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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 10,987
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 10,987 |
OK..... late to the party.
On the OP... yeah, using the real tracks has made me sort of lazy. It's certainly quicker and easier to render a real track than to drag out the guitars. tune up, set up the mics, run a number of tracks and record a decent track.
At the same time, it does inspire me to play the guitars more...and mandolin as well. So it's a toss up weighted towards the "makes me lazy" side of the issue.
As far as the real tracks and artifacts..... absolutely yes! This has been the one downside I have found to using certain instruments in RB. The lead guitars especially. Most often they sound OK and a non-guitarist might be fooled but a real picker will notice immediately the mushiness of the sound in certain styles of playing. My latest tune (Kandahar) is a good example of this. It's especially noticeable with good speakers or cans.
I thought that was due to not having the audiophile version but I noticed that it's not always like that. I know that I need to select tempo as close to my project as possible or less than the project tempo, but how do you know the original key the sample was recorded in? (Maybe I need to look closer at the other columns in real tracks?) If I choose a RT with a faster tempo the artifacts are very noticeable with just about every instrument. So it's exact or less than for the tunes to sound halfway decent.
Mixing and mastering is a real joy using BB/RT as my backing tracks since half the work in mastering is to have decent sounding tracks to begin with.
Agreed.... this is one of the more interesting threads here in quite some time.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502
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Joined: May 2000
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...but how do you know the original key the sample was recorded in? I go inside the RealTracks folder, locate the raw audio file and play it back in the WMP. The original recorded Tonic will become readily apparent. --Mac
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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 11,077
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Veteran
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 11,077 |
I'm betting a lot of BIAB and RealBand users will be playing less this month (Dec. 2013) and perhaps the first half of next month (Jan. 2014) as they try out the 2014 upgrade.  Seriously, I've always been more interested in music production than making music. I have many of the tools I need to make music (microphones, keyboard, acoustic and electric guitars) but I'm not a good musician. Heck, I'm not even a good beginning musician because I really don't care if I ever get better or not. But every now and then the mood hits me. When it does it's pretty easy to put together some RealTracks to play along with. I've owned BIAB a couple of times and each time it couldn't keep my interest long enough to get past the learning. Since RealTracks have come about my interest level has remained high over a longer period of time. That's good because I find the more I use the products, the more music theory I HAVE to know to be able to use the products to make the sounds I want to make. (Doesn't make sense I know but it makes sense to me). It's so great to be able to change tempo without also changing pitch. (You've had to have played with analog tape decks in the distant past to understand that one). Most of all, I can drop a few chords, select a style suitable to my mood, get the tempo JUST right, select the instruments I want to hear and ... BOOM! It's done! How amazing is that? Render each instrument to audio, import into my hardware or software DAW and play with faders, knobs and effects to my heart content. Paradise. Am I any good? Nope. Not even a good beginner but I'm finally learning what I've wanted to learn ever since I purchased a Teac tape deck in 1974. I'm learning about production, what makes it tick and what it takes to put it all together and make it work. Now, if I could just keep from getting sidetracked and actually finish ONE, just one song project.
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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,040
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,040 |
This tread just keeps getting better.
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Woodshedding - Learning to Play!
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Joined: Dec 2012
Posts: 444
Journeyman
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Journeyman
Joined: Dec 2012
Posts: 444 |
Hi Jim! When I read your post I thought I was reading about myself! LOL. I play guitar and like to sing on my own recordings but I'm very average at everything I do I think but I have high aspirations. It's very easy to get side tracked with all that one can buy now a days, even the latest BIAB will require a far bit of time to get used too and considering I havnt learned much about my 2013 version yet, upgrading could be even more of a distraction. I'm not dissing the upgrade just realising where I'm at and asking myself is the upgrade worth it? The upgrade price is VERY tempting though because paying double after January would make it, for me, not worth it.
Last edited by PaulH; 12/07/13 08:54 AM.
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