mark skinner

I was a hillbilly was DEEP. no guitar needed ..

No problems on latest CbB on win7 or win8.1 (raum)

Thanks to everyone for the listen and the great comments. I Really enjoyed doing this one. @Jesse Screed yes I played a Godin nylon hybrid , (and an electric near the end). The scratchy drum track set the mood for this and was pulled from my old Yamaha awg work station and blended with TTS brush set. I'm thinking I mixed it a little too loud though .. The bass guitar track was imported into 32 bit Sonar and processed with the bass wah setting in the old auto wah then imported back into CbB. I do this pretty often to use some of the old legacy plugins . Thanks again to all .. mark

Very well done. I loved the extremely clean vocals. Some harmony would be nice in the choruses. The bridge was fantastic. I thought it brought a Beatle (ish) vibe to it. I very much enjoyed it. mark

I had an HP that would just Shut Down while I was working. It eventually did it once with no music playing and I heard a tick. My main power switch was shorting. I wiggled enough wires until I found it. It actually arced. I was also suspecting my power supply. Intermittent problems are normally the hardest to find. Good luck . mark

Fantastic vocals ! No way to fast forward past that. Killer job everywhere. mark

I listened to a lot of Earl Klugh when me and him both were a lot younger. That's where I actually got my appreciation of nylon strung guitars. He kept it simple but dead on for that style. Detroit still has a reputation for the music they created or expanded on , and being from Flint I still have a connection . Thanks for the reply and compliment .. mark

Here's one I've revisited recently . I'm trying to lean a little more to the jazz side. This one is pretty dated sounding but I liked the groove. A lot of work with my controller , and being new to keyboard , I played passages rolling around in my head. Lot of hooks from standards but I don't know which ones. I'd kinda like to know who I've ripped off. Thanks .. mark https://soundcloud.com/user-810058643/keys

After I have exported a final mix of a completely finished project , I use the clean audio folder in utilities, as Nigel suggested , to get rid of all the unused wav files. I did a 5 min. song once that took me nearly 3 months with a LOT of retakes. The audio folder for this song was 7 gigs! After cleaning it was 480 mb. This will also save you a Lot of room when you "back up" a project to a flash or external drive. mark

@StariseI always upload wav files at 24 or 32 bit. I have since read SC recommends 16 bit at 48khz. I actually couldn't get rid of the Beats audio software . I mentioned Dell but it's actually HP with beats speakers and software built in. All the enhancements have been turned off. I downloaded the Foobar player thanks to comments by Martin s and bitflipper. Seems like a good one , but all 3 players I've used have the same problem. I like the laptop because of the giant screen , but Nothing has fixed this problem except for using an interface when I need to get critical about sound quality. Not a big problem , it's under the couch when I need it. mark

I guess I got confused and misspoke in my first reply. I Record in mono. Single waveform on the track , and leave the interleave button alone. What confused me was your vocal track got louder after pressing the mono button. It shouldn't do that unless you recorded the track in stereo . 2 waveforms. With the standard panning law , changing the stereo track to mono will increase it 3 db. Panning it 100 % and you'll get another 3 db bump. The point was I never Record vocals in stereo (2 waveforms) Sorry about that... mark

Normally I Always record vocals in mono to help keep them in the center of the mix. In fact I record everything in mono and leave the interleave in mono. The signal is louder and allows you to pan instruments easier. There are panning laws you can adjust that effect the loudness the further away from center you pan. One exception I use for changing the interleave to stereo is when using a plugin that Widens the signal of a track. (mainly vocals). Some widening vst's don't seem to work if the track is not changed to stereo. mark

I tore a knee up in a motorcycle wreck. They Blasted this song on a killer sound system , as I was fading out in the operating room. Thanks for the Good and bad memories...

Yes , my problem has been with playback on a laptop. Everything is fine on my studio pc regardless of how It's played or with using different speakers and headphones. Using an interface solved the problem , but afterwards I found a "Beats Audio" app that apparently came with the laptop . It's gone now. Thanks for the feedback ... mark

I've gotten some good results on bass tracks just using melodyne. You can correct the pitch and the timing on All of the notes or just the ones you choose. Just don't try and get them Perfect and it will still sound natural. If the kick drum hits heavy on certain beats pay closer attention to these spots on the bass track. Even Melodyne Essentials is Well worth buying if you don't have it especially for vocals and bass. ms

The new interface is hooked up , everything sounds great and levels are where they should be (playing files and streaming from SC). Something must be normalizing it on my laptop in Windows sound settings or in the audio circuit itself . Never found it . One more reason to use an interface even for just listening .. Thanks .. mark

Noynekker , Yeah I only use the VLC for converting some video files. I found the coloration settings in WMP , I'll keep an eye on them. I'm suspecting the Dell laptop soundcard. I've got a cheap m-audio interface coming in soon . I'll load it up and use when streaming. I guess a new pc is in order. I gave away my "gamer" mark

I've been trying to upload a song to SC all week with bad results. I keep having problems with intros and fade outs being boosted Too much. I don't have internet in my outside studio so , I export to a folder / check it out , transfer to a flash drive/check it out from flash drive. Everything cool. Transfer to a folder on a laptop in my house and upload . Bad results. Delete and start over. Same thing .. I uploaded 2 versions a short test project , One with a -10.5 db drop in the intro and outro. Both came back sounding nearly identical. I installed CbB on the laptop and imported both versions into a project and heard a radicle difference and could see the wave file reductions in the adjusted version. No interface on the laptop , master out to realtec. The windows media player on my 8.1 laptop is the culprit. Windows media player on my win 7 studio pc works fine. So I've been listening to all my songs and probably yours with false results. I've been going through settings with no good results. I'm not sure what to do at this point. This may be a common problem but I've never heard it discussed anywhere. Same results thru VLC player. ??? ms

Great story and it Definitely Worked. I like using a slide if the song calls for it , but I've Never been able to use one correctly. I Always play lap style using a heavy pedal steel slide. I asked Bonnie Raitt to come over but I havn't heard back from her. I Very much enjoyed your song . ms

David , Very unusual and Super creative. Kinda surreal and ominous sounding. I loved the sudden stops and the changes when slamming back in. Excellent Job ! mark

Jesse , Very good job. Still experimental yet flowed nicely. It was a little scary .. There is definitely a nefarious something going on , and on , and on.

Great job on the song And the video. I agree with Jim about the guitar outro. Nice , the auto wah was just right. mark

That was some Incredible writing on the lyrics. I especially liked the ending slide work. It really sounded like the juice was taking effect... Great song and well performed. mark

You actually sing the word "You" one more time at the end of the chorus before rapping again. If you can't get the first one fixed It may be possible to use the last one in its place (even if you have to pitch shift it). I believe I would have a hard time fixing the bad one without just re singing the one word.

You do better with English than a lot of people I know that were born here ! There are a couple of words that Really need fixing , and they're both in the chorus. The chorus is a real high spot in this song , and since it repeats , it really needs to be right. 1. You cannot hear the word "how" in the line "How are you gonna carry through" 2. It sounds almost like you're saying scarin' "Jew" in the line "and if its scarin' You". The "N" from scariN is getting included in the word Jew also. It's coming out something like "nJew". I'm only listening on a laptop with earbuds , but this is what I'm hearing. I hope this helps. Good song , Good luck .. mark