The Wagtunes Corner

[vurt]

Why don't you offer some stems and midi for others to have a bash? It might yield some interesting results, an alternative rendition might be helpful.

A Wagtunes remixed project perhaps?

I would be all for that but who here would want to remix anything I did?

If you never ask you'll never know. There is some great talent on this board ... holidays are almost here, season of good wiil and all that

this!
remember i said defeatism was one of your issues? why not say "let's see who does, and if no one does, oh well".

i think it's a great idea. you might get some straight production mixes, ie polishing the track or you may get some full on remixes, which while they may not aid you in this quest, will give you ideas about what you could do in the future, maybe taking good ideas as little embellishments to tracks.

most of all, it might be fun

[wagtunes]

Well, Crimson says EQ is my main problem and I kind of trust what he says. And yes, I could outsource the mixing and mastering. But nobody is going to do that for free and I'm broke. So paying for a service is not an option. I do the things I do on my own because that's my only option. As for Pro Q, I own 2 but not 3. Does 2 also have this ability or do I have to upgrade to 3? If so, I don't have the money to do that.

In short, I'm doing the best I can with what I have and the abilities that I have.

I wouldn't rely on AI to solve these issues. It will get some or even most of the issues but when it comes down to context or artistic choice, it's not going to help. I was solving issues with a cymbal recording recently, I strapped Soothe over it and whilst it certainly helps to tame things, it didn't get anywhere near the problem frequencies - and Soothe is usually excellent for cleaning things up.

As you suggested earlier, Wags, you couldn't hear the offending frequencies that required removal. Now, I haven't watched that video but it could be for subjective reasons - and that's where AI can fail.

You can find people willing to mix for free - you just need to start a thread stipulating what you want. They get experience from it and then you can both promote each other as payment. It's unlikely that you'll find anyone taking time out from mixing professional pop acts but you're likely to find someone with good enough ears.

I would definitely focus on what you enjoy rather than your frustrations, especially when they seem to be based around factors which are very difficult to remedy. Not that you shouldn't apply yourself to develop other skills but definitely don't let that endeavour detract from your love of composition.

Subjective reasons. And that brings up another can of worms.

What exactly is an offending frequency? Can you give it an exact definition? My gut tells me no because if that were the case, it would be the same frequency for that particular instrument for every song in existence. And according to the guy in the video, that isn't the case. He specifically states there is no one frequency you can just dial in. So for one track 650 may be offending and for another, for the exact same instrument, it could be perfectly fine.

I mean the definition of subjective says it all.

based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Not fact.

And this brings up a conversation I had with my friend Richard, who wrote with me back in the old days. I asked him, "What's a good song?"

His answer was "Something that is pleasing to the ear to the majority."

Well, needless to say, we argued over this for hours. Does that make the song good or just popular? I mean what is "good" music?

I mean we talk about cutting frequencies so that things stand out in the mix and don't get buried. But have you ever listened to Dan Fogelberg's "Netherlands"?

He specifically told his engineer that he wanted the vocals slightly buried because he wanted the orchestration to stand out. I think if most people who grew with today's crystal clear productions heard this album, they would say the production was terrible. But I love it. As did a lot of other people, based on sales.

So it comes back to one question. Is there anything that is truly universally bad as far as mixing goes? Something that everybody is going to absolutely agree on is bad.

My gut tells me the answer to that question is no.

Am I wrong?

[crimsonwarlock]

So my ears are crap. I don't hear what he's hearing. Yes, when he did bypass and then went back to the EQ'd settings, I heard the difference. But I could have never gotten there on my own based on the steps he did.

I don't always hear all the frequencies in these videos as well (I have a severe case of tinnitus). the very simple trick is to overdo what they do; use bigger boost (I always simply use maximum of what the EQ gives me), narrow the Q and do VERY slow sweeps. Do keep your monitoring volume in check though, or it can become painful. Believe me, the offending frequencies will jump out that way. Anything that sounds wrong or plain painful just drop it 3-6 dB below neutral and widen the Q a bit (after you found it). Repeat until no offending frequencies remain.

To give you some perspective, in my Final Wave track, the guitars have 2-3 offending frequencies while the vocals have several more, some up to 7 or 8. Yes, it is kinda tedious to do this for every sound in your track but the result is, well, what you heard in that video.

I'll keep an eye on this topic, if you need some more help just ask

By the way, I'm pretty busy right now but maybe next month I might find some time to do a mix on one of your tracks, if you are interested.

[vurt]

it's all about context.

you wouldn't distort a piano on a ballad, but nine inch nails might.

[wagtunes]

Why don't you offer some stems and midi for others to have a bash? It might yield some interesting results, an alternative rendition might be helpful.

A Wagtunes remixed project perhaps?

I would be all for that but who here would want to remix anything I did?

