Saturday, April 28, 2007
Above It All part 7 (The newest final version)
Given permission by this song's author to exploit it, commercially, I revisited Above It All and found some things I wasn't comfortable with. Most notably, my voice. So I decided to polish it up a bit, along with a bunch of other songs from the past couple of years or so, for a new album. If I was gonna charge money for it, I might as well make it sound as good as I'm able, right? The original mix will remain free, as well as the separate instrument tracks, should anyone else want to tackle this tune, either for covers, remixes, or whatever.
Those tracks, which are found on Archive.org, were the basis for the new mix, since I couldn't locate the disc I thought I burned (they may actually be on my hard drive, somewhere on the Agnula partition). I downloaded those and imported them into Sonar. I'd normally blog the same day I record or work on a song, but I hadn't felt like it over the last couple of weeks. I did take the following notes, though...
April 14th, 2007
Recorded new lead vocal. Didn't care for the old one. Recorded harmonized "oohs" for the
choruses. One set, then cut and pasted two more times.
April 17th 2007
Cakewalk FX Reverb into an effects send bus. For bass acoustic, 1 electric guitar track, and vocals. BlockFish Compressor and SpitFish de-essor onto new lead vocal track.
Eq'd a bass boost on the bass itself.
April 20th 2007
Spitfish on one of the background vocal tracks. Cakewalk FX Expander/Gate on lead vocal. Cut out silences on various tracks. Almost finished.
April 27th 2007
Lowered volume a little. Added Sonitus: FX Gate to a harmony track on the first chorus to
reduce some hiss. Did the same to the bass and acoustic guitars, but also used Sonitus FX:
Equalizer to remove hiss from the instrument sounds themselves.
Currently, this song can be purchased from the PsychoVoyager Music Store at the top of this page. It won't be submitted to any of the major music e-tailers until a full album is put together.
As of this writing, you can listen to the whole song on MySpace. It can also be streamed at the Podsafe Music Network. Due to it's being recorded at 48000kh or whatever it is, and a bug in Flash, the song plays slower than it should at Podsafe. I actually like how it sounds, so I'm not changing it yet. Plus I don't feel like re-encoding it. The Myspace and PsychoVoyager Store version play at the proper 80bpm.
Those tracks, which are found on Archive.org, were the basis for the new mix, since I couldn't locate the disc I thought I burned (they may actually be on my hard drive, somewhere on the Agnula partition). I downloaded those and imported them into Sonar. I'd normally blog the same day I record or work on a song, but I hadn't felt like it over the last couple of weeks. I did take the following notes, though...
April 14th, 2007
Recorded new lead vocal. Didn't care for the old one. Recorded harmonized "oohs" for the
choruses. One set, then cut and pasted two more times.
April 17th 2007
Cakewalk FX Reverb into an effects send bus. For bass acoustic, 1 electric guitar track, and vocals. BlockFish Compressor and SpitFish de-essor onto new lead vocal track.
Eq'd a bass boost on the bass itself.
April 20th 2007
Spitfish on one of the background vocal tracks. Cakewalk FX Expander/Gate on lead vocal. Cut out silences on various tracks. Almost finished.
April 27th 2007
Lowered volume a little. Added Sonitus: FX Gate to a harmony track on the first chorus to
reduce some hiss. Did the same to the bass and acoustic guitars, but also used Sonitus FX:
Equalizer to remove hiss from the instrument sounds themselves.
Currently, this song can be purchased from the PsychoVoyager Music Store at the top of this page. It won't be submitted to any of the major music e-tailers until a full album is put together.
As of this writing, you can listen to the whole song on MySpace. It can also be streamed at the Podsafe Music Network. Due to it's being recorded at 48000kh or whatever it is, and a bug in Flash, the song plays slower than it should at Podsafe. I actually like how it sounds, so I'm not changing it yet. Plus I don't feel like re-encoding it. The Myspace and PsychoVoyager Store version play at the proper 80bpm.
Labels: Above It All, buy my stuff, covers, Crystal Walters, downloads, effects, Sonar
Saturday, March 24, 2007
April Fool's Day Part 6 (finished!)
Played around with various settings, levels, etc. Added automation to the fifth vocal track, so that it plays during the laughter at the beginning, fades out and re-appears during the final chorus through the end. Used the Classic Compressor and the Classic Phaser to punch up and then crazy up that track a little, and then played around with panning it back and forth, but decided to simply pan it far right.
