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audiokid dvdhawk Kurt Foster pcrecord kmetal @Brien Holcombe Boswell Davedog @Brother Junk Smashh ( et al)...

Okay guys, so here's one I thought I'd just throw out there, just to see what you think...

Do you think there would be any value in taking on a mix where the tracks were not very well recorded?
By this I mean, I have a song ( tracks) floating around on my HDD that wasn't exactly what I'd consider to have been my "finest" audio moment - LOL. I started this song last year, finished recording the parts, but never mixed it.
This is a cover song that I had thrown together to use as backing tracks for my solo act ( whether you like that I do this or not isn't really the point of this thread... guys who know me here know that I'm fully capable of playing live alone or with a band and holding my own)...

This was recorded for the warm-weather patio gigs I have, where fidelity isn't as crucial as that of a real release; in this situation, I'm just putting tracks together to act as my "backing band", recording drums, bass, keys, backing vox, and leaving out guitar and lead vocals - on incredible masterpieces such Brown Eyed Girl, or Brandy, or Sweet Caroline, etc. - around these parts, we refer to this stuff as "yacht rock", and as long as the tracks sound at least halfway decent ( or even just recognizable) coming out of the PA, then it's okay. Truthfully, nobody really cares either way. I could spend weeks sweating bullets on something like Owner Of A Lonely Heart, doing my absolute best to stay true to the arrangement and fidelity, and I guarantee you that when I was finished playing it, I might get a smattering of claps, but then someone will just shout out for Margaritta-Balls or Wall-Eyed Girl.

But I was thinking. what if I did take these less-than-stellar (way less, LOL) tracks, and actually tried to make them sound "decent" in a mix?
I know we've all talked about how much easier it is to mix tracks that were recorded great to begin with - but it might be kind of a cool exercise to see how far I can go to take these really rough tracks, and attempt to work them into something that at least resembles a decent mix? LOL... sorry... this is making me chuckle.

Is this a terrible idea? Or do you think it might actually serve a purpose?

Just thinking out loud...
As always, all comments are welcome. :)

-d.

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Comments

kmetal Mon, 03/06/2017 - 12:30

To me the hard part is the writing and the arrangement. Triggering new drums and tracking new guitar and bass shouldn't take more than a day.

I'm intending on having plenty of templates on tap w gates triggers and good sounds on tap for occasions just like this.

I look at questionably recorded material as good source triggers!

Replacement is part of 'mixing' these days I think.

Obviously I know this might not be the approach your taking about, but between audio-to-midi for bass, and the drums triggered you've replaced without re-playing the parts. If you have a DI guitar part as a safety your gold.

+1 on audience not caring about the quality of backing tracks. I've witnessed it hundreds of times.

pcrecord Mon, 03/06/2017 - 12:52

If you do a solo act with backing tracks, there is 2 sides to this
Either it's gonna perfect because it sounds live anyway or it's gonna clash with other backtracks..

When I played alone live, I made my point to record all my backing and mix them so they sound good live but not too perfect.
Having my own voice as backvocals and me playing the drum and bass was biggest reward for me (even if the assistance didn't noticed.. ) ;)

DonnyThompson Mon, 03/06/2017 - 13:28

pcrecord, post: 448316, member: 46460 wrote: If you do a solo act with backing tracks, there is 2 sides to this
Either it's gonna perfect because it sounds live anyway or it's gonna clash with other backtracks..

When I played alone live, I made my point to record all my backing and mix them so they sound good live but not too perfect.
Having my own voice as backvocals and me playing the drum and bass was biggest reward for me (even if the assistance didn't noticed.. ) ;)

I get that part, Mon Ami', but that's not what I'm really talking about... my thought was to try and mix these tracks as if I were mixing it for a record release .... not for my live act. ;)

audiokid Mon, 03/06/2017 - 18:23

I have a very different take on this.

Bad recording don't serve your mixing career well or likely (there are exceptions) help you with your chops. Bad recordings in general do you more injustice than good, leading you to think you are onto something that is simply put, never what you would do if it was well recorded in the first place.
The only way it would ever serve you well is if you had a before and after so "the right people" could hear the difference between the original bad and how hard you tried to make it better.

The mass hearing it will never have someone on your side explaining to them, "yeah it sounds like ass but listen to what this guy did to it".

If you are planning to use it to help your business grow, don't put your name on it. If its an exercise, it doesn't help you much because its is full of issues that mess you up more than actually help you. It becomes a big can of worms.

However, if you do it, don't spend a lot of time trying to improve it. Listen to it just enough to get it sorted in your head and mix it quickly. The more you study it, the more you will try and fix a domino effect, for nothing. Find the main focus (likely the vocals) and get those right (upfront and clear). Done.

That's my advice.

audiokid Tue, 03/07/2017 - 10:41

This would be a good problem based learning exercise. Meaning, our recording.org community could do a pretty damn good thread going from identifying cause and effects , improvements that could have been done to make things sound and sit better in the mix, then go into great detail finding ways to fix it in the mix and then master the track.

(EDIT) > , the only people that actually get what we do are those directly attached to the recording process in some way. Everyone else listening is just listening and don't really understand what is going on. Even if we post and talk about it all, those just listening still can't know how amazing you are as an engineer until they actually get involved and try and do something to it as well. And that includes other engineers sitting on the side lines.

imho.

DonnyThompson Tue, 03/07/2017 - 15:03

That was kinda my intention ... to make it an exercise for RO cats.
Because we are largely a PBL forum, it might be a good opportunity to work on it together, to figure out just why it was bad to begin with and to try to make it sound better through current DAW or analog technology.
I'm happy to take the time to upload upload tracks if you guys want. Thinking that DB would be the best avenue for that as opposed to uploading MP's.
I guess we should Get a general consensus and let me know what you think.
-d

DogsoverLava Tue, 03/07/2017 - 18:44

audiokid, post: 448341, member: 1 wrote: This would be a good problem based learning exercise. Meaning, our recording.org community could do a pretty damn good thread going from identifying cause and effects , improvements that could have been done to make things sound and sit better in the mix, then go into great detail finding ways to fix it in the mix and then master the track.

(EDIT) > , the only people that actually get what we do are those directly attached to the recording process in some way. Everyone else listening is just listening and don't really understand what is going on. Even if we post and talk about it all, those just listening still can't know how amazing you are as an engineer until they actually get involved and try and do something to it as well. And that includes other engineers sitting on the side lines.

imho.

I like this and would love it.

audiokid Tue, 03/07/2017 - 20:50

DonnyThompson, post: 448346, member: 46114 wrote: That was kinda my intention ... to make it an exercise for RO cats.
Because we are largely a PBL forum, it might be a good opportunity to work on it together, to figure out just why it was bad to begin with and to try to make it sound better through current DAW or analog technology.
I'm happy to take the time to upload upload tracks if you guys want. Thinking that DB would be the best avenue for that as opposed to uploading MP's.
I guess we should Get a general consensus and let me know what you think.
-d

You win the awesome guy award. I hope I didn't put you on the spot, Donny.