Starise

Nice guitar playing through this. Mix sounds great. 

That video is really catchy. I don't think I'll ever see pine trees the same again. Really creative work, like someone set out to do what they wanted and to heck with formulas. It's really worked well for you and it shows a lot of individuality. I admit, I never really got the lyrics. I used to that though and it's common in music not to get the lyrics. Maybe there doesn't need to be a concrete meaning. I'm sure it means something to you. Maybe that's all that matters.

Nice tune here Paul. Rock mixes aren't my forte'. Sounded pretty  good to me. You could make a comparison mix to those other bands you mentioned to dial it in closer to that sound using something like MCompare. Sounds pretty close already to those types of mixes.  I like the poetry. I think it's less noticed in these kinds of mixes because there's a lot of fireworks going on besides lyrics.  I look at it like I can go into a grocery store and buy healthy food and let the junk food alone ?

18 hours ago, daryl1968 said:

Sorry Tim I was a bit vague there. I wasn't keen on the lead synth sound and I would have preferred to hear a acoustic traditional instrument (mandolin for example) with the synth backing. I think the mix of the two would be nice. Only my humble opinion mate. You know I lurves ya

Same here @daryl1968 , You  aren't the first to make that suggestion on this mix. I was attempting to give an old world feel to synths.I don't know if that's even possible ?. Thank you!

@LadyFuzztail  Good suggestion that maybe I take it into another key or something. It is very predictable.

On 1/15/2019 at 9:46 AM, daryl1968 said:

Hi Tim - I hope you are well sir. 

Love the melodies but I'm not sure about the synths - sorry. I think I would have preferred a mix of synths and more traditional instruments.

Doing great! Thanks! Yes maybe I went a bit overboard in some of this.I am not quite following your ideas completely here.  Maybe you mean a larger mix of traditional instruments as opposed to just a few?

@emeraldsoulTom, thanks for your comments. It's the only way we get better. I  pulled this one out of the bin and should re visit it.

19 hours ago, Toddskins said:

Can uploaded material be made private after is was made public?   

If not, can it be deleted so that it's gone for good, and then upload again privately without using the export feature of CbB?

I do not know (yet) the logistics of BandLab collaboration - it's ins and outs.

@Wie Liang, Thank you for that info and for working with me on this. Also I noticed the skips in audio played in Mix Editor. I think this is in fact a buffer issue, since the track plays fine for me outside of the Mix Editor.

@ToddskinsI'm not sure about that one. The project me and Wei Liang are working on is a private band project. I like that a project can be made private. Not sure about the other way around.

I will keep what I find out on this thread since it might help someone else. I also have a few questions. Wie Liang I had you figured to be an experienced user of Bandlab. You seem to know your way around it pretty well.

Last evening Wie Liang uploaded a nice piano version of Scarborough Fair. He suggested electric guitar and bass as additional tracks. I did my best to comply. I used my ESP rock bass and real electric guitar. His track was locked in pretty tight to an addictive drums loop. @Wie Liang,  I'm sure that my tracks tracks would only be placeholders or ideas for me to make better tracks at this point. I didn't attempt to stretch any audio. The electric guitar track could be better.

I'll share some of my experiences so far- For some reason there were three copies of the same tune up. It would appear that my clicking more than once on something made multiple copies  of it. I'm not sure how I did it, so I'm not sure how to correct it.

I imported Wie Liang's piano and drum tracks into CbB and that's how I recorded my tracks in time to his tracks which I then exported as separate tracks to go to the BL mix editor app. I find the Mix Editor to be functional but I wasn't comfortable enough with it to record directly into it. I was more comfortable doing it the way I did it. Once tracks are in the BL Mix Editor you don't have nearly as much flexibility as a DAW. Not sure how a master would sound from it, though BL offers to master it for free. Since there is no reverb bus I'm not sure how you would add reverb in a balanced way.

Bob,

Thanks for sharing what you use for your show. I checked out your page too. You've been at this for quite awhile and are quite a musician. Your wife sings well too.! It's good that you can stay busy down there in Fla. doing what you like to do.

Never considered keeping drums and bass on the L channel in mono and the rest on the R channel. I could maybe do similar to that using submixes on one channel in Ableton , CbB or in using Prime. In that case the audio interface would be my mixer and I would need either a touch screen or a tactile midi controller for my sound work. I use a few midi controllers now for similar kinds of things. I don't have these large hour long shows though. I'm finished in 15-20 minutes.Though I've been doing this for over 15 years mostly playing solo piano. In my very limited exposure to live track work the more simple my setup is, the better. Complexity in the studio is great. On stage I don't have time to fiddle around with stuff. I'm guessing you don't use reverb at all or very little? I mean, the space itself is usually the reverb right? 

A few users here use only Cakewalk when playing live tracks. It even does the lighting through midi control. One thing that really helped me was to download the Prime app for free on my iPad. It lets you upload any of your tracks for free. When playing it back you get visual feedback of where you are on the track and audible count off information for sections. In other words when going into  verse2 you  get a "1,2,3   and verse 2" or similar piped to your ear on one side along with the click. You need wifi to download the tracks you uploaded. After that you don't need it, so it's best in that case to download the set on a good network and not try it at the gig. 