I fixed the reversed conga and bongo sounds in Audacity. I didn't want to spend the time figuring how to do it in Sonar. The sounds end sharply with a click, so I removed the clicks by selecting the segment of the audio and then faded the sound out at the very end. It probably wasn't neccessary, but I also normalized the wav files (These were the original exported files from PSP Rhythm). I deleted the audio in the Sonar tracks, inported the altered wav files (drag and drop) and then split the tracks. When I fixed the audio, I only faded out one instance. The same notes play over and over throughout the song, so I took the fixed parts, split them apart from the clicky bits, and then Groove-clipped them (an Acid like feature where you can take a one bar phrase, drag and stretch it to loop as much as needed).
Muted the woodblock and closed high hat sounds. The high hat wasn't needed and the woodblock couldn't be heard and there was no need to force the issue.
Added one of Cakewalk's own reverbs to the snare, which isn't very snare like, but whatever.
Played some more with levels and whatnot till I was relatively happy and then mixed down the audio.
Opened up the audio in a new project. Might not have been necessary, but again, I was too lazy to find out. Applied Classic Compression (used the "mix down" pre-set) and Classic EQ for just a wee bit o' tweaking.
The finished song can be bought at my little store at the top o' the page. You can also listen to it at my Podsafe page which is a higher quality than the version on my Myspace page and closer in quality to the sold version.
I fixed the reversed conga and bongo sounds in Audacity. I didn't want to spend the time figuring how to do it in Sonar. The sounds end sharply with a click, so I removed the clicks by selecting the segment of the audio and then faded the sound out at the very end. It probably wasn't neccessary, but I also normalized the wav files (These were the original exported files from PSP Rhythm). I deleted the audio in the Sonar tracks, inported the altered wav files (drag and drop) and then split the tracks. When I fixed the audio, I only faded out one instance. The same notes play over and over throughout the song, so I took the fixed parts, split them apart from the clicky bits, and then Groove-clipped them (an Acid like feature where you can take a one bar phrase, drag and stretch it to loop as much as needed).
Muted the woodblock and closed high hat sounds. The high hat wasn't needed and the woodblock couldn't be heard and there was no need to force the issue.
Added one of Cakewalk's own reverbs to the snare, which isn't very snare like, but whatever.
Played some more with levels and whatnot till I was relatively happy and then mixed down the audio.
Opened up the audio in a new project. Might not have been necessary, but again, I was too lazy to find out. Applied Classic Compression (used the "mix down" pre-set) and Classic EQ for just a wee bit o' tweaking.
The finished song can be bought at my little store at the top o' the page. You can also listen to it at my Podsafe page which is a higher quality than the version on my Myspace page and closer in quality to the sold version.
Labels: April Fool's Day, buy my stuff, downloads, effects, online retailers, PSP Rhythm, Sonar
Monday, March 19, 2007
April Fool's Day Part 4
The guitar editing from the other day left a wee bit of a gap on the right side of the stereo which I fixed by a little cutting and pasting. It was time I did something about that kick drum track (imported from PSP Rhythm) which had some mild pops and clicks in the background.
Sonar has something called Session Drummer, but I didn't feel like figuring out how it works right now, so I looked into something more familiar. First I tried Hammerhead, but didn't care for it's sounds, the deepest of which was almost as crackly as the one in PSP Rhythm. I remembered Hydrogen and thought I might've read that there was a Windows version. I was in luck, so I downloaded it, programed a quick loop, imitating the original track and exported it.
The Hydrogen Kick was a different sound, but I figured it would do just fine. Once in Sonar I Groove Clipped it and stretched it the length of the song and then EQ'd it with NyquistEq5. Then I went and cut all the spaces in the vocals, where I neither spoke nor sang (but cleared my throat once or twice) and then exported to mp3 so I can listen to it a million times on my PSP before making my next move...
Next...
Sonar has something called Session Drummer, but I didn't feel like figuring out how it works right now, so I looked into something more familiar. First I tried Hammerhead, but didn't care for it's sounds, the deepest of which was almost as crackly as the one in PSP Rhythm. I remembered Hydrogen and thought I might've read that there was a Windows version. I was in luck, so I downloaded it, programed a quick loop, imitating the original track and exported it.
The Hydrogen Kick was a different sound, but I figured it would do just fine. Once in Sonar I Groove Clipped it and stretched it the length of the song and then EQ'd it with NyquistEq5. Then I went and cut all the spaces in the vocals, where I neither spoke nor sang (but cleared my throat once or twice) and then exported to mp3 so I can listen to it a million times on my PSP before making my next move...
Next...
Labels: April Fool's Day, effects, Hydrogen, plug-ins, PSP Rhythm, Sonar
Saturday, March 17, 2007
April Fool's Day Part 3
Edited a small bit of the first guitar track (near the beginning), taking out a few notes that were kinda sloppy, time-wise. I played around with VST effects after reading this article on effects chains for vocals, which also touches on a bunch of freebies in that area. I downloaded a bunch and tried a few out on a vocal or two and the second guitar track.
