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#852772 05/23/25 09:22 PM
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Another channel-swap and remix from last year.
The only difference in the rhythm section mix to "Zuzu" is that I've swapped channels on 2 of the 6 rhythm guitars; but replacing the tin whistle, tenor saxophone and dizi flute solos with harmonica, organ and guitar solos respectively makes this version a very different sounding instrumental.

1st & 2nd rhythm guitars: Jovian Divine Alt Rock Soloing ~ Mike Durham
Organ: Country Rock Guitar Solo, Pop Ba ~ Gene Rabbai
Enya & Sirius Warm Pads & Strings hybrid mix
Drums: Nashville Radio Power Bal Solo ~ Miles McPherson
Bass Guitar: Bricks Indie Rock w Guitar Solo ~ Tobin Frank
Harmonica solo: Wounded Ev Fiery Harmonica Blues ~ L. D. Miller
Organ solo: King Fast Blues Rock Organ ~ Charles Treadway
3rd rhythm guitar: Country Rock Guitar Solo, Pop Ba ~ Darin Favorite
4th rhythm guitar: Centaur Gtr Solo Hard Rock Bal ~ Darin Favorite
5th & 6th rhythm guitars: Nashville Radio Power Bal Solo ~ Danny Rader
Guitar solo: Outback Country Ballad Soloist ~ Johnny Hiland


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#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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Crazy and very well tune like all your creations.
Thanks1

Mike B.


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Hi Chay,

I actually had to increase the volume on this after listening to several other showcase tunes, so maybe the master volume is low? I'm out of breath just listening to that harmonica! shocked Loved that organ middle.

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Chay, another outstanding song
That blues harp player has a great set of lungs
Super B3 and guitar leads
AS always a fantastic mix
I really enjoyed this one.


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Man, that harmonica is fast, like nothing less than 1/32nd notes. Love the organ take. Cool guitar, too. The soloists have such a nice bed to lay down their tracks. As Beth mentioned, it seems a little low in volume. YT won't raise the volume if it's lower than normal, but they will lower it when it is too high. https://www.loudnesspenalty.com/ is a good place to check it before uploading.


Enjoy whatever happens!
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Chay,

This is an excellent piece. That harmonica is great and makes quite the impact when it comes in. Love the flow, build and mix.

As always, thoroughly enjoyed!

Bob

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Originally Posted by cubanpete
Crazy and very well tune like all your creations.
Thanks1
Mike B.

Thanks, Mike! Appreciated.


Some favourite Waoist Adages:
#1: Play on the Way.
#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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Originally Posted by BYOBand
Hi Chay,
I actually had to increase the volume on this after listening to several other showcase tunes, so maybe the master volume is low? I'm out of breath just listening to that harmonica! shocked Loved that organ middle.

Thanks, Beth. I'm surprised that you mentioned the volume because each time I do a channel-swap and remix I increase the volume of every stem file by 1db, so everything I'm now posting is louder than the original posts and no-one ever mentioned volume before. Also, there are a lot of lower volume recordings in YT and other sites, plus also on CDs. That said, there appears to be a trend towards making recordings super-loud, which I'm not pro. Here's a note from a PDF on common mistakes made in recordings from a guy who runs a local studio, which is alas just too far away for me to use.
=======
Guidelines for a successful Studio Session (common mistakes to avoid)
MISTAKE 1: MIXING TOO LOUDLY
Mixing too loudly will actually just ruin your mix….
It feels great when you get a great sounding track and you crank up the volume. It can sound big and exciting. A lot of things sound exciting when you blast them but there are good reasons to mix at lower volumes. Working at a lower volume will ensure that your mix doesn’t sound too mid-range and enables you to hear the finer details in your mix and adjust them accordingly. Plus, one of the most important reasons is to protect your ears and those of others!! Exposure to any sounds at high volume are detrimental to your hearing and once you lose it, it never comes back


Some favourite Waoist Adages:
#1: Play on the Way.
#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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Originally Posted by MarioD
Chay, another outstanding song
That blues harp player has a great set of lungs
Super B3 and guitar leads
AS always a fantastic mix
I really enjoyed this one.

Yep, L.D. Miller is a superb and very unique harmonica player! I love his style.


Some favourite Waoist Adages:
#1: Play on the Way.
#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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Originally Posted by BabuMusic
Man, that harmonica is fast, like nothing less than 1/32nd notes. Love the organ take. Cool guitar, too. The soloists have such a nice bed to lay down their tracks. As Beth mentioned, it seems a little low in volume. YT won't raise the volume if it's lower than normal, but they will lower it when it is too high. https://www.loudnesspenalty.com/ is a good place to check it before uploading.

Thanks, Marty. Re the volume I'll quote my reaply to Beth:

Thanks, Beth. I'm surprised that you mentioned the volume because each time I do a channel-swap and remix I increase the volume of every stem file by 1db, so everything I'm now posting is louder than the original posts and no-one ever mentioned volume before. Also, there are a lot of lower volume recordings in YT and other sites, plus also on CDs. That said, there appears to be a trend towards making recordings super-loud, which I'm not pro. Here's a note from a PDF on common mistakes made in recordings from a guy who runs a local studio, which is alas just too far away for me to use.

