Mr. G effects man

And check out Coco

I'll give it a listen tonight, but remember I love the '80s New Wave bands. There's no such thing as too much stereo chorus or reverb.

Effects are fun to play with. I had a 70s silver face Fender Vibrochamp that I used toy around with. It was a nice clean sounding amp that was fun to play.

Nowadays, with pedal boards, you can pretty much get any sound you want. A little bit of chorus is great sounding in my opinion.

Ah yes. The search for a catchy melody or rhythm. I know it well. I wish I could spend an afternoon with Gilmour or Clapton. Where does it come from? Do you already have it in your head or do you just play and pick out the best stuff? When anybody else interviews them they just want to know about how much of a prick Waters or Baker was. Where did all of Tom Petty's melodies come from? Obviously if I knew I would tap into it.

Good stuff again G. I hear some synth in there. Nice touch.

Nothing stands out as over-effected to me, but maybe the drum tracks are too low in the mix? Also, you might try hard panning some of the instruments left and right to get a wider mix. That clean guitar in the left speaker toward the end, for instance... throw it all the way left if it's not out there already.
Also, especially with digital recording, a little noise can be your friend. Throw some grit into the mix with one of those tape saturation plugins, or my favorite, Klip Freak.
Good luck!

Falcon wrote:

Nothing stands out as over-effected to me, but maybe the drum tracks are too low in the mix? Also, you might try hard panning some of the instruments left and right to get a wider mix. That clean guitar in the left speaker toward the end, for instance... throw it all the way left if it's not out there already.
Also, especially with digital recording, a little noise can be your friend. Throw some grit into the mix with one of those tape saturation plugins, or my favorite, Klip Freak.
Good luck!

Thank you, I will try all of that

Thank you

borg wrote:

Ah yes. The search for a catchy melody or rhythm. I know it well. I wish I could spend an afternoon with Gilmour or Clapton. Where does it come from? Do you already have it in your head or do you just play and pick out the best stuff? When anybody else interviews them they just want to know about how much of a prick Waters or Baker was. Where did all of Tom Petty's melodies come from? Obviously if I knew I would tap into it.

Good stuff again G. I hear some synth in there. Nice touch.

Man wouldn't that be nice. It's so frustrating sometimes.

Interesting. Maybe what's right is right and that's it.

Falcon wrote:

Nothing stands out as over-effected to me, but maybe the drum tracks are too low in the mix? Also, you might try hard panning some of the instruments left and right to get a wider mix. That clean guitar in the left speaker toward the end, for instance... throw it all the way left if it's not out there already.
Also, especially with digital recording, a little noise can be your friend. Throw some grit into the mix with one of those tape saturation plugins, or my favorite, Klip Freak.
Good luck!

Thanks again. Here is a great example of hard panning that works. Great idea about a saturation plug in. I will try it. I do have an audio assault Head Crusher plug in. Perhaps I have been too docile. Here is what's funny. I have had pretty much one person to bounce things off of. All of the musician friends I have gathered over the years (decades) seem to not want to comment. So I thought maybe I should venture into the massive Vital musician bank of experience. Borg I consider a friend but there is so much more. Good or Bad I don't care, I just want honest feedback and you guys are great.

I'm a believer in hard panning. Your brain gives more importance to something when it stands out by itself, so when we pan toward the middle everything seems to bleed together. Having some instruments all the way left, some all the way right, and some in the center makes it feel like you are standing right on stage, "in" the music. Letting each instrument have its own place really helps for clarity.

Nice G! The wife and I thought it was groovy. Lots of cool tips in here too. So fun.

Sounds good don't hear anything over effected guitar sounds pretty tasty.
Drums could be a bit more forward.
As far as panning i try to imagine the band as they are on stage and pan accordingly some just a bit some all the way.
I have uploaded a couple new practice mixes https://soundcloud.com/user500679894
getting more comfortable mixing in the digital realm.

Maybe it's different mixing somebody else's stuff but I have a hell of a time getting my own stuff like I want it. I should put it in a basket and hand it off to G. Like he has nothing else to do.

borg wrote:

Maybe it's different mixing somebody else's stuff but I have a hell of a time getting my own stuff like I want it. I should put it in a basket and hand it off to G. Like he has nothing else to do.

I'm always looking for new stuff to mix and have the time.
I mostly download tracks from a couple multitrack sites.

borg wrote:

Maybe it's different mixing somebody else's stuff but I have a hell of a time getting my own stuff like I want it. I should put it in a basket and hand it off to G. Like he has nothing else to do.

motomojo wrote:

I'm always looking for new stuff to mix and have the time.
I mostly download tracks from a couple multitrack sites.

I'm working on something now. Probably take a couple more weeks to get all the tracks down. How would you handle Reaper projects?

borg wrote:

I'm working on something now. Probably take a couple more weeks to get all the tracks down. How would you handle Reaper projects?

Would be best to send the raw wav files. I use Reason so i'm sure there would be issues opening a reaper project.
Just export each track separately as a wav file to a folder after you finish recording and send the folder via drop box or gmail drive..

You would think by now they would have moving projects from one DAW to another sorted.

Maybe I can get Mr.G to join me into imploring you to download Reaper. It's free and already contains most of the vst's I use. Obviously it would be easier for me and G but on your end I think it would be difficult to import 30 or so wav tracks and try to line them all up. I really would like to hear one of my songs properly mixed. You would have much more freedom to modify all the settings. Obviously your call though.

