985 wrote: We need to improve your vocal chain. Is this what you are using?
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.zzounds…"]PreSonus Firepod | PreSonus at zZounds[/]="http://www.zzounds…"]PreSonus Firepod | PreSonus at zZounds[/]

Yes, the lower one.

I think you should bounce all the tracks (including MIDI) down to wav?. I would make sure each track is rendered starting at 00:00 even if they start a 3:45. That's the only way to ensure correct timing.
If you do them all at the same time "select all" it will save all the track in a new separate folder and they should all be time aligned together even though they are separate wav tracks.
For my purposes 24/32bit at any sample rate is fine. Just so I know....the sound would give it away though as soon as I fired it up!...LOL
The MIDI tracks or tracks with plugins on them that are not dry will come up with errors because I may not have the same instrument or effect plugin you used. So unless you tell us what was used and how it was set were not going to be able to use any of that.
All dry is probably the easiest way, but there may be processing you did to clean up or "fix" certain tracks that should be bounced with those edits in place....it would make things easier.
Another thought is with Cubase you could just copy the entire project folder with the .cpr file, images, audio, edits etc and then I can open them...of course that's probably 4Gb?...my DropBox is only free with 2.5Gb.
If Chris has a larger account then he can send us a folder share invite and store everything there while were transferring files around.
A second experiment that Chris and I discussed was trying to export/import an OMF file.

I should mention. I'm thinking about a mix contest now! (NOTE: not sure who's tracks we'll use but this will become evident over time)
Ues our experiences here to help us all figure out how to do things so its an even playing field. Lets keep this in mind so we are working towards this.

There will be all sorts of DAWs so wave files are the best choice.

DJ:
Everything was rendered dry and started at zero. They should sync up nicely. The timing and phasing issues audiokid is encountering is my sloppy performance coupled with inaccurate gear.

I put the MIDI tracks in there in case somebody just wants to assign new sounds to them. The MIDI to .wav thing is there also. There is a stereo drum track along with individual drum tracks.

As for processing, oh yes! There is a lot of processing I do to clean things up. 100Hz HPF -> gate -> Vocal Rider for starters. But the vocals tracks you are getting are the 'finals' with all the comp edits done.

audiokid:
You are talking about jitter? I can lower the rate and that would help, right?

John:
If you tracked things 24/96 then you should bonuce them that way!
Converting them downward at this stage would only degrade the track(s)...IMHO!
OOC...How many individual tracks are we talking about here?
Maybe do them in a batch or group and take it one step at a time instead of trying to do them all together at once?
Drums, then guitar, vocals that sort of thing...just a thought..I'm in no rush so if it takes time uploading, downloading, deleting, repeat....that's not a problem for me. It is 2Gb free!...that's a lot of space!.....20Mb HDD used to be huge!...LOL

BIgtree:
This will be a great experiment for anyone here in the future who wants to share or remix others material.
I think there are people out there that really like to do this sort of thing...even if it's just for fun.
I know people wanted some way to do this in the past when you were changing forum software so this DropBox thing is really perfect for collaboration. You have a shared folder and only the people who are supposed to have access get an invite from the track provider and then each participant would be able to use the free account and post their rendered remixes back and link the rest of the group to it.
I think I will learn a ton and have fun just being exposed to different music and the sound of different DAW's and analog equipment and critically listening to the different techniques. I'm pretty sure you won't get everybody in here and it may only end up a handful of people....not everone feels like it or even cares about others track..
To me ....you can talk and chat all you like about what sounds better but until you actually do it without bias there's no better method than comparing mixes. It's not really the norm and really is only something that could be done within a forum type environment like this. I mix friend's tracks and they like what I do to make them sound golden, but that's it...they don't get multiple choices...so I think this is pretty cool thing for John.
On other forums out there where people have done this..they have been pretty successful with very little debate, argument or bickering....which can also be a refreshing thing!

JohnTodd, post: 386997 wrote: DJ:
Everything was rendered dry and started at zero. They should sync up nicely. The timing and phasing issues audiokid is encountering is my sloppy performance coupled with inaccurate gear.

I put the MIDI tracks in there in case somebody just wants to assign new sounds to them. The MIDI to .wav thing is there also. There is a stereo drum track along with individual drum tracks.

As for processing, oh yes! There is a lot of processing I do to clean things up. 100Hz HPF -> gate -> Vocal Rider for starters. But the vocals tracks you are getting are the 'finals' with all the comp edits done.

audiokid:
You are talking about jitter? I can lower the rate and that would help, right?

OK...I'm ready and willing for a link post here or email invite to a shared project folder from audiokid!

re tracks,

the way I received them was good. they are numbered and imported perfect. All the vocals were together, bass, guitars etc. They all lined up to zero. And I echo, Don, keep them at 96. They are what they are.

You should be able to upload the works. Once they are all there, I will open it up for you Don.

I did wonder about zipping them though. Could we do that, yes? John, you thought it would loose sound quality but I'm now thinking when I suggested to compress them, you thought, compressors yes? I'm thinking we should compress (zip) a few folders and upload them that way for this sort of thing.

audiokid, post: 0 wrote: We are spinning you dude! How does it feel?

Maybe I should continue just for fun and to enlighten us all. hehe.

It feels :smile::cool::biggrin: to me!

Please continue! For fun...for learning...for poops and giggles!

You folks make me so happy!

audiokid, post: 387005 wrote: I did wonder about zipping them though. Could we do that, yes? John, you thought it would loose sound quality but I'm now thinking when I suggested to compress them, you thought, compressors yes? I'm thinking we should compress (zip) a few folders and upload them that way for this sort of thing.

Zip is fine, need the link or invite though!

Awesome, I just zipped 1.7 gig to 400 meg.
Stand by Don.

I keep getting files added and deleted from my Dropbox app.

(BT, delete this post if its nothing.)

hehe, sorry about that!

I needed to create the folder in my account because ( I think) it has the most space and should work. I've created a folder called I'll Be There. It has the Drum Tracks Zipped. The rest is up to you now. I suggest you put them into that same folder and if you can zip them before uploading, it will go fast.

Create /Group the tracks ( Vocals, Guitars, Drums) etc) and zip them!

OK, there are 3 files in the JohnTodd folder you created. I shall zip the rest and u/l directly to Ill Be There folder.

UPDATE:

Zippty-do-dah in progress.

Thank goodness I got that straight! hehe.

Yup, can you zip them on your CP? If so, group them and drop them into I'll Be There!

Zippty-do-dah in progress. I like that!

6 tracks in the Drum zip were blank and didn't get zipped!
Toms 1-4, XTA and Cymbals
Only three Kick, Snare and Hihat came through.
If you look at the zip file those 6 are only 130kb so I don't think they actually got compressed.

No Idea, I didn't use them Don. Just zipped what John had in there.