PavlovsCat

Bapu is super talented. My ENT doctor tells me that I'm borderline for hearing aids. I hate the idea of having to deal with them. I have a wife and two kids. But I'm not going to be seeing them help me mix anytime soon and the truth is, only a handful of friends are ever going to hear this music. I was just a drummer a long time ago. I can't play very well anymore and as you can hear my voice isn't very good, so I'm mainly just recording these songs for me. This group here is as big an audience as they'll reach. I just want the mix to not be awful, so if three friends listen, they'll judge the song itself and not be distracted by a terrible mix.

Haha! Thanks much, Mark. I had to play the song to figure out what happens at 2:50! Yeah, that was the most fun part, except my tendonitis started giving me shooting pain during the drum solo part and what I planned on was significantly scaled back, but I thought it was good enough to keep. My teenage son is contemplating a career in astronomy, so I thought, if this gets a positive reaction, I'll show it to him (yes, I am looking to this group to be my gauge) -- and maybe he'll be amused as I mock my astronomy metaphors for what's really just a song about dating a woman you find is out of your league. Back in the day, I didn't want to write cliche love songs, so I always turned to metaphors.

Well, I'm not really sure. I have a significant hearing loss and even as I'm learning about mixing techniques, my hearing makes me a pretty bad pick to mix anything.

I looked at it last year, but I'll check it out again. I think, beyond the viola, I only own one other library from Fluffy Audio, so they're fairly new to me. I'm eventually going to buy their Trio Broz cello and the violin. I easily have three dozen commercial piano libraries from a bunch of different developers. There are a bunch of piano libraries on my radar, but I also have "finite funds" and already have far more than I should have bought. And I just bought Spitfire's "Jangle Box. I am a sucker for the sound of the gear The Beatles used and for only $29 USD --- definitely a nice purchase.

I really like this developer. I bought their Trio Broz Viola shortly after buying a bunch of strings from 8Dio last year and the contrast couldn't be greater. The 8Dio libraries are these dumps of articulations that lack good scripting and sometimes the samples are oddly, gritty in a way that doesn't sound appropriate, so I almost never end up using them, whereas, the Trio Broz Viola sounds beautiful and is really well scripted so that when you play it in real time it determines the appropriate articulations and sounds very realistic.

Via midi. In this case, I played them live on my keyboard with my fingers (as opposed to programming them in with a mouse, which I don't do; I enjoy playing, even if it's on my midi keyboard -- although I play a lot better on the V Drums or a real kit). I have a Roland V-Drums kit and pads, but I didn't have them handy. I meant for the drum parts to do a lot more, but I was in pain when I was playing and kept it simple.

I spent 12 years playing professionally as a drummer, but my first instrument was piano, then organ. I started playing with working bands in night clubs at age 18, but I actually started playing around Chicago with a family band at age 5. Because I was a very good drummer by 18, I was able to audition with working bands and knew agents that recommended me to the bands they booked and managed. While the most popular band I was a member of had a small record deal, the lead singer controlled the band very strictly and wrote all the original songs -- he wouldn't even listen to other band members' music. Consequently, in the mid 90s I formed a band of my own -- or at least tried to. After several months of auditions we never found a lead singer and I threw the towel in on the whole thing. A few years later I got tendonitis and had to stop playing. Last year, for the first time in 21 years, I've been playing music again as a hobbyist and recording those old songs of mine my band was going to play. I still haven't found a good lead singer and I can only play for a short while without pain from tendonitis. I actually had a fair degree of pain on the drum part -- which was meant to be more sophisticated, but I kept it simple due to the pain. Anyhow, I thought because this song was so simple, catchy and had a good groove, it would likely been a popular song for the band. But, since no one has ever heard this beyond a handful of musicians back in the 90s, I am curious to see how anyone would react to it now. It's a fun little jam. In all my years as a working musician and having used sequencers and Cakewalk since its early years, I really never learned how to mix or master properly and am trying to learn. So constructive advice is appreciated. UPDATE: BELOW IS THE LATEST MIX OF THE SONG.

It's purely subjective, of course, but I'm with the others here. SurgeXT is really good -- and definitely worth having (it's free, use it!) -- but IMO, Vital is the best free synth plugin to date. I love it.

Thanks. That sounds very good advice and I'll take it and hold off buying Mixroom and keep spend more time trying to learn the Izotope tools I already have. I've made a good deal of progress in the past several months understanding the basics of the processing effects used in mixing. EQing remains the most challenging area for me.

