RexRed

Hey Gary, thanks for the compliment! The new microphone is Audio-Technica AT4040 Cardioid Condenser Microphone https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002D0BQ8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I love every single thing about it. The sound is very responsive and it is perfectly accurate (at least to my ears) in reproducing transients. That was the reason why I went searching for a new mic. My old mic was not giving me good recordings. I like the screw that tightens the included shock mount, it seem sturdy and only requires a little bit of torque to tighten it firmly. and I like the included black velvet like bag that fits perfectly over the mic when I am not using it to keep dust out of the mic. I have the mic on a desktop stand, the stand has a weighted cylinder base and a pole that comes up out of it. It is perfect for desktop recording! Yes, the reverb is a REmatrix convolution reverb on a parallel bus JPVerbs "rich ballad" patch.

Hey Cakewalk peeps! Here is a new song (still a work in progress) Suggestions are welcome hope you like. Best to you! RR

Thanks a lot Mark, I am always searching for the perfect song and I don't know how I am doing in that endeavor but I keep trying anyway. Best to you buddy!

That is a really nice comment Andrew, you can express beautiful imagery in words, you are better at writing than you may think. Best to you bro!

I backed off the vocals a bit, I hope it is okay they sounded perfect in my ear buds but when I listened to the song through my big Custom speakers (15 inch woofers and radial horns) the vocal was way too forward as Wookie so helpfully stated. So I backed them down a bit. I hope it is better. I think it is better but I am not sure because it sounded great in the earbuds but earbuds have no good precision when it comes to placement of the main vocal on top of the music it takes big speakers to get that setting right. Thanks again for the help! You do help a lot and inspire me to finish the songs rather than leave them with a few flaws that really do detract from the whole effort. I also fixed some timing and pitch areas in the vocals. Thanks David, Wookie, Jack, Freddie and Kurt for the compliments and valuable feedback!!!

Hey David, I used to play live, I may one day do it again. Thanks for the compliment on the song. ?

New song Cakewalk peeps! I recorded this with my new microphone.

I hear what you are saying about the snare. I think you are saying the snare should be lowered on the upper end and given a bit more bass on the lower end. If that is what you are saying, I agree. The only problem is that snare and bass drum are a single unit sample I got off splice.com Now, I think I could use drum replacer to isolate the snare drum and then I could add effects to it independently. I just don't remember how to use drum replacer and the last time I tried using it I failed at isolating the drum I wanted to affect. I will have to look at videos on YouTube to refresh my memory. I actually wanted a hand clap instead of the snare the wave currently has and found the perfect wave for it. But I tried to use the hand clap additively and it threw off the balance of the drum sample. I ran this drum sample through Ozone 9 and this is the setting it came up with using the dynamic auto detect function. I don't' always leave that as is but I did in this case other than cutting out some lower end near 20hz. I will look into your changes Max. Please let me know if you indeed think I should "lower" the snare at 3k about 2db or so. It does seem a bit hot to me and adding some bass to it would warm it up and make it more palatable. Thanks for your insight Max!

MOTU M2 2x2 USB-C Audio Interface https://smile.amazon.com/MOTU-M2-USB-C-Audio-Interface/dp/B0812B26TN/ref=sr_1_5 This one is REALLY nice too! It really all comes down to how much is USB 3.0 worth in the overall picture of things? My Cakewalk projects are more stable with a 3.0 interface. I am not sure if that is because of better drivers or because there is much less data glut. I really wish I knew more about all of this... I think I would buy the Motu one over the Tascam one...

PCIe cards I have heard picks up too much of the PC's noise https://smile.amazon.com/Tascam-Resolution-Versatile-Interface-US2X2HR/dp/B08MFMFYBP/ref=sr_1_3 I just noticed this it, is not that pricy and has great frequency response, very low noise level and very low latency but only USB 2.0. The Steinberg UR22C which I bought is supposedly "very noisy" but it is still USB 3.0 I can't hear the noise "yet" but... I am going to keep it but I might buy the Tascam too just to try it out. I have never heard of Dante... What is it? I have an RTX 3090 and I have heard this graphics card creates a lot of noise on the PCIe bus

Thanks, Mark, Jack, Max and Kurt! Your suggestions really helped out a lot!. I went looking for a free VST Mood knockoff and IK Multimedia (Fender) is giving away one free! All you have to do is create an account download and install their installer manager (offer is only for February). First I tried adding more hall reverb to the vocals and it just got lost So I instead added some convolution room reverb (rematrix) That worked. Then I had an idea, I panned the guitar chords to the hard right and added new Lounge Lizard Rhodes chords and panned them hard left. It balanced it off great but something was off. I tried all of the lounge lizard presets and still was not happy So I added Dimension Pro and copied my new midi chords to the Dimension midi track. I first added the Ballad Piano the top preset and it was still no right Then I added the Chime and Wave preset and wow! It was bassier than then Rhodes and it grounded the song. I fine tuned the mix a bit and there it is. Thanks for you help!!!

Yes Max, this is with the new audio interface but not the new mic. I am still having issues (though much less) with my mic. The new audio interface is very tight sounding. And it does not lock up Cakewalk constantly like the Roland did. Again I say, maybe it was my box was defective but that is the way it has always performed. So maybe I got a bad one from the get-go. I got by with it by just constantly rerecording lines. I much less frequently have to rerecord due to inaccurate transients. I think my mic is the final problem to fix this. Maybe it just took me a long time to really hear these problems and finally do something about it. I will be revisiting this song and I will look into more reverb and adding some more supporting embellishments. It has parallel reverb so it is just a matter of upping the fader.

