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First Attempt!


Andrew Rhodes

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Hi all :)  Just started using Cakewalk - a lot to learn, but amazing program for free!

This is my first attempt at recording, so any suggestions would be welcome. Timing is a bit off in places, and I found it quite difficult to get the overall sound/equalisation right. I found it sounds quite different on headphones when compared to listening on my reasonable hifi set up, after which I reduced the overall bass a bit.  Not sure how to embed the soundcloud song so it plays dierectly?

 

https://soundcloud.com/user-614229134/just-a-boy

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Hey, great first attempt! It sounds pretty good to me, nice song and vocals. Don't know if you've read up on audio transients but it is great way to get the timing cleaned up. Just make sure to get rid of unneeded transients and I move some of them so the transient is just before the note so it doesn't stretch it weird. I kind of strangely enjoy the process.

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There's two different arrows depending on where your mouse is , one moves the transient marker and the other lets you stretch or shrink. I screwed some stuff up learning to use it. Look at Creativesauce youtube cakewalk videos, he has a lot of easy to understand tutorials, I've learned a lot from him.

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Great song, great vocal work and your skill with the instruments is of a high standard .. But the mix is off and as you said the timing in parts needs to be really tightened up (play with the transients  not sure if that's gonna help in this example) ... Thing is I really like this song  and I think Nigel has a point regarding the vocal .. Overall for a first attempt, and bearing in mind the difficulties of this DAW I would say, for my pennyworth it's an excellent attempt, great songwriting !

Steve

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Hi Steve (and everyone else! ) , thanks for the comments. Constructive criticism is what I need! With regard to the vocals,  I did originally have them louder but thought they needed pulling back a bit, looks like I was wrong! 

Steve, when you say the mix is off,  which parts in particular do you mean? Gain of parts within the song, EQing, panning?  Would be useful to know for future tracks. Thanks! 

Edited by Andrew Rhodes
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 Andrew, I thought that was a Great flowing song with a Great vocal performance. You'll find your editing skills will become as important as your playing skills .  There are lots of different ways to get the same results , I'm still doing a lot of cutting and manually moving  parts. One thing I wish I had done early on , is to leave myself  "way" more room at the end of songs for proper fades if I decided I wanted a longer one.   Looking forward to hearing more from you.  Enjoyed it  mark

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I enjoyed this one a lot. The only real nit I could hear that was admittedly small was the bass is a little muddy. There seem to be some low mid frequency clashes. I didn't think the timing was really a huge issue. Real players play real and real isn't locked to a metronome. I listened on my ATH-M50x which are known to have some mid range bump in those areas so some of it could be my phones.

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On 2/12/2021 at 1:05 PM, Andrew Rhodes said:

Hi Steve (and everyone else! ) , thanks for the comments. Constructive criticism is what I need! With regard to the vocals,  I did originally have them louder but thought they needed pulling back a bit, looks like I was wrong! 

Steve, when you say the mix is off,  which parts in particular do you mean? Gain of parts within the song, EQing, panning?  Would be useful to know for future tracks. Thanks! 

OK .... that's a hard one to quantify, in that, we all hear and mix to our own idea of what the overall work should sound / convey like when mixing, we sometimes (well I do ) get too engrossed with the song and forget the nuances that inevitably will make our work stand out .. That's why the pro's use high end engineers ! But that said, Bandlab gives you a pretty good set of tools to do a pro job .. indeed there are still great engineers that use Sonar Platinum (Now owned by Bandlab .. thankfully ) due to the fact it's a fantastically great way to make your own music.... the future is yours mate and I wish you good luck, from here I hear a very polished songwriter! 

But for my bit, I would look into the 'Stereo  Imager st-2s' (NOMAD) for the main mix on a separate BUS  (No vox on this)  Then backing vox on another Bus (slightly higher in the mix ) and you vocal on another bus with a tad of 2s to make it 'settle in to the overall sound.

At 1.21 to 1.40 the bass drum ,echo? not sure ... but that's where I think the timing went adrift or sounds like it has  / at 1.44   I feel the snare could be reduced a tad.

Well that's my neck right out there for the butcher .. guys on this site don't take prisoners and I'm sure they'll blow this comment apart .. but that's just the vertical curve ..ain't it !

Great song and I've listened to it quite a few times now .. BTW always poke the quote if you wanna flag a question as I only see your comment by accident!

Keep writing and stay well

Steve

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On 2/10/2021 at 4:40 PM, Andrew Rhodes said:

Not sure how to embed the soundcloud song so it plays dierectly  directly

Control-C the url, Control-v that to the forum; don't type the url in.
Don't feel bad, drove me nuts forever...

Great tune BTW, ?'s!

tom

did anyone say "welcome to the forum"?

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Welcome to the forum.

Great song. Well constructed and performed.

Now, like the rest of us, the real work comes in getting the recording to show off all it's best bits without any making or phaseyness, Your mix has some of that and as Wookiee and David say, some EQ work would be next place to learn/proactice.

Many a beginner is instructed to use a reference track that sonically sounds like what you want. There are details on the web in how to use an EQ like FabFiler Q3 (just to name one) and create a narrow band of lows, mid lows, mid highs and highs one at a time to compare what's happenning in your mix compared to your reference mix.

Just be sure to level balance your reference mix (commercial mixes my well be much louder than your final Master bus, and don't fee the reference into your master bus if it has processing on it. 

 

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Thanks for all the comments guys, I think I have plenty to learn! With this being my first song, I seemed to want to get through it pretty quick, so there were very few takes on the guitar and mandolin. I think in future I need to take more time, and make sure the final instrument/vocal recording is what I'm really happy with, rather than thinking "it will do".  On EQ'ing I just messed with it until it just sounded about right, I have no method really, so I need to learn how to have a more methodical approach I think. How to do that, I'm not sure at the moment - I need to read up and watch more tutorials maybe. I have quite a few questions, but not sure if this is the right place to ask - I think probably best to ask in the main forum. 

Once again, thanks for the comments, it will really help in future recordings.

@SupaReels Steve, if you read this, I've not spent much money on my set up, I looked at Stereo Imager ST2s, it's probably more than I would want to pay. However, I've downloaded and tried Isotope Ozone Imager V2, which I think seems to do a very similar thing (seems pretty good for free!)?  Would this be a reasonable replacement for the Nomad vst?

 

Edited by Andrew Rhodes
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On 2/18/2021 at 12:25 AM, Andrew Rhodes said:

 

 

@SupaReels Steve, if you read this, I've not spent much money on my set up, I looked at Stereo Imager ST2s, it's probably more than I would want to pay. However, I've downloaded and tried Isotope Ozone Imager V2, which I think seems to do a very similar thing (seems pretty good for free!)?  Would this be a reasonable replacement for the Nomad vst?

1st off it's a bloody good song so don't get too bugged down with black buttons and stuff ..it's all about the song and it's effect on the listener, you asked, originally what was felt about the mix and some things stood out to me that might help the mix you had ... but that's just me, you only have to listen to my stuff to realise I also have a great deal top learn ! But I love writing and some songs are so good on this site it amazes me their writers are still here ,.... and poor LOL .. Oh and BTW your thoughts about the Ozone Imager V2 Yep ! good one !! All power to the Lbow ?

 .... and check these out ...blinding stuff ( And they work with any DAW )

Regards

Steve

 

Edited by SupaReels
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