Thanks for the recommendation. Do you think that considering I own Izotope's equivalent tool, that Mixroom will likely be easier to use -- and consequently, worth picking up?

I own the Izotope Suite of tools, but still have yet to really figure out how to mix properly. A friend of mine who is a musician who does music for games, suggested I look into Mixroom, as he thinks it would likely be easier to use. I'd be interested in what those who use Mixroom think. Is it easy enough to use that a guy like me, who only ever focused on playing music and is struggling to really grasp how to craft a good mix can get decent results fairly easily or am I better off spending more time with Izotope's tools (mainly Neutron for mixing). FTR, I do have -- but don't use -- Bassroom and Levels, which I got free over the last couple of years from PluginBoutique and Plugin Collective,

My professional experience as a musician was relegated to hitting things with my hands and feet. Would one of you nice folks who actually knows what you're doing regarding sound engineering be kind enough to weigh in -- that is, could you share your opinion on whether you think this is worth downloading or not?

I have a couple of Xtant Audio sample libraries, including their glockenspiel, which is only $5 USD regular price, I believe (I've been in love with that instrument since I was a kid and played it in the school band; I own a real one and probably have a dozen glockenspiel sample libraries). I consider the developer's libraries some hidden gems, really high quality libraries, well scripted and high quality samples, that are very affordable. He has a long history of doing scripting and libraries for some of the most well known KONTAKT sample library developers today. so if you use KONTAKT libraries, you may already be using a library he worked on (his Xtant Audio site is where he lists who he's done work for; I don't know him, I'm just a paying customer giving my honest feedback, not an influencer that makes a sales commission on the sales for products they positively "review"). I'm not sure if I'm going to pick up this library, but for anyone thinking about it, if you like what you hear, I don't think you can go wrong with this developer based on my experience with his libraries.

If there's one thing old Saint Patrick loved, it was a good processor plugin. I'm certain he would be absolutely honored to have his named used to sell these plugins. Just a really high honor. The ultimate tribute.

Wow, 20 years. Even our plugins are getting old, my friends...

In case anyone isn't aware, this developer's conga plugin uses free samples from the FREE VERSILIAN COMMUNITY SAMPLE LIBRARY (VCSL). VSCL contains a lot more sample libraries and is available in both KONTAKT and SFZ formats. So if you're on a tight budget or have no budget at all, you can download the libraries in the SFZ format and use a FREE SFZ sample player such as Plogue's sforzando. https://vis.versilstudios.com/vcsl.html#articulations

While the Barbershop library wasn't exaxtly what I've been looking for, it does seem like it'd be a lot of fun. Thanks for the suggestion and thanks for your insights on Synthesizer V.

Thanks for posting that. I have contemplated getting EmVoice One and Synthesizer V at various points and was about to purchase the EmVoice during their last big sale, but some of the posts here from users of EmVoice One -- and I think one of the people posting about stating disappointment could have been you (I'm not sure) -- made me decide NOT to pull the trigger (the downsides users posted were the required connection to the Internet and less than intuitive user experience). Last I checked, I didn't find Synthesizer V had an appropriate voice for my purposes, but I was just checking now and the male voice sounded okay. @pseudopop that song above sounds great -- better than I realized Synthesizer V was capable of. How difficult is the plugin to learn/use?

Yes, thanks for the suggestion. I do have that. I'm looking for something more sophisticated.

I have to say @Music Software Deals, I'm a longtime digital marketing and e-commerce professional and I think what you're doing is pretty cool. Although, personally, Larry 's posts are already driving me to spend more than I should, so your site is a dangerous place for me to visit.