 Prime doesn't do midi however you still have individual control over each track in a song,  which is great. For a really important show I would do the same thing you do and have some redundancy so if the iPad gets dropped I have a backup plan. With Prime I can mix down in any DAW , upload individual tracks to Prime and mix from there. If the initial mix is good it will sound good in Prime.  It all fits in a device the size of a book. I use a 1/8" stereo male from the iPad that splits into two 1/4" phono jacks  then into stereo D box. One track is the click and goes to my headphone amp and the rest of the band who use ear buds. The other track is the music going to the house.I also loop that track back into the headphone amp. I'm pretty fortunate in that I play only one place and know that PA fairly well. If I wanted more instant control over the mix I would be using Ableton and a midi controller. That way, if I wanted to extend the chorus one more time I could do that on the fly.

No matter how you do it, it sounds simple in explanation until you do it. When you're out there though things can happen, I'm sure you have some stories to tell, and why you give yourself an hour and a half to get set up.

This is educational for me too Wei Liang  no worries. I always liked that song. If that's what you want to do go for it. I have my own reasons for not directly exporting files to music sites. Sometimes I master in another program. 

I agree concerning the ability to choose private or public. If I were to send to a part of something unfinished I would not want it to be a public track yet. Bands need to work on material before the material is released.

Lei Wiang I began a prog rock song last evening. It sounds all old and dated like well....prog rock sounds. I like that sometimes though. I thought it might make more sense to see what genre you like and maybe I'll look at that too. What do you like to sing?

I seen you joined up on my band. I am a little slow to get moving but I'll be around. 

Here is a track that highlights zt3A+2. If this synth will be re introduced, then maybe this would be a good one to use as an example of that. I made this with Jeff Evans working on the drums and some of the mix. I would need to get his permission to use it if you find it useful.I could make something similar but more current if necessary. This was intended as a promo and we have it listed in a music library.

@Will, @SPAK. Thank you for the comments.

Bob, did you make the backing tracks in CbB? I found some I didn't know were there, sort of file surfing the other night and ran across them. Or did I scan another folder that wasn't in CbB :bonk:

They are done well, however they aren't complete songs so it looks as if a person would need to work with them to make a song. It looked like a part of the Cakewalk folder system to me. Also can you advise on the mix down you use for the house system. Most house systems run in mono. The only reason I ask is some of my material sounded great in the studio but terrible in a live setting. I have been using produced tracks with a click and count in instructions in one channel with the house feed going to the FOH. All in mono. I don't send my click to the FOH. I keep a headphone amp up front and mix that myself.

It looks as if we are pulling songs from the closet, here is another contribution.

I think stuff gets caught up in our grey matter without us realizing it, even though I wasn't fully absorbed in the listening experience, like say, maybe I heard it on someone's radio at work. When it gets there our brains are chewing on it in the background. I don't intentionally do this but it seems to happen with me at least.

So I guess I have unintentionally done that . I don't immerse myself in music for hours like some do though. I'll hear something and it's just sort of floating around doing things in the background.

I compose whatever comes out of me which could be anything sometimes. Tends to be meandering unless I stop myself and make it into a structure people might recognize. I'm sure I'm the odd man out here. No problem. I'm accustomed to that role. I don't listen to much music. Do you want music going in or coming out? If you want music coming out you need to stop putting so much music in unless your intention is to play the stuff you hear. That's already been played. Why not play something different?

Coming alone nicely! All it needs now is you to play along with it.

It's not the same as playing with yourself. Did I say that?

All righty then.

Some things never grow old. This is one of them. Always a pleasure to listen to your material.

Nice harmonies and retro sound! 

This has a nice retro kind of sound garage band sound to it IMHO.  I like that real genuine feel it has.

Hard hitting very relevant subject matter.  Thanks for sharing! 

This seems to fit in with those who like to wear the programmer hat a lot when making music. I say that because Reaper has been described as needing a lot of setup to get it the way you want it. You need a lot of patience for some of that cinematic/game work. Large templates and track counts. Makes sense concerning stability too. It's a smaller lighter less demanding on cpu program than some others. People who like it can't say enough good about it (Reaper). If a person is prone to get frustrated easily using music software they would probably want to avoid Reaper as a 1st choice. Yes, that kind of person might get frustrated with anything. That would be more so with Reaper IMHO.

I think Jim's overview of those DAWS was well done. I have been curious about Cubase and midi. Not curious enough to buy it yet. I probably wouldn't use half of it.Everything I need has always been within the limits of what I have.

I know  at least one full time composer who uses Reaper, so I guess there are always exceptions here and there. I think Ableton is also a strong contender for music creation and arrangement. For the first year I couldn't get around it very well. One day things just clicked for me using it. I had to stop thinking in terms of loops and look at it more like parts of a song. This and understanding how the arrangement and session views worked together helped.

For straight up audio tracking and adding in a few midi instruments Cakewalk is the clear winner. Nothing else allows me to get from an idea to a completed work as fast when working in both midi and audio. Even though Cubase is probably the strongest contender in the area of midi, CbB is no slouch either and has been described as a very close second to Cubase. Many of the user base work in nothing but midi and have used only Cakewalk for years.

bayou bill, great topic.

I was just making a backing track last night. Doesn't sound bad at all in my opinion. I might use it in public.

Backing tracks have come a long way. Well done, you can't tell the difference. The biggest benefit to me is the ability to build a whole bad at your fingertips.

I have just started doing it, but I have used backing tracks that were professionally recorded already. No bass player? No problem. Just unmute the bass on your tracks.

Very well done. I hope to hear more from you.