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audiokid 17 March 2012

Hey!

JohnTodd has a new album out and there are some great songs on it! He was kind enough to allow me to play with this track "I'll Be There" So below is the journey.

Kudo's John!

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PLEASE NOTE: I'm doing this to engage us all, not to prove I am some mixing god etc. However, I also have some nice equipment so I thought it would be right on if I could help him out by trying to make it a little better. In the process, what a great way to engage people by sharing what I'm doing and to also welcome advice from our members too. I want to see this new forum "Track Talk" grow so I'm diving in ya all, all in the name of learning and having fun.

This is such a beautiful song, I think it would make a great mix contest. But for now, this thread is a continuation of more mix's

The Tracks:

There are 30 tracks. Only 1 stereo drum track, a few guitars, a few keys, and a lot of vocals.

Enjoy!

EDIT

Song completed, Who's Next?

This thread is discussing mixing process with one of John's song. Its also part of the continued discussion I am preparing for with a Mix Contest ( not necessarily with this song).
Most of the reference tracks in this thread have now been unfortunately removed to conserve Dropbox space, leaving way for future projects but my final mix prior to mastering is still online. I ended up using my own drum tracks and finished it off with a few analog goodies.

Enjoy whats left of this discussion.

Topic Tags

Comments

djmukilteo Mon, 03/26/2012 - 11:37

audiokid, post: 387156 wrote: Don,

Keep going! It was a challenge lining things up and spacing it all out for me too. You will learn a lot from this. Keep going.

When I imported all the tracks they all "sounded" like they lined up and they all snapped in at 0:00?
So I'll keep going and try and do the things you suggested to start.
Everything I downloaded when I imported them into Cubase were all stereo tracks...is that what they all were?
I thought maybe they would all be mono tracks?
Maybe I imported them wrong to begin with.

audiokid Mon, 03/26/2012 - 11:43

djmukilteo, post: 387158 wrote: When I imported all the tracks they all "sounded" like they lined up and they all snapped in at 0:00?
So I'll keep going and try and do the things you suggested to start.
Everything I downloaded when I imported them into Cubase were all stereo tracks...is that what they all were?
I thought maybe they would all be mono tracks?
Maybe I imported them wrong to begin with.

YUP! This is part of the puzzle. Stereo tracks that should or should not.... be mono may or may not work for you.smoke

From start to finish, I had to do things to the tracks to get it to sound the way it does. Others may do things differently. Many major tips are in the threads here. And a few I removed cause I don't want to give it all away lol!

djmukilteo Mon, 03/26/2012 - 11:48

audiokid, post: 387159 wrote: John, Don... Remy is in! REMY ROCKS!

Don, are the tracks all in tack and online ready for REMY?

I only see two tracks in the shared folder? one .rar and one .wav.
Does this mean I have to move the tracks I moved on my computer back into that I'll Be There folder and upload again?

djmukilteo Mon, 03/26/2012 - 12:40

DB won't let me upload the individual wav files because I only have 1Gb left now and they are over 4Gb by themselves.
All the tracks are there in those compressed zip and rar files so it would be best to download those and get a free rar extractor.
I'll try to "zip" the individual files now and see how big that is but it may take some time to upload that.
It will be over 2Gb.

audiokid Mon, 03/26/2012 - 13:47

yes, absolutely. Its the Dropbox that has been confusing. We've discovered that moving files around on our own PC effect whats online for to the shared folders ( Don, audiokid, John). Only way to preserve whats online is to be sure to use HD that are not on the same shared Shared Dropbox folders. make sense? Copy data to separate folders.

audiokid Mon, 03/26/2012 - 13:52

djmukilteo, post: 387194 wrote: I'm confused with the stereo vs mono tracks and maybe John can explain this because he uses Cubase.
If I import a track into Cubase it comes in stereo with two waveforms in the track graphic and not one?
Is there something I'm doing wrong. Shouldn't these be one waveform and a mono channel?