No problem on lining things up you just need to consolidate the track before sending so everything starts at the head for me.
Check out this video on how to do it with Reaper.

Simple enough. But I have a few questions. You get raw tracks with no pan, volume or effects. Then you mix it. What is it rendered to when you are done? How are the effects I used added back in?

I'm going to render a project so I can what I get when I insert it back into Reaper. That may answer some of my question.

Thanks for video. I have watched some of his before.

After i mix it i will send a Mastered 2 track stereo file.
Most send an engineer the raw tracks as they want the engineers unbiased perspective having never heard the track.
However if there are effects or other criteria you want to remain send those tracks as stems.
The video explains how to do both.
The difference being if you send raw tracks i get to mix the track as i hear it if you send stems i am just rearranging what you have already decided on.
I'm sure it's difficult to let someone else take full control of your material but the track will be better served if it is done this way. You can of course have me change things you may not like and provide guidance as to what you are trying to achieve. It's a collaboration i want to help you get the best out of the track.
Have a listen to some of the practice tracks i have mixed. There is a variety of genres to listen to to see if my style would suit your song. https://soundcloud.com/user500679894

So do you add effects such as reverb, EQ and and compression as you think they are needed? That would make sense. Sometimes I use pitch shifting on vocals to get harmonies but my guess is that we would all be better off if you deleted my vocals and got one of your friends to redo it. LOL. Seriously though, that would be asking too much, especially if the song just isn't that good to begin with. Anyway I will finish this one and get a file ready to send. It will be at least 1 or 2 weeks. I probably have 30 or so completed projects and another 20 or so incomplete. One way or another I will get you some tracks and thanks for offering to do this.

One other trick I forgot to mention that has worked WONDERS for me is to use a reference track. Just take a CD from whatever band you want to refer to (in my case it's usually something off of Rush's Moving Pictures album,) drop it into a stereo track in your DAW, then normalize the volume until they are equal. You can then compare tones and adjust your levels and EQ if something is way off.

OP did you post on HCAF back in the day?

borg wrote:

So do you add effects such as reverb, EQ and and compression as you think they are needed? That would make sense. Sometimes I use pitch shifting on vocals to get harmonies but my guess is that we would all be better off if you deleted my vocals and got one of your friends to redo it. LOL. Seriously though, that would be asking too much, especially if the song just isn't that good to begin with. Anyway I will finish this one and get a file ready to send. It will be at least 1 or 2 weeks. I probably have 30 or so completed projects and another 20 or so incomplete. One way or another I will get you some tracks and thanks for offering to do this.

Yes i will add whatever i feel necessary to convey the emotion and feel of the track based on your description of what the song is about etc...

Happy to do it like i say new to this digital mixing and to practice on someones personal tracks and have direct feedback from them will help me more than mixing downloaded tracks and hoping to get some serious critiques from the general public.

I’ll just leaf this here www.Landr.com great ( Free ) tool for mastering and distribution etc. quality is good enough for demo / promo ( social media ) type of stuff… It’s not meant for your latest CD release though ( which you record on tape ) anyway… recomment this to a friend, use it myself for many years with great success.

borg wrote:

So do you add effects such as reverb, EQ and and compression as you think they are needed? That would make sense. Sometimes I use pitch shifting on vocals to get harmonies but my guess is that we would all be better off if you deleted my vocals and got one of your friends to redo it. LOL. Seriously though, that would be asking too much, especially if the song just isn't that good to begin with. Anyway I will finish this one and get a file ready to send. It will be at least 1 or 2 weeks. I probably have 30 or so completed projects and another 20 or so incomplete. One way or another I will get you some tracks and thanks for offering to do this.

motomojo wrote:

Yes i will add whatever i feel necessary to convey the emotion and feel of the track based on your description of what the song is about etc...

Happy to do it like i say new to this digital mixing and to practice on someones personal tracks and have direct feedback from them will help me more than mixing downloaded tracks and hoping to get some serious critiques from the general public.

I use Superior Drummer which is a MIDI vst. I am guessing that I will have to stem those tracks since the .mid wont do you any good unless you have the vst. I am also guessing that any other MIDI instrument I use will have to be handled the same way. Am I making any sense?

borg wrote:

I use Superior Drummer which is a MIDI vst. I am guessing that I will have to stem those tracks since the .mid wont do you any good unless you have the vst. I am also guessing that any other MIDI instrument I use will have to be handled the same way. Am I making any sense?

I don't need the vst as once you consolidate the track to send it will render all tracks as WAV files.
They can be either raw or stems but will all be rendered to WAV (or some other format if selected) during consolidation.

Everything i get will be WAV files it's up to you to weather you want me to mix the raw tracks or rearrange stems you have already applied vol, pan, fx, etc... to.
If you have the drums say the way you like them and don't want them further processed then send stems of those and i will just place them in the mix to suit the track. If you want me to decide processing send the raw same with all other tracks.

motomojo wrote:

Sounds good don't hear anything over effected guitar sounds pretty tasty.
Drums could be a bit more forward.
As far as panning i try to imagine the band as they are on stage and pan accordingly some just a bit some all the way.
I have uploaded a couple new practice mixes https://soundcloud.com/user500679894
getting more comfortable mixing in the digital realm.

It’s pretty loud… I listen on my ipad with DT 770 Pro headphone which is normally a little on the soft side without headphone amplifier but, this time I turned the volume down. Positive criticism think on your dynamic range.