If you never ask you'll never know. There is some great talent on this board ... holidays are almost here, season of good wiil and all that

this!
remember i said defeatism was one of your issues? why not say "let's see who does, and if no one does, oh well".

i think it's a great idea. you might get some straight production mixes, ie polishing the track or you may get some full on remixes, which while they may not aid you in this quest, will give you ideas about what you could do in the future, maybe taking good ideas as little embellishments to tracks.

most of all, it might be fun

You call it being a defeatist. I call it being a realist. The likelihood that anybody with significant skills at this forum is going to want to mix my music is slim to none. Why? For starters, it's no secret that I've royally ticked off a lot of people here and I think it would be fair to say that most people, especially those with skills, don't want to have anything to do with me.

Also, most people who do have those kind of skills simply don't have the time, or, aren't going to do it for free.

And so far, whoever HAS been following this thread, nobody has come here and said "I'll mix your next song."

But like I said, I'm all for it. I'd love to work with somebody. There are quite a few people here who I really respect, as far as their talents, who I'd love to work with. I won't name them because I don't want to put anybody on the spot, but I think they know who they are.

But no, I am not being a defeatist. I am being a realist. If I said No way in hell Max Martin is going to come to this forum, listen to one of my songs, and then offer me a job on his staff, would you call me a defeatist?

Some things are simply unlikely to happen and I don't want to get my hopes up that somebody is going to come here and offer their services and then it never happens. It's better for my mental health that I'm just convinced that it won't happen.

[wagtunes]

it's all about context.

you wouldn't distort a piano on a ballad, but nine inch nails might.

Nine Inch Nails broke about every rule in the book and I love them. Trent Reznor is a flipping genius.

[wagtunes]

So my ears are crap. I don't hear what he's hearing. Yes, when he did bypass and then went back to the EQ'd settings, I heard the difference. But I could have never gotten there on my own based on the steps he did.

I don't always hear all the frequencies in these videos as well (I have a severe case of tinnitus). the very simple trick is to overdo what they do; use bigger boost (I always simply use maximum of what the EQ gives me), narrow the Q and do VERY slow sweeps. Do keep your monitoring volume in check though, or it can become painful. Believe me, the offending frequencies will jump out that way. Anything that sounds wrong or plain painful just drop it 3-6 dB below neutral and widen the Q a bit (after you found it). Repeat until no offending frequencies remain.

To give you some perspective, in my Final Wave track, the guitars have 2-3 offending frequencies while the vocals have several more, some up to 7 or 8. Yes, it is kinda tedious to do this for every sound in your track but the result is, well, what you heard in that video.

I'll keep an eye on this topic, if you need some more help just ask

By the way, I'm pretty busy right now but maybe next month I might find some time to do a mix on one of your tracks, if you are interested.

Thank you. I really appreciate this. And I'll try what you suggested. Hopefully, it'll help.

[ProfessionalTom]

It really is all subjective Wag but it's also a bit more complicated. There are records that were produced differently so it'll sound different like the majority of what's out there but not necessarily wrong. It's the example with vocals under orchestration you wrote about.

So in this case, even though it was against what you would typically hear, it fulfilled artistic vision AND was done well. I'm sure some inexperienced engineer when told "bury the vocals a bit" would be able to make them sound just bad. So both of them would be buried under other instruments but those little differences in how it was done would mean everything.

And it's hard to tell what those differences might be. There can be thousands reasons why something sounds bad.

And about "bad" frequencies. They always change from instrument to instrument and from take to take. It's one thing that some frequencies fight with each other in two different instruments, but now I'm not talking about it. For me, bad frequency would be the one that somehow irritate your ears. It might be something in highs when you recorded acoustic guitar solo and during slide there was a painful neck scratch. In a situation like this I'll find these frequencies that ring out the most using a very very steep, narrow curve in eq that will boost only a few Hertz of my signal and find the ones that irritate my ear by boosting them. When I find them I'll leave this band at this frequency but now drag the fader down so it's attenuating this frequency instead of boosting it. If I can't find the frequency, I'll use low and high pass filters to leave let's say only the ones from 2k to 4k so it's easier to hear them.

Sometimes offending frequencies, maybe even during the same guitar solo may be the lower ones. You have to find out what's the lowest note the player is playing and cut everything below it so you don't loose any musicality here but you get rid of all the low end rumble microphone picked up he's hand/pick done when hitting strings.

So that's what offending, bad frequencies are to me. It all depends on material.

"Fighting" frequencies on the other hand is a bit different thing. You basically decide which instruments occupies certain frequencies and try to get other out of its way. Maybe not completely, but to some degree, so they don't mask each other. So if you had: kick, bass, electric guitar, vocals and cymbals, you could bypass each instrument and see what area on a frequency spectrum it mainly occupies.
If you do it you may find out that bass and kick may "fight", mask each other and that's when dynamic EQ or sidechaining volume of bass may come in handy.