For the main vocal (in this case the fourth vocal track - I don't know if I'll end up using this one or the fifth), I used the Spitfish de-esser, Floorfish noisegate, the Classic compressor, and Bionic Delay. I'm not sure if I really need the first two. I'll play around with them some more. My use of the Bionic Delay is a tad bit over the top with the ping-ponging (though not too excessive), but I can't resist it. Used the Compressor on the "trickster god" bit at the end and then for the guitar I duplicated the track, so I could keep the naked sound, and then play with the effected stuff independently. I used the "Uhhh" preset on the Classic Phaser, and then threw the Bionic Delay on top for some funkadelic bouncing around. Sounds a bit like whales or something. I like the way it's shaping up, so far...
Next
For the main vocal (in this case the fourth vocal track - I don't know if I'll end up using this one or the fifth), I used the Spitfish de-esser, Floorfish noisegate, the Classic compressor, and Bionic Delay. I'm not sure if I really need the first two. I'll play around with them some more. My use of the Bionic Delay is a tad bit over the top with the ping-ponging (though not too excessive), but I can't resist it. Used the Compressor on the "trickster god" bit at the end and then for the guitar I duplicated the track, so I could keep the naked sound, and then play with the effected stuff independently. I used the "Uhhh" preset on the Classic Phaser, and then threw the Bionic Delay on top for some funkadelic bouncing around. Sounds a bit like whales or something. I like the way it's shaping up, so far...
Next
Labels: April Fool's Day, effects, guitar, plug-ins, Sonar
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Above It All part 6
Thought I'd be done with this by now, but, nooooooooo.
A couple of days ago I recorded some guitar onto two tracks. It was a single performance but divided into left and right. I plugged the Peavey into the SGX, using setting# A 048 (Semistort) with the left cable out going to the Tascam 688, which used to be a multitrack recorder. Now it's a mixer/patchbay thing. The right cable out from the SGX to the Zoom 505 (I forget what setting) and then into the Tascam which is connected to the soundcard inna computer. So anyway, I do that for the bridge and outro. I like the way it sounds and I won't have to do anything with the crap I recorded before because the mistakes are completely covered up. The major one's anyway.
I found a tutorial that showed how to use automation for volume gain (and a couple of other things related to Ardour) and played around with that as well as using Jamin. But that's getting ahead.
Recorded some reverb added to the vocals to a separate stereo track. Used the LADSPA Tap reverberator (warbler) on a post fader on a bus recorded to a stereo track. Don't know if that makes any sense, but that's what happened.
Decided I didn't care for the drum track so I ditched it and came up with something else. Soon I decided I didn't need a drum track and that's kinda where I am now.
Some efforts were made at mixing, using Jamin and then not. Had a few crashes from using Jamin with Ardour (with about twelve tracks of audio) and now there's some weird shit with the tracks not having any output connections. Too tired to fix it write now or talk anymore about it.
edit:
This version was announced as finished, but I came back to it here, to release a commercially available download single.
A couple of days ago I recorded some guitar onto two tracks. It was a single performance but divided into left and right. I plugged the Peavey into the SGX, using setting# A 048 (Semistort) with the left cable out going to the Tascam 688, which used to be a multitrack recorder. Now it's a mixer/patchbay thing. The right cable out from the SGX to the Zoom 505 (I forget what setting) and then into the Tascam which is connected to the soundcard inna computer. So anyway, I do that for the bridge and outro. I like the way it sounds and I won't have to do anything with the crap I recorded before because the mistakes are completely covered up. The major one's anyway.
I found a tutorial that showed how to use automation for volume gain (and a couple of other things related to Ardour) and played around with that as well as using Jamin. But that's getting ahead.
Recorded some reverb added to the vocals to a separate stereo track. Used the LADSPA Tap reverberator (warbler) on a post fader on a bus recorded to a stereo track. Don't know if that makes any sense, but that's what happened.
Decided I didn't care for the drum track so I ditched it and came up with something else. Soon I decided I didn't need a drum track and that's kinda where I am now.
Some efforts were made at mixing, using Jamin and then not. Had a few crashes from using Jamin with Ardour (with about twelve tracks of audio) and now there's some weird shit with the tracks not having any output connections. Too tired to fix it write now or talk anymore about it.
edit:
This version was announced as finished, but I came back to it here, to release a commercially available download single.
Labels: Above It All, Agnula, Ardour, covers, Crystal Walters, effects
