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I feel confident this is essentially done, but still open to suggestions. This is the first completed song by the Freelance Rider Company and features my lryics brought beautifully to life by the vocal arrangement and expression talents of Tony "twisted6s" Pruden. http://www.cynicalsigns.com/projects/frc/tos/collaboration/who_am_i/Who%20Am%20I.mp3Created with Band in a Box 2009 & Realband 2009, mixed in Sonar 8 Pro and mastered in Wavelab 5. Thanks for any feedback!
Last edited by Texrat; 10/02/09 11:00 PM.
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Hi Texrat,
Very professional work! I agree with you, this is done. The sound that I am hearing is well balanced, musically engaging and well produced. You've done a brilliant job.
All the best,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Hi Texrat, If this song is the quality of the recordings on your upcoming CD I will buy it  Very professional indeed. Well done Regards Michee
Windows 11 64 bit, Biab 2026 (1237), Realband 2026 (10)
i7 Desktop Computer 16Gb Memory
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Excellent work and great vocal too.
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Thanks guys! It seems to me that it needs a bit more stereo separation... not sure. Anyway it's entered into a songwriting contest at ourstage.com: http://www.ourstage.com/tracks/XUBIPKPJQVRN?autoplay=true
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The vocal on this is fantastic. Love it. Good lyrics - great melody.
The only problem I have with the demo is this. You've got this great vocal going with harmonies and effects - big vocal sound - then here comes this really plain jane music bridge which is somewhat of a let down in the song.
Otherwise A+. Keep up the great work.
Josie
Last edited by Sundance; 10/03/09 08:33 PM.
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Yeah, I wanted to beef up the bridge but the singer likes it as is...
By the way, is anyone hearing a leftward bias in the balance?
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Great work.......well done, nice mix and balance. My kinda song to begin with anyway. Love the lyrics, and the arrangement. I'd agree with sundance on the bridge issue, but none the less, it is a great song and well produced.
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Thanks! I mixed the instrumental parts but Tony did everything from there except final mastering. I'm really fortunate he agreed to collaborate on this.
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Hi Texrat,
Great Song, great vocals.
the drums are not as good as the rest, though. Because:
* To much panned to the left
* To many high frequencies (turn down the range between 6-12khz)
* To much and sizzling / whizzy /buzzy (?) reverb (if you turn down high frequencies also in the reverb return, a cutoff at 4-8khz, then you`ll get rid of this sizzling reverb on the left side)
* Drum Arrangement is very strange, especially this pseudo half time thing, where the snare hits randomly once in a while (very akward at the beginning of the bridge)
So if you`d redo the drums in BB and drag some high frequencies out off the mix, you`re done. The rest is very good!!
Sandra
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Thanks Sandra. I'll convey your points to Tony, and see what we can/will incorporate.
The panning is some weird thing I cannot figure out. I can be perfectly centered in every application involved (even output meters registering good balance), and the song(s) come out anywhere from 5% to 20% biased left. This has persisted despite changing sound cards. The common denominator is Windows XP as far as I can tell... but not sure where or why. I have been manually compensating but it's hit or miss and often requires hours of work.
As for the drums, they are 100% BiaB, but maybe I can do something with them... note though that the mp3 has some odd sounds not in the source WAVE (which sounds MUCH better than what I've linked), so it looks like I need to work on the exporting from Wavelab.
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Ah-HA!
It looks like the Ozone 4 mastering plug in (using it in Sonar) can correct the balance issues with the Stereo Imaging feature, and I'm cleaning up drum transients too. I might just be able to make this better...
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Citaat:
Hi Texrat,
Great Song, great vocals.
the drums are not as good as the rest, though. Because:
* To much panned to the left
* To many high frequencies (turn down the range between 6-12khz)
* To much and sizzling / whizzy /buzzy (?) reverb (if you turn down high frequencies also in the reverb return, a cutoff at 4-8khz, then you`ll get rid of this sizzling reverb on the left side)
* Drum Arrangement is very strange, especially this pseudo half time thing, where the snare hits randomly once in a while (very akward at the beginning of the bridge)
So if you`d redo the drums in BB and drag some high frequencies out off the mix, you`re done. The rest is very good!!
Sandra
I can only agree with Sandra.
I think a mastering engineer could cure most of it.
You've got a winner on your hands!