Electric guitars may come in a way of vocal, so you'll have to figure out which one is more important and which one you should attenuate at these most important, clashing frequencies.

Cymbals will be so high on spectrum that you probably won't need anything under 500 hz from them and if there's some low end rumble for some reason it'll be cut and make more space to
Bass and kick. Idk why there would be low end rumble in cymbal recording, I'm just saying. I did it with acoustic solo that were played on high strings, I cut lows I didn't need and my recording was much cleaner and less "muddy".

Cheers

[vurt]

Why don't you offer some stems and midi for others to have a bash? It might yield some interesting results, an alternative rendition might be helpful.

A Wagtunes remixed project perhaps?

I would be all for that but who here would want to remix anything I did?

If you never ask you'll never know. There is some great talent on this board ... holidays are almost here, season of good wiil and all that

this!
remember i said defeatism was one of your issues? why not say "let's see who does, and if no one does, oh well".

i think it's a great idea. you might get some straight production mixes, ie polishing the track or you may get some full on remixes, which while they may not aid you in this quest, will give you ideas about what you could do in the future, maybe taking good ideas as little embellishments to tracks.

most of all, it might be fun

You call it being a defeatist. I call it being a realist. The likelihood that anybody with significant skills at this forum is going to want to mix my music is slim to none. Why? For starters, it's no secret that I've royally ticked off a lot of people here and I think it would be fair to say that most people, especially those with skills, don't want to have anything to do with me.

Also, most people who do have those kind of skills simply don't have the time, or, aren't going to do it for free.

And so far, whoever HAS been following this thread, nobody has come here and said "I'll mix your next song."

But like I said, I'm all for it. I'd love to work with somebody. There are quite a few people here who I really respect, as far as their talents, who I'd love to work with. I won't name them because I don't want to put anybody on the spot, but I think they know who they are.

But no, I am not being a defeatist. I am being a realist. If I said No way in hell Max Martin is going to come to this forum, listen to one of my songs, and then offer me a job on his staff, would you call me a defeatist?

Some things are simply unlikely to happen and I don't want to get my hopes up that somebody is going to come here and offer their services and then it never happens. It's better for my mental health that I'm just convinced that it won't happen.

the max martin job offer is a very specific thing that you cant just "take a chance on".

this is just something, where you're throwing it out there

[Unaspected]

Well, Crimson says EQ is my main problem and I kind of trust what he says. And yes, I could outsource the mixing and mastering. But nobody is going to do that for free and I'm broke. So paying for a service is not an option. I do the things I do on my own because that's my only option. As for Pro Q, I own 2 but not 3. Does 2 also have this ability or do I have to upgrade to 3? If so, I don't have the money to do that.

In short, I'm doing the best I can with what I have and the abilities that I have.

I wouldn't rely on AI to solve these issues. It will get some or even most of the issues but when it comes down to context or artistic choice, it's not going to help. I was solving issues with a cymbal recording recently, I strapped Soothe over it and whilst it certainly helps to tame things, it didn't get anywhere near the problem frequencies - and Soothe is usually excellent for cleaning things up.

As you suggested earlier, Wags, you couldn't hear the offending frequencies that required removal. Now, I haven't watched that video but it could be for subjective reasons - and that's where AI can fail.

You can find people willing to mix for free - you just need to start a thread stipulating what you want. They get experience from it and then you can both promote each other as payment. It's unlikely that you'll find anyone taking time out from mixing professional pop acts but you're likely to find someone with good enough ears.

I would definitely focus on what you enjoy rather than your frustrations, especially when they seem to be based around factors which are very difficult to remedy. Not that you shouldn't apply yourself to develop other skills but definitely don't let that endeavour detract from your love of composition.

Subjective reasons. And that brings up another can of worms.

What exactly is an offending frequency? Can you give it an exact definition? My gut tells me no because if that were the case, it would be the same frequency for that particular instrument for every song in existence. And according to the guy in the video, that isn't the case. He specifically states there is no one frequency you can just dial in. So for one track 650 may be offending and for another, for the exact same instrument, it could be perfectly fine.

I mean the definition of subjective says it all.

It has to be subjective because mixing is an art as much as a science. Different genres have different requirements or are forgiving to varying degrees. You can get away with murder when producing black metal. Try handing that tape to a pop act.

A good example would be anything inharmonic that sounds regardless of the note played. Now, this might indeed be associated with the body of the instrument so then you have to question how to balance this with the rest of the sound. You need that in there but it might well be too loud after applying processes which increase the noisefloor.

Other examples would be noise in general or high frequencies which are harsh on the ears - and this might well be an area where you struggle because of how they are rolled off for you by nature.

based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Not fact.