I asked the same question Don, and wondered if this was unique to Sequoia. When John saved all the tracks, he saved everything as stereo tracks when some should have been mono tracks. Its an easy fix and part of the puzzle. If this was a mix contest, this would be part of the fun. Look or listen to the tracks that are the same, then split them, delete the dup and make it mono. Then... this tricks begin.

djmukilteo Mon, 03/26/2012 - 14:30

If you "copy" those tracks to a separate folder then you are just duplicating the file somewhere else and there's no point to that. You already have the tracks on your computer in the DB folder.
The problem is we free space users will run out of space eventually and the only way to retain the files is to "move" them off to another folder, which free's up our account space but then deletes those for anyone else!
I'm sure this is DB way of getting us all to buy space!...LOL
Maybe a better way is have the source track person place their zip files in their "Public" folder and post the public link either in a forum post or via personal email. (Which some people might not want to do.)
But that way we can save the file where ever we like and there is no "syncing" going on.
The source person then controls the file that way. If they are a free space user then they'll have to post as much as is allowed, wait for everyone to download, then delete and repeat until everyone has all the files.
In our case it would have ended up with (2) 2Gb zip files one at a time for John to upload, then we each download them, let John know when we had them...and then he does another 2Gb zip.
Anyone who comes in late would be out of luck.

On this stereo/mono track deal....are the 2 waveforms that come in stereo....2 indentical mono tracks?
So what your hearing is both and wouldn't that "add" levels that way?
I did try "splitting" them and putting just one wavform on a mono track and I guess that seems to work! Cubase does asks you if you want to "split" and put on "different" tracks...but that seems confusing to me!
This could be something that has to happen when you export.....you need to export as a mono track rather than stereo
John....did you export each track as mono or stereo?

audiokid Mon, 03/26/2012 - 14:36

djmukilteo, post: 387199 wrote:

On this stereo/mono track deal....are the 2 waveforms that come in stereo....2 identical mono tracks?
So what your hearing is both and wouldn't that "add" levels that way?
I did try "splitting" them and putting just one wavform on a mono track and I guess that seems to work! Cubase does asks you if you want to "split" and put on "different" tracks...but that seems confusing to me!
This could be something that has to happen when you export.....you need to export as a mono track rather than stereo
John....did you export each track as mono or stereo?

I asked this question early on. He saved them all as stereo. Split them, delete the dups and pan to taste.

audiokid Mon, 03/26/2012 - 14:37

audiokid, post: 387198 wrote: 7zip is very cool. Can people on Mac open those up?

Seems to be all versions here:

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.7-zip.or…"]Download[/]="http://www.7-zip.or…"]Download[/]

For Mac, this seems to be the best:

OS 10.6 or greater :
http://www.kekaosx.com/en/index.php

Mac OS X 10.5 or newer: Keka 1.0.1 Leopard (4.8 MB)
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger version: Keka 0.1.2.1 Tiger (4,7 MB)

djmukilteo Tue, 03/27/2012 - 14:04

Sorry for these newb questions, but I'm still trying to learn and do this properly.
I've started a brand new project.
I have all the tracks loaded now and have managed to sort them all out to single waveform mono tracks!!..whew!
I have put all the BGV on a bus.
ACGtr's on a bus
ELGtr's on a bus
Drum track and Latin track on a bus.
Pad and synth tracks on a bus.
Bass and lead VOX are each on their for right now...but maybe they should be on a bus?
I'm wondering if I should be using the individual drum tracks instead of the single drum track?
But for now I have 7 stereo stems going...

So that's where I'm starting, unless you have better suggestions.
I'm going to HPF the BGV and see if I can do the EQ thing. I have a HPF that cuts off below 2K?...is that appropriate?

Question on the BGV...some are not singing the same words!?!
They were the 6 Extra tracks that I'm not clear where they go?!?
I can leave those out unless there was someplace they were supposed to go?
I noticed audiokid's mix used them?...and they weren't very understandable.

Thanks for all the suggestions...still learning..still having fun...it just might take me awhile to get something posted.

I hope Remy and others will chime in and mix these up...

John, have you thought about doing another mix again yourself?

audiokid Tue, 03/27/2012 - 14:24

Others obviously have their methods to mixing. This is how I did it and recommend it. I always group things. I'd say you are on to a good start now.
I chose to write my own drum track and vsti. Johns was well done, but lacked the space I get OTB. Remember when I was struggling to sync everything up/ Well, it was because I decided to add my own drums in. I followed his appropriate simple beat.
I used the extra's because they added a musical dimension.

JohnTodd Tue, 03/27/2012 - 16:00

The extra are part of it! There are lyrics there...and they overlap other lyrics. See page 1 of the thread for the lyrics.

Please do not omit the extras.

THis was part of the challenge for me mixing it. 6 vocals overlapping 6 other vocals with different lyrics - and getting them all to be heard.

Have fun! :eek:

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