My Joint-Effort Greystreet Mixdown (Tutorial-esque)

geekmug · Unread post by **geekmug** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 7:21 pm

It was asked that if I did a mixdown to describe the process that I went through, as to make it a learning tool for everyone. So, without further ado:

Scott Dial's Joint-Effort Greystreet Mixdown Session Tutorial

If you would just like to hear it, and not read the tutorial, please Use this link to help out by not downloading the 700kb of images.

EDIT: Roastbeef is kindly providing the hosting space for my little tutorial. scottdial.com and myself will be without internet connection until September 10th. I will be able to get online while on-campus, but the RoadRunner connection to my aparmtent won't be installed until then. I plan to take the long hiatus from the internet to *gasp* write music.

Trippin Hillbilly · Unread post by **Trippin Hillbilly** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 7:37 pm

DAMN! thats amazing man!
Very helpful, i dont know what to say..
I'm gonna have to read that a few times...

fatjack · Unread post by **fatjack** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 8:00 pm

you still want me to send you my mix of it and then you can add drums to that?

geekmug · Unread post by **geekmug** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 8:05 pm

Oh yah, after having been fiddling with these tracks for a considerable amount of time.. I wanted to give some feedback to the performers..

Roastbeef: You guitar playing was great.. again, your recording is sonically heavy.. not sure if it is the way you mic it (or what), but it was ok. Your singing is good, but it didn't work with trippin's voice all the time.. purely a subjective thing.. your singing is alright, just didn't work with his all of the time. I'm glad you did the track because it definitely was an excellent backup to his vocals.

Billyweston: My only wish was that you didn't play quite so staccato, and maybe the last jam, you could have strummed out some more. Otherwise, it was good playing and choice of voicings.

Appsoldier: Solid job, only thing was that you fell into a common pitfall of electric guitar playing. Your dynamic is pretty much constant the entire way through, which I felt needed to be shaped more than that. Not a problem on the recording 'cause I can fix that (and did) in the mixdown, but in a live setting you would need to do this either on the guitar's volume pot or with a volume pedal (the latter being the preferable way). Excellent playing and improvs.

Trippin: Your voice is great.. my only complaint was that you didn't plan with enough headroom for the screams and so it clips the slightest bit. I still get chills on the last yell. Great job.

Sorry, if I am being a little critical.. I just was forced to think about these things as I mixed it, and hope you take my feedback as not being too critical.. I think the end product sounds amazing, afterall.

JaDaRu · Unread post by **JaDaRu** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 8:14 pm

Amazing job, geekmug....it sounds absolutely incredible

Jason

isaac · Unread post by **isaac** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 8:17 pm

great job. some of the pictures don't work, though.

geekmug · Unread post by **geekmug** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 8:21 pm

it's my limited bandwidth.. that page is served from my computer witha 32k/s upstream cap.. everyone hitting it is maxing it out and then some image requests timeout.. if you reload a couple of times, you should be able to get them all (or check back later when this is not as new).

OR, if someone wants to host it somewhere else, I can provide the files.

fatjack: That would be fine.. I told roastbeef that I was probably going to track to play along with this 'cause it should be easier to now with more to go off of. I probably won't update the tutorial page, but I can rework the mix for other additional performers.

fatjack · Unread post by **fatjack** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 8:27 pm

geekmug wrote:it's my limited bandwidth.. that page is served from my computer witha 32k/s upstream cap.. everyone hitting it is maxing it out and then some image requests timeout.. if you reload a couple of times, you should be able to get them all (or check back later when this is not as new).

OR, if someone wants to host it somewhere else, I can provide the files.

fatjack: That would be fine.. I told roastbeef that I was probably going to track to play along with this 'cause it should be easier to now with more to go off of. I probably won't update the tutorial page, but I can rework the mix for other additional performers.

you don't have to update the tutorial... i use a completely different program than everybody else here and roast wanted me to give a few tips too. all i added was a 12 string track, bass, and a second set of back up vocals. if you could would you please send me a drum track before i finish mixing. just make sure you zero it at the same time roastbeef is on his guitar track, i had to cut westom's track :cry:

because it wasn't zeroed at the same spot (and if you think its tough to line it up on Cool Edit, its probably twice as hard on Acid Pro if its not zeroed at the same time).

Appfro · Unread post by **Appfro** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 9:34 pm

geekmug wrote:Oh yah, after having been fiddling with these tracks for a considerable amount of time.. I wanted to give some feedback to the performers..

Appsoldier: Solid job, only thing was that you fell into a common pitfall of electric guitar playing. Your dynamic is pretty much constant the entire way through, which I felt needed to be shaped more than that. Not a problem on the recording 'cause I can fix that (and did) in the mixdown, but in a live setting you would need to do this either on the guitar's volume pot or with a volume pedal (the latter being the preferable way). Excellent playing and improvs.

i actually just got a volume pedal the other day so im doing so real experimenting now. this is one of the few times ive done electric improv though. im mostly a rhythm acoustic guitarist. but thanks for the tips...really i want all i can get. so if you have anything else for me, put it here or pm me or something, because this is a whole new dominion to me.

Trippin Hillbilly · Unread post by **Trippin Hillbilly** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 9:49 pm

oooooooo dominion! makes a note in the big word book

..

sorry it's late here in london..