And this brings up a conversation I had with my friend Richard, who wrote with me back in the old days. I asked him, "What's a good song?"

His answer was "Something that is pleasing to the ear to the majority."

Well, needless to say, we argued over this for hours. Does that make the song good or just popular? I mean what is "good" music?

I mean we talk about cutting frequencies so that things stand out in the mix and don't get buried. But have you ever listened to Dan Fogelberg's "Netherlands"?

He specifically told his engineer that he wanted the vocals slightly buried because he wanted the orchestration to stand out. I think if most people who grew with today's crystal clear productions heard this album, they would say the production was terrible. But I love it. As did a lot of other people, based on sales.

So it comes back to one question. Is there anything that is truly universally bad as far as mixing goes? Something that everybody is going to absolutely agree on is bad.

My gut tells me the answer to that question is no.

Am I wrong?

Depends on context and expectations.

[wagtunes]

Thanks Tom. The masking thing I think I got down fairly well because I rely on Neutron and cut where the frequencies overlap. That doesn't take care of bad frequencies but it's a start.

I'm starting to think that as big a problem is my use of reverb. Crimson made a suggestion that I don't do at all. Maybe I will start doing it and that's using just one reverb for every track and adjusting the send level depending on how much reverb I want on each instrument. I assume this will also help in putting each track in its own space in the mix. And then, finally, putting an additional plate on the vocal ever so slightly.

I have no idea how all this will sound but I'm willing to give it a shot.

Who knows? It may make all the difference in the world.

[wagtunes]

@Unexpected

Thanks. Makes sense. Well, might as well just dive in, put up a work in progress track and see what people think and then start making adjustments. Maybe via this process I can actually get it "right" and learn something at the same time.

I mean what have I got to lose?

[ProfessionalTom]

Thanks Tom. The masking thing I think I got down fairly well because I rely on Neutron and cut where the frequencies overlap. That doesn't take care of bad frequencies but it's a start.

I'm starting to think that as big a problem is my use of reverb. Crimson made a suggestion that I don't do at all. Maybe I will start doing it and that's using just one reverb for every track and adjusting the send level depending on how much reverb I want on each instrument. I assume this will also help in putting each track in its own space in the mix. And then, finally, putting an additional plate on the vocal ever so slightly.

I have no idea how all this will sound but I'm willing to give it a shot.

Who knows? It may make all the difference in the world.

Yep, using the same reverb may be a good idea. Now I'm curious how your next track will turn out with all the advice you got since yesterday haha.

Also, if your ears can't hear those sharp unpleasant highs maybe rinsing ears with syringe under a bit of pressure might help. I really mean it. As you're older the wax accumulates in ear canals and I think that it can greatly reduce the highs and "air" we hear.

Also do you use reference tracks? I think that it could be beneficial to try to mimic EQ shapes you hear there. I mean if your ears attenuate certain high frequencies and you listen to well produced record you like with this attenuated highs by your "ear EQ" then you should try to mimic that in your own song. Because what happens when you try to make them loud enough so you clearly hear them is that everybody else (well not everyone but people who could hear these high even without extra boost) will think it's too sharp.

If that's the case then you can make two masters haha. One for the world and the other boosted for yourself.

[vurt]

@Unexpected

Thanks. Makes sense. Well, might as well just dive in, put up a work in progress track and see what people think and then start making adjustments. Maybe via this process I can actually get it "right" and learn something at the same time.

I mean what have I got to lose?

absolutely nothing.
remember, no one dies when we as artists mess up. messing up is ok, we learn from it.
if we are willing to listen to others.

i think you might be surprised at offers, but then im an overly positive cock womble

you may wonder, why i care?
aside from wanting to see you happy, with the productions.
all the information that could come from this excercise, is then there for all of us, and maybe for future users.

there are people here id love to see take on the mixes, people i think many of us would learn different things from. because we will all have our own little tricks.


ps: unaspected not unexpected

[thecontrolcentre]

@Unexpected

Thanks. Makes sense. Well, might as well just dive in, put up a work in progress track and see what people think and then start making adjustments. Maybe via this process I can actually get it "right" and learn something at the same time.

I mean what have I got to lose?

absolutely nothing.
remember, no one dies when we as artists mess up. messing up is ok, we learn from it.
if we are willing to listen to others.

i think you might be surprised at offers, but then im an overly positive cock womble

you may wonder, why i care?
aside from wanting to see you happy, with the productions.
all the information that could come from this excercise, is then there for all of us, and maybe for future users.

there are people here id love to see take on the mixes, people i think many of us would learn different things from. because we will all have our own little tricks.


ps: unaspected not unexpected

I thought it was a really good idea, but having read the negative responses from Wags its clearly a waste of time. I'm out.