I have a friend who once had staff view. Terrible terrible terrible...

Thanks Jack for the excellent suggestions, I think more fill instruments would be nice in this song. The vocals took me so long to do that I released it on ReverbNation early. I will take a look and probably indeed, add some strings and a Moog would be nice too.

Thank you Mark for the really nice comment, I am not sure if it is done yet. I hear lots of things I want to fix but it is done enough to let it out there I guess. Best to you!

Hey Bruno, my PC has 44 lanes and the audio interface is the only item on that bus. My RAM is 96gb 3000mhz but I do not have it overclocked. Thanks for your help here.

New song, let me know what you think.

Before Cakewalk we used to navigate music with a sextant and a compass and count measures with an abacus...

Another problem that is solved is Cakewalk used to lock up on me constantly. Every hour or so it would just freeze up. This was a disaster if I was live streaming a tutorial. I thought it was, well, I was not sure what it was. Maybe too much data and maybe the USB 2.0 connection. I have had this problem for years. Since I got the old interface. Before then lockups were because my PC was just junk. Well I have not had a lock up yet with this new interface. Lots of problems solved... I cannot vouch for other interfaces but this one is rock solid. I would certainly not go back to USB 2.0 I have always suspected that (maybe a data glut) for being the reason for the lockups. Something was maybe just malfunctioning in the old unit, maybe driver issues or maybe it just could not handle the data. It is nice to know it is not Cakewalk itself. I am amazed at how much I have put up with. I would sing a line wrong and it would record perfectly and I would sing a line perfectly and it would record wonky. Then and when I would forget to save for a while it would lock up. It was always when I had forgotten to save for a while. I have noticed that every once in a while Cakewalk will record a take over top of another take. This is no biggie. It does not happen often and sometimes very rarely a take will be a bit late. Usually when I punch in fast. That does not happen often either but it does happen. I am really glad I did this...

Thank you!

No, not the T-Pain sound. lol The beginning of my notes sounds spongy, not sure how to describe it otherwise. It is something over time I guess I began to hear and identify more and more. For years I just took it for granted and did not really conceptualize the problem. I just would work around it and re-sing certain spots. But it has been there all along. I don't think the circuitry in the Roland is able to produce transients and certain long-held loud notes notes well. That is my experience, maybe it is just with my box only but the problem is gone by replacing it with the Steinberg.

Well, I think the new interface solved my problem... I don't think the Quad capture was throwing enough bits at the beginning of my notes. The interface is over 10 years old, not surprised. I think the mic is partly to blame too. The mic upgrade with better circuitry will also improve transients. The mic will be coming soon. It also fixed the formant problem with formant changes not responding well to the waveforms. Maybe a driver upgrade would rescue the quad capture or maybe the chips inside just cannot handle the speed and accuracy required to reproduce waves. I need time to live with this interface but so far it seems tight. Now that the beginning of notes seem accurate I can truly hear the mic struggling to reproduce transients. Can you hear such a thing? I think I can, I know how I am supposed to sound. My mic is over 10 years old and is probably "dead"... It still has really nice tone still but it does not handle transients well at all anymore. The transients are not wonky anymore but they are distorted. The interface is recording accurately what it hears now. The mic is clearly now the problem. When people tell you there is no difference between audio interfaces... There can be a difference.

A lot of big help here!!! I need to study all of your great responses! Let me clarify a bit. The "wonkyness" I feel is amplified in Melodyne. When I try and change the pitch or formant even slightly of "some" syllables, especially the beginning syllables of words This wonky spongyness gets amplified. I can hear I the spongyness slightly in the unchanged sample but changing the pitch or formant even a tiny bit amplifies the spongyness of the sound ten fold. It seems to only happen on the beginning of some words. Especially when my voice is escalating quickly in pitch. Like "something" did not hear the beginning of the sound correctly... Like it got digitized or just not enough bits thrown at it. If I set my project to 24bit 48khz (which it is usually at) it still records spongy. It seems exactly as spongy in 44khz as 48khz. It is sort of like how the adults sound like in Charlie Brown but hissy too. There has got to be a way to get better clearer waveforms so pitch and formant work better. This is actually very horrible... I have to go back and resing many lines to fix this.

Thanks Kurt, I am not sure what to do with the drum yet, good observation. I will put more thought into it. Thanks Jack!

Alan your post is very helpful, I bought the AT 4040 mic. The new audio interface should be here tomorrow. I have used this current setup I have in lots of rooms with many different acoustic treatments. I have recorded close up and farther away and the recordings have all had the same wonky characteristics . In mostly the transients but also the formants have not been very accurate in Melodyne studio either. I have had this mic for over ten years but it has had this characteristic for as long as I can remember. Before the Roland interface I used Emu 1616m interfaces but I was using v-vocal back then too. The good old days of Cakewalk for MS DOS when the only thing between a Sure SM58 and the Fostex reel-to-reel was a Peavey mixer. Having a second interface and mic will give me something to compare. I assume the AT 4040 will not be worse than the AT 2020.