On a related note, @cclarry and anyone else that can answer this: There are two kinds of vocal libraries I've been searching for more than a decade and I really haven't found anything that fits the bill . I would LOVE a library that has male background vocals of oohs, ahhs, do-do-do-dos, etc. and a gospel or a Motown background vocals library with something similar. I would want it to have the depth/flexibility of something like Ethera. The closest thing I've come across to what I'm looking for is EastWest's Hollywood Background Singers. Does anyone know anything else that might be closer to what I'm looking for? https://www.soundsonline.com/hollywood-backup-singers

Yeah, I've invested in KONTAKT and it's my go to sampler -- and I'm very happy with it for its advantages that permit the most sophisticated libraries and scripting available today. But I'm well aware that KONTAKT and commercial sample libraries for KONTAKT are well beyond some musicians budgets and I LOVE seeing tools available to everyone that are no cost (fully aware that the price of entry is still a costly powerful computer) and it makes me glad to see how many great tools and libraries are available for free. If anyone is on a very tight budget and looking for sample libraries and a sampler to play them at no cost, please check out Pianobook -- it's fantastic. Also, if anyone is seeing this post and on a tight budget -- or have no budget -- and are looking for more free tools/libraries/plugins that come highly recommended, don't hesitate to make a post. There's a lot of great stuff available for free these days and us regulars here are happy to point you to it.

It is really good! I use it. Definitely recommended. Pianobook has a treasure trove of great little sample libraries -- all for FREE. And for those who don't have KONTAKT, as Joe mentioned, this library and many others are available in the Decent sampler format -- which is a free sampler plugin. I've often thought that we should probably regularly share in this forum when we come across a really special Pianobook library, like you just did, Joe -- but I think there's enough there, we could easily have a post every few days with a different great find (sample library) from Pianobook. I visit the site every week.

@sarine Your post goes from passive aggressive to worse. Two plus decades of managing digital marketing and social media and writing about it tell me responding to a hostile post directed at me isn't a great idea. But here goes anyhow. I'm not against people following rules. If you've noticed, I've never created an off topic thread in this forum. What I enjoy is people freely sharing knowledge and being helpful with others. My issue with the individual you are holding up is that he is consistently extremely rude to others and attacking people, he routinely makes inflammatory posts, he routinely makes contrarian posts and political posts-- when Larry posted a developer out of Poland was giving his revenue for a time to relief efforts in Poland the guy attacked Larry for making the post saying it was political, tried to have it removed and then referred to a statement Putin made, referring to Ukrainian Jews as Nazis and he got even more political and attacked the US, all in the deals forum -- so much for his feigned concerns about off topic threads and posts; I call BS on that. His posts in this thread are attacks and insults towards others. And he, as he does in other threads, then goes on to threaten to have the thread taken down for being off topic. So it isn't that I'm some defender of off topic threads, as you are trying to spin it in your over analysis. I just appreciate people being helpful and kind to one another, and I -- mostly -- like people. Yes, it would be better if everyone used the appropriate places in the forum, but in the final analysis, if people are going to post in the wrong forum but be helpful and kind to one another, I'm good with it. I'm not good with someone coming along and being hostile, arrogant, attacking others and making know nothing points pretending to be an expert while attacking others, as the poster in question habitually does. He is absolutely a serial forum bully and troll and in the end, I find that kind of behavior far worse than off topic -- but well meaning-- stream of consciousness threads. Even more, those kinds of posts are violations of forum policy and, IMO, malicious and off topic is far worse than well intentioned, friendly and off topic. The latter really doesn't bother me and I'm more grateful for people being helpful and kind to one another than I am an@l retentively focused on their threads or posts being off topic. And clearly, the moderators here agree. And that is all there is to it. I hope you can respect that I took the time to respond to your unfriendly attack on me and didn't respond in kind.

That book of yours looks really interesting, @Ric. I think I may give it a read! Thanks for sharing. Just curious, and completely unrelated to your conversation with Philip, as you are a very experienced engineer from the industry, do you use Cakewalk mainly to record your own music or to record others? Just a short thought with regard to Philip's post, as you said you left the music business prior to the Internet (I'm sure you meant web launching, which occurred around 1994), it is entirely possible that the practices Philip mentioned, as they allegedly occurred during the web era, with a completely different generation of record company employees in place. I have heard of some of the things Philip mentioned, but I never worked in the record industry and have no inside knowledge. At best, back in the 90s, I knew a bunch of indie record label owners out of Chicago from labels such as Touch & Go, Pravda, Alligator Records..as well as a friend in management for a major record label and a number of musician friends, some with record deals. But I never had any first hand knowledge of industry practices. But I am a marketing pro and have written on marketing since the 90s too, had a well known and respected publication and major book deal with Wiley and have heard people I've met in the record industry talk about one of the practices Philip mentioned. Again, I have no first hand knowledge, I just wanted to put out there that it is indeed possible that you both could be right, as you were in the industry at different time periods. Peace to all! You both seem like nice people to me.