mark skinner

Simply Beautiful .. Loved the Celtic feel of this one. I've just now started trying to learn piano and this was quite an inspiration for me. I enjoyed the feeling this quickly brought. mark

You Really outdid yourself on this one ! Awesome mix and production. I Loved the energy especially in the guitar parts including the short "wah" fills. If I were to change anything .. I think I would bring in one more short round of "Gravity's Heavy" in the fade out. Loved it .. mark

@DeeringAmps , Thanks Tom , I always appreciate the listen and your imput/ @PJH , Thanks Peter. Your Excptional work with melody lines inspires me . I have'nt found your secret for finding them though. I muted some tracks and hunted for some basic melody fills using a piano. It feels more complete to me now . Thanks .. ms @noynekker , Thanks Bruce , I've done a remix and put some bottom end back in. This one really gave me problems after boosting the levels. It kept thinning out and enhancing the reverb levels. I had to really pay attention to the mix before I started mastering. I Really appreciate the suggestion. 👍 @SuperFreq , Thank You for the listen and comment. No I havn't heard of Stuart Adamson. I will for sure look him up. The link now reflects a remix with added piano. I'll probably play around with it some more untill I'm satisfied. I'm not much of a piano player , but it felt pretty easy and I Really enjoyed doing it. Thanks .. mark

Hello , here's a new instrumental I'm finishing up. It's pretty sparce with drums , bass , stereo acoustic and electric guitar thru Bias FX2. I'm wondering about the low end in this and if you think there may be room for a few organ or piano fills in a few spots. Thanks for the listen , any crits or suggestions for improvement. mark https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=15117093

Bruce , Great story telling . I Loved the "right from the beginning" energy level with the driving piano and acoustic guitar. I think you knocked this one out of the park! Maybe a Ukraine tag somewhere would be appropriate.. Loved it .. mark

Good morning , my Sonar authorization is due to expire "tomorrow" the 29th. I'm in the very last stages of a new song mix and didn't want to reauthorize and update to the latest version until I completed my mix . I'm an offline user and planned on bringing my pc to my house after I finished my mix this morning. I transferred an authorization request to a flash drive yesterday just in case I had problems finishing the project up. I just opened my home laptop to check emails etc. before going to my studio. To my surprize "Cakewalk Product Center" was up and opened on my screen without me doing it. I had to update the product center version before importing and exporting the files. I've been reading quite a few threads about people losing their authorization without a prior warning. I guess somehow I just got a friendly reminder to "update" before I went into demo mode. Was this planned or just a "strange coincidence" ?? ms

I thought that was quite creative and for sure got my attention. I'm not well versed in that genre and anything I would suggest would probably reduce the effect of what you are aiming for. That is except for the "keys" lead section early in the song. I think they could be brought down a bit giving a little more balance in that section. Enjoyed it .. mark

Nigel , I Loved the really Big sound of this and especially the drum tracks. The harmony in the chorus parts really pushed it to another level. Fantastic production ! ms

Now You've Done It ! I guess now I'll have to start putting "Span" on my master bus and start checking my mix and EQ decisions (instead of listening to Ozone saying it's ok). I've actually never done it .. but will in the future. My ears lie to me a Lot. Thank You very much for that. "Noynekker" pointed that out also but I didn't even think to check it visually as well. I made some EQ changes to a couple of tracks and the mix as a whole. The bass guitar doesn't really come in until about a minute in , which doesn't help. I also converted my bass guitar track to midi and used a synth for upright bass. It seems to fit the song better to me. The file in the link has been replaced with the latest mix. Thanks .. mark

Thanks , Steve , Everything except for the drums were real instruments. ms

Thanks @DeeringAmps , Gave a listen on different systems and I agree with you. I went thru the different instruments and made reverb reductions. Link has been adjusted to my last mix. I'm happy with it now and calling it "done" Thanks to everyone for the listen and comments .. mark

Thanks Tom , I'm using different reverbs on different instruments and vox. Anything in perticular or the overall reverb settings pushing things back a little too much. ??