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Texrat,
I agree with all that has been voiced above (especially the bridge) so all I'll add is my kudos in acknowledgement of a very strong performance of a well written and produced tune.
Later,
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Well, playing around with Ozone 4 is helping. I've fixed the balance issues, the drums sound better, and I have pulled the instruments out a bit more. That plugin is amazing.
Have not heard back from my collaborator on his thoughts. I'm heading to Amsterdam for a week but when I get back I'll see what else I can do.
Thanks again all!
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Texrat, I agree with Sandra on all points.
I would not leave the balance issues of the drums to a mastering engineer - this is a mix issue. It will be very difficult for a mixing engineer to correct a panning issue of just one instrument of a stereo mix. If you try to fix it with a plugin, it's going to do odd stuff with the rest of the instrumentation and arrangement, which to my ears, seems well balanced.
The sparse drum parts in the bridge simply do not fit with the rest of the song which has a fairly rich sounding arrangement. It's at that point when the drum parts shout from the rooftops - " I'm a MIDI drum part! " It would be a shame to leave them as is. Think of adding in some ride cymbals - manually played, where you vary velocity and so forth, to stretch things out between the snare hits - even consider zapping the somewhat random snare hits from that bridge section altogether - you might like it.
It's possible that you have a MIDI controller panning the drums over so far to the left. Could be right at the opening of the song. Have you looked at an event editor to see if there's a pan setting on channel 10?
I do have some comments about the instrumental section - the pad/strings get kind of muddied up down in the low end of things. Also, that section is begging for a solo melody line on guitar. Or a piano solo. Or pedal steel - some kind of solo. Right now, it just kind of hangs there and doesn't do anything.
Just my thoughts.
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Thanks for the feedback. Those are actually RealDrums, not midi, but I get your point. The panning issue isn't just drums-- it's actually EVERYTHING. Every song, every track. I can see it in Sonar-- I just don't know the cause. The only way I have found to truly correct it is with Ozone 4 (which was discovered after this mix) and I'm ok with the results. But that said, I am determined to keep digging into root cause. I think I need to say I am 100% self-taught here, and am really just a lyricist with medicore acoustic guitar strumming ability who uses Biab/RB + Sonar to bring my songwriting to life. The work on this song (and others in the project) is the result of 6 months hard effort on learning through trial and error while unemployed. "Idiot's guide to Composition" has been a big help too.  Unfortunately most of the instrumental work I do is canned (eg, Biab realtracks and midi), due to bugs (amazingly enough, glitches have produced usable passages!) dumb luck, brute force or help from someone (like the closing piano midi, which a friend provided). I'm really talentless in the solo area and not sure what I can do here. But I appreciate every educational opportunity-- you guys are GREAT.
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Hi Texrat,
You are NOT talentless. To choose a nice Realtrack / Midi, tweak it a little and put it all together needs talent. And you`ve got talent. The song is great, and everyone loved the vocals and lyrics. So it`s really just about the drums. Take the given advices from the folks here on the forum, learn from it, and you`ll have a great mix.
Hang in there, and let us hear some more stuff of yours,
Sandra
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+1 to Sandra's post. Whatever problems you have - talent is not one of them. If you were to start a new thread about your panning problem there are people on here who might be able to help you track down the cause and fix it. You shouldn't be having that problem in RB. Josie
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Texrat - I get the sense that you took my advice a little too harshly. It's a quite nice song that is nearly there and there are just a few tweaks needed to really 'take it to the next level'. It's worth doing.
Coming across my monitors, the panning issue really sounds like it is limited to drums only. Now, I did a little test with a pan control while listening - and perhaps it could be an EQ issue - more highs seem to be coming through the left channel than the right channel. Because of your instrumentation choice, it makes the drums sound biased more left than right as the high hats and snare have the most noticeable content in the high end of things. What reverb plugin are you using with what settings?
When you say you see a panning bias in every track in Sonar, how exactly are you seeing the left/right difference? In other words, how is Sonar analyzing the tracks? Are you looking at VU meters for each track in a post process sense or before plugins on each track? Make sure to look strictly at mono sources, like the original vocal tracks in this case - they are very likely mono.
The RealDrums tracks should show equal levels on the kick events for L/R, but don't count on any of the other sounds showing up equally left and right.
-Scott
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