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Posted By: Jan Romanoff Different sound quality? - 09/28/12 01:31 PM

In search for a suitable RT for your song, I - like you I believe - use the audition feature. After having imported a very nice and clear - let's say - guitar into my song, I often get disappointed, as the nice guitar sound all of sudden isn't that nice anymore. So my question is, are the audition files in a higher quality, or are the audition files Tweaked in a pro studio, and the RT files are dry files, or is it just me?

Jan
Posted By: Mac Re: Different sound quality? - 09/28/12 02:11 PM
The demo files arent "tweaked in a pro studio" -- at least in the sense that pgmusic staff doesn't use anything more or less than what you've got in order to make them.

However, you could be doing things to settings that don't help matters. Such as tring to push the Volume of a track too high, a common problem. In some cases, what may be really needed is more understanding of how to mix the digital audio track.

For example, it is more important to get a good sounding mix first than it is to get high volume happening. Once the mix sounds good, it is easy enough to do a Maztering Pass of the finished audio track, using Compression, Limiting and other techniques to get that loud sound out of them. (Although the pgmusic demo tracks do NOT typically resort to that as they can't, use of audio plugins is not automatic but up to the user to apply them as needed. So the demos are "right out of the box" a far as that goes.)

One thing good about having those demo songs is that we can open up one that uses the RealTracks or Style that we want to use in our target song, and STUDY things like the Mixer settings for that song, then try to emulate those in our own song.

And, as with *anything* that has to do with music, it takes practice (repetition) in order to turn in a strong performance.

In order to do the above, I find it necessary to try to always "Have Fun" when working with the program. If it starts to turn into a chore, stop, go do something else for awhile and then come back to it when it seems like it will be fun to do again. That is the fastest way I know to get 'there'.


--Mac
Posted By: Noel96 Re: Different sound quality? - 09/28/12 02:59 PM
Jan,

What Mac says about mixing is very true. My limited experience with the "Audition" feature is that it plays the instrument as a solo and that is not really any indication as to what it's going to sound like in a mix. To get the best mixed sound, adjustments in pan, volume and reverb are often needed.

Also, and I stand to be corrected here, I think the "Audition" feature plays the Realtracks at their recommended speed. This could be a problem if the recommended speed of the track you're auditioning is significantly different from the tempo of your song. For example, if you audition a guitar RT that's meant to be played at 140 bpm and then put it into a song that's 100 bpm, it will sound ok when auditioned but may not sound the best in the song. As I said, though, this is just how I remember it. I'll have a fiddle with "Audition" when I get home and see if my memory is accurate.

Personally, I prefer to add the RT to my song and then generate the whole track rather than audition the track. This seems to be just as quick and it allows me to hear the track in the mix as well as at the song's tempo.

All the best,
Noel
Posted By: silvertones Re: Different sound quality? - 09/28/12 10:26 PM
I don't use audition either for those reasons.But at 200 plus songs with RTs I sort of have a lot of those instruments burned into my brain.
Posted By: Jan Romanoff Re: Different sound quality? - 09/29/12 08:07 AM
Thanks for feedback. Yes, it could be a tempo matter, still if you do a "dry" test in the preferred tempo, the RT shines a little less IMHO when imported in the song.

brgds
Jan
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