Guidelines for a successful Studio Session (common mistakes to avoid)
MISTAKE 1: MIXING TOO LOUDLY
Mixing too loudly will actually just ruin your mix….
It feels great when you get a great sounding track and you crank up the volume. It can sound big and exciting. A lot of things sound exciting when you blast them but there are good reasons to mix at lower volumes. Working at a lower volume will ensure that your mix doesn’t sound too mid-range and enables you to hear the finer details in your mix and adjust them accordingly. Plus, one of the most important reasons is to protect your ears and those of others!! Exposure to any sounds at high volume are detrimental to your hearing and once you lose it, it never comes back


Some favourite Waoist Adages:
#1: Play on the Way.
#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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Originally Posted by rsdean
Chay,
This is an excellent piece. That harmonica is great and makes quite the impact when it comes in. Love the flow, build and mix.
As always, thoroughly enjoyed!
Bob

Thanks, Bob! Always appreciated.


Some favourite Waoist Adages:
#1: Play on the Way.
#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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Chay, really nicely done once again. Like your instrument choices and the way you build the layers and then trade them off.


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Originally Posted by DC Ron
Chay, really nicely done once again. Like your instrument choices and the way you build the layers and then trade them off.

Muchas gracias, don Ron. Very much appreciated.


Some favourite Waoist Adages:
#1: Play on the Way.
#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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Very cool tune. Excellent instrumentation choice. Loved the harp. Mixing levels are a tricky one to get a handle on. I usually mix to -20dB and then export the mix to a wav. Then master the wav separately to -14dB. Mixing loud can definitely give you ear fatigue fast.


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Originally Posted by Scott C
Very cool tune. Excellent instrumentation choice. Loved the harp. Mixing levels are a tricky one to get a handle on. I usually mix to -20dB and then export the mix to a wav. Then master the wav separately to -14dB. Mixing loud can definitely give you ear fatigue fast.

Thanks for listening and responding, Scott. Besides hard work, mixing is both a discipline and an art. I don't understand re the minus-dbs you mentioned as I mix in Audacity where all BiaB sample stem files start at 0db. The individual instrument samples can range from very low to very high volumes and all have varying set channel biases, so getting tracks to balance and appear in the desired channels starts from there. In Audacity the actual dbs aren't dbs at all as 2 samples can vary vastly in volume, but they're all given a 0db start.


Some favourite Waoist Adages:
#1: Play on the Way.
#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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Regarding volume - what do you use to set your levels in mastering?
I've taken to using a LufsM leveler so that my tracks are consistent in level up to sending them off for mastering.
Nice calm backing for a frenetic harmonica.
Sorry, I didn't watch - just listened - the visuals distracted me so I scroll down to type as I listened.


Cheers
rayc
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Nice instrumental track...you handle the BIAB components so well! I wonder if you spend alot of time re-generating parts of the RT's to get what you want, or if you use what BIAB gives you--all the phrasing, esp the solo's are just right! Thanks for posting!


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rayc #854938 06/19/25 06:40 PM
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Originally Posted by rayc
Regarding volume - what do you use to set your levels in mastering?
I've taken to using a LufsM leveler so that my tracks are consistent in level up to sending them off for mastering.
Nice calm backing for a frenetic harmonica.
Sorry, I didn't watch - just listened - the visuals distracted me so I scroll down to type as I listened.

Thanks, Ray. I assume you were asking what I use to set my levels in mixing, not mastering. In short I do everything in Audacity as I was already familiar with it before I'd heard of BiaB. … No prob's re not watching the video as the music is primary. I use YouTube as I get better results on it, though I was doing videos for others music before I started using BiaB.


Some favourite Waoist Adages:
#1: Play on the Way.
#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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Originally Posted by Tano Music
Nice instrumental track...you handle the BIAB components so well! I wonder if you spend alot of time re-generating parts of the RT's to get what you want, or if you use what BIAB gives you--all the phrasing, esp the solo's are just right! Thanks for posting!

Thanks, Tano. Re sampling I'm surprised how often I find that the first take from specific instruments is better than what follows, but I'll equally often find I have to try a few, plus fairly often I'll have to cut and paste from 2-7 samples to get exactly what I want. The first short guitar solo on my Dreaming Of" track is a hybrid of 7 segments from 5 different sample regenerations, then the 2nd shorter guitar solo is a hybrid of snippets from 6 different samples. In the above track I struck lucky and each of the 3 solos are the first samples generated. Once I've had an idea about what next I want to try I create the chord structure, then I gather as many samples as I can of all of the instruments I want to or might possibly use, and that can be anything from 20- 50 different instrument samples. Sometimes it's tricky as so many instruments work, then at other times I'm amazed at how nothing seems to fit what I want!


Some favourite Waoist Adages:
#1: Play on the Way.
#13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you.
#58: Bring consciousness to it.
#63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made.
#92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
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