Appfro · Unread post by **Appfro** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 9:54 pm

do·min·ion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-mnyn)
n.
Control or the exercise of control; sovereignty: “The devil... has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion” (Jonathan Edwards).
A territory or sphere of influence or control; a realm.
often Dominion Abbr. Dom. One of the self-governing nations within the British Commonwealth.
dominions Christianity. See domination.

as in the raw guitarist wanted dominion over fingers when trying his damndest to play lead electric improv

Trippin Hillbilly · Unread post by **Trippin Hillbilly** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 9:57 pm

I know what it means you monkey

.....just it isn't exactly frequented often on message boards.........so I made a note..

Roastbeef · Unread post by **Roastbeef** » Mon Aug 25, 2003 8:10 am

geekmug wrote:Roastbeef: You guitar playing was great.. again, your recording is sonically heavy.. not sure if it is the way you mic it (or what), but it was ok.

The guitar has a B-Band A1/AST and that's plugged via a 1/4" to 1/8" reducer directly into the sound card (Crystal soundcard on a Dell Latitude). How can I record a better track? Is the Recording volume too high?

geekmug wrote: Your singing is good, but it didn't work with trippin's voice all the time.. purely a subjective thing.. your singing is alright, just didn't work with his all of the time. I'm glad you did the track because it definitely was an excellent backup to his vocals.

I agree with you. I think there are some background vocals that add a lot to this song (espcecially the the "fire to this life" part) so I decided to throw it in there. I think I was a bit to raspy in spots and my voice may not have meshed well with Trippin's powerful voice. In retrospect, I would've smoothed out my parts just to add an interesting harmony. Please note, I have been singing for only a short time and know next to nothing about harmonizing a vocal part. I simply tried a few things until I hit notes I thought sounded okay.

geekmug wrote: Billyweston: My only wish was that you didn't play quite so staccato, and maybe the last jam, you could have strummed out some more. Otherwise, it was good playing and choice of voicings..

I know what you mean about being a bit too staccato. It was a great addition though and I think rounded out the rhythm a lot especially since the main rhythm was done on a 6. And I concur, great voicings!

geekmug wrote: Appsoldier: Solid job, only thing was that you fell into a common pitfall of electric guitar playing. Your dynamic is pretty much constant the entire way through, which I felt needed to be shaped more than that. Not a problem on the recording 'cause I can fix that (and did) in the mixdown, but in a live setting you would need to do this either on the guitar's volume pot or with a volume pedal (the latter being the preferable way). Excellent playing and improvs.

I will say that after hearing geekmug's mix, I really enjoyed your leads much more. I think he nailed it about the level being the same throughout and why I initially felt it didn't fit in spots. His mix definitley did it justice though and I think it sounds great.

A few comments on your sound though. Mellow out a bit on the overdrive/distortion. It's way too heavy. Likewise, the reverb was too heavy and made for a track that was too full and chunky. In this setting a slightly distorted electric (or maybe even clean?) sound with much less reverb would've sounded better, IMO. Maybe even more mids to give a more classic electric sound would've worked better.

geekmug wrote: Trippin: Your voice is great.. my only complaint was that you didn't plan with enough headroom for the screams and so it clips the slightest bit. I still get chills on the last yell. Great job..

Not much to critique here. You really do carry this thing.

geekmug wrote: Sorry, if I am being a little critical.. I just was forced to think about these things as I mixed it, and hope you take my feedback as not being too critical.. I think the end product sounds amazing, afterall.

I agree your mix sounded much better than mine. I especially liked where you placed the acoustics. Oh, and by the way - Trippin's vocal track I provided didn't have a modification that Trippin requested. There should be a half second of silence added at 4:07 to help with some timing issues at the end.

geekmug wrote:OR, if someone wants to host it somewhere else, I can provide the files.

fatjack: That would be fine.. I told roastbeef that I was probably going to track to play along with this 'cause it should be easier to now with more to go off of. I probably won't update the tutorial page, but I can rework the mix for other additional performers.

I have no problem hosting the tutorial for you and I have plenty of bandwidth. PM me.

fatjack: why don't you pass along your raw bass, 12, and vocal tracks to geekmug so he can mix them in using his approach. That way both of you will have all the tracks to work with and we can maybe get some dialogue on who's we like better, etc...

Oh and please include billy's track somewhere in it. That's only fair.

Roastbeef · Unread post by **Roastbeef** » Mon Aug 25, 2003 10:04 am

Oh, and geekmug. Thanks so much for the very detailed tutorial. I read through it a few times and most of it has made a lot of sense. One thing though. Can you translate your plug-ins into default CEP presets, or at least the manual settings in CEP?

fatjack · Unread post by **fatjack** » Mon Aug 25, 2003 4:57 pm

Roastbeef wrote:Oh and please include billy's track somewhere in it. That's only fair.

i would but i can't, his tracked isn't lined up with the rest of them for some reason. i tried for about an hour and a half to get it lined up, but i can't do it in acid pro. if he really wants it on my mixdown, he can re-record it, but if he doesn't i, there isn't a thing i can do about it. sorry

and if you w are gonna do the drum track geekmug, please PM me and confirm so i know whether to procede with what i have or wait till you do your drums. thanks

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My Joint-Effort Greystreet Mixdown (Tutorial-esque)

My Joint-Effort Greystreet Mixdown (Tutorial-esque)

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