Loved the break @2:45 Awesome harmony as well .. Enjoyed it again .. mark

OK , I've done a remix and addressed a few things . The fiddle break was brought way more forward trading reverb for saturation and some EQ work. Vox levels were dropped a little and minor dobro EQ and reverb change. @noynekker , I moved quite a few bass notes to the downbeat , changed the EQ and levels. Bottom end is a lot fuller now. Let me know if I missed the target. Thanks .. mark

@Kevin Walsh , Thanks Kevin , I've had quite a hard time with this mix. Maybe it well gel a little better soon. Appreciate the listen and comment. @noynekker , Thanks Bruce for the observation. I've been waiting for a friend to do the upright bass part for me and have been listening and working without bass at all. The electric bass was added last last mainly as a place holder. I actually pulled some of the lows out of the bass track. I think I've lost some perspective and will revisit it. The electric should be easier than an upright to fill in the bottom end. Thanks .. mark

Kevin , I thought this was Fantastic ! I missed the first mix and kind of glad I did. I think you Nailed this one. The vocals were excellant . I Really wish I had your range , seems I'm quickly losing the high's in my old age. I for sure got an "old school" psychedelic vibe in this one. Loved it .. I hope things calm down a little for you pretty soon . Although .. you sure know how to take advantage of a stressfull situation. Cheers .. mark

Hello , here is my "last" mix of a Steel Drivers song. I broke out just about all of my instruments for this one. The electric bass may be replaced with an upright at some point. Used acombination of CbB and Sonar. Weapons - Yairi acoustic , G&L electric , mandolin , banjo , dobro , cello , Ibanez bass , MT Power Drums. Any nits , crits or suggestions for improvement will be appreciated. Thanks .. mark https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=15099496

Fantastic song and performance ! I think Mark nailed what the song needed. Love the strings and guitar work. Loved it .. ms

Thanks to Everyone for your help. The Cakewalk community has Really been impressive. I know I would have not gotten this much support from "any" other DAW community. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge .. mark

Thanks Noel. I do have a usb interface with it's own ASIO driver. When I selected ASIO it tried to load the Steinberg driver. I deleted it , now it's trying to bring up a Realtek HD ASIO driver. I just didn't know if deleting the Realtek ASIO driver would cause issues on the laptop using it other than for DAW work. I'll try WASAPI ms

OK , I found and deleted the Steinberg driver. It then loaded a Realtec HD ASIO driver and I got the same message. I'm not sure whether to delete it or not . Thoughts ?? I normally don't have an interface hooked up to the laptop , just setting it up for mobile recording that rarely happens. I was able to get it working using WDM/KS. Unless something comes up , I'll use this workaround for now. Thanks .. mark

Hi Larry , Very nice clarity in this. I really enjoyed the reversed sounding runs and some of it gave me an up beat Blade Runner feeling. Translated well on laptop speakers. I'll give it another proper listen later. Enjoyed it .. ms

Thanks @msmcleod for the explanation. That's where the problem popped up. I thought I "was" using the manufacturers genuine ASIO driver. Maybe there is another ASIO driver on my laptop that got chosen instead of the one from Tascam I had just downloaded. ?? Not sure how to check for all the drivers installed. I'll Google it . I deleted the driver and downloaded it again . ASIO then showed up again as an option , although there was no reference to Tascam US . Got the same toast message about a generic driver. Location was C/windows system 32. I guess I'll stick to Wasapi ... Thanks .. ms

I've been using a Tascam US 2x2HR interface (with an asio driver from the Tascam site) in CbB without issues. Sonar on the same desktop pc has been a nightmare , with all kinds of strange problems. I decided to finish the project in CbB while it is still available. Iv'e set up a laptop to record an upright bass , so my friend doesn't have to haul it to my place. Downloaded the driver to use the same interface and got a warning about "generic low latency driver" having problems in Sonar. Everything I've searched stated it was a true asio driver. I didn't get the pop up on my desk top. I'm wondering now if the driver has been my issue using the new Sonar. I ran the project in Sonar after changing the driver to Wasapi shared/exclusive and WDM/KS without major playback issues. WDM was the smoothest. So .. I'm wondering if Sonar can detect a bad true asio driver and detect it as a problamatic generic one. Is there a way to detect a problamatic driver before installing it. (wrapped , etc .. Thanks ..mark

Frank , I've had Way more than my share of crackling , studdering and complete engine dropouts lately. Different problems at different times. I've found that very carefull observation of all the meters in console view points me in the right direction pretty quickly. ms