Everyone has been getting onto me, with good reason, for not posting any new music or production. Alas, it has been almost three weeks since I moved to Houston. I can’t exactly argue that I’m not settled in. Plus, I’ve been working on music, believe it or not.
I now work second shift, which means I drive home around two in the morning. I actually love it, since I’m a night owl, but the empty highways and mercury vapor lights have started to influence my mood when I do composition. Here is one that is directly inspired from that tone. Enjoy!
Heavily modified vocals in Melodyne, a pounding breakbeat, and speaker-bending textures and sound design. My typical NIN remix.
Start to finish, this remix took about three weeks to take shape, and is the largest project I’ve ever worked on to date (in terms of track/bus count). I did my usual workflow on this one: sequence the parts in Live, fix & manipulate the vocals in Melodyne, then mix, tinker, and master in Audition.
Ultimately, it came down to 42 individual tracks routed through 10 busses. When it was “stemmed” out to let other remixers remix my remix, the smallest stem count I could get was 30, plus the vocal comp. Suffice to say, this was an enormous project. As usual, even with an absolute murder of Waves plug-ins, reverb sends/returns, sidechain compressors, and the overall size, Audition never flinched. The final master was done with the L2.
Echoplex LP (Back)
If you really want to geek out, here’s a list of the stems: synth-o-plex, fuzzy synth, bass digs, super funky bass, bass strikes down, bass stabs with echo, female soprano vocals, guitar swells, female solo vocals, piano ostenato, storm drum, hats 1, hats 2, hats 3, misc percussion 1, misc percussion 2, 18 violions and 10 violas, piano through guitar rig, cymbal splashes, cymbal crescendos, bass drum and kicks, snare 1, share 2, stomped drum kit, clean piano ender, funky guitar, piano riffs and loops, vocal comp dry, vocal comp main, vocal comp echo only, vocal comp harmony only.
That should give you a good idea how much crap is going on in this remix. Download these FLAC files at will below, and share if you like. Just bear in mind the Creative Commons License, which you can read at the footer of this and every page. (You can also click the album art above for the full size for front/back, if you keep those as well).
The first remix I did with any amount of exposure was of NIN’s “Only”. It’s still the longest remix I’ve done to date, clocking in at just under 11 minutes.
There is the main version and a dub version. The dub version, until now, has never been made available to the public. Now, after being asked to remaster both, I’m allowed and excited to offer them to the public. There’s little in terms of “story” behind this remix beyond a dozen hours sitting in front of a wide screen monitor in 2006 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The first master back then didn’t pass the “Jeep test”, and it took a few days to get the first version finalized.
Both remasters I completed today in about 3 hours. I’ve gotten better at mastering over the years. (It helps to have studio monitors and no distractions.)
I have uploaded FLAC versions, and you’re welcome to download a copy for yourself via the Creative Commons License mentioned in the footer of this page.
Here’s the current “preview” to my remix for NIN’s Discipline. This is unmastered, and I’m still working on the structure. Nevertheless, you can get a taste for the direction it’s headed (and the crazy shit I did to the vocals).
I’m glad to be done with this one. I originally started it in October of 2008, and could never quite get the “mix” right.
B Duduk (Center)
I’ve come to learn that Eastern instruments tend to occupy the same sonic range, so when you begin to mix and match them, the mix and master can become total “mush”. So, it wasn’t until tonight that I had patience in a mastering role to clean up some of the mess.
As with previous posts, a lot of this is inspired on the images, stories, and videos I got from friends in Iraq. The solo instrument that you may not recognize is the Duduk. It’s an Armenian instrument, and I employ it in music frequently. However, unlike all my other tracks, this is a B Duduk, with a slightly more harsh and breathy sound. I thought it could go head-to-head with the violin solo better.
The percussion consists of many layers, but the one that will likely stick out the most is the tabla ensemble, which has been run through…I can’t even remember what stack of filters…to give it that sharp, electronic sound. Likewise, all the guitars have been run through many, many iterations of Guitar Rig to get that “distressed” sound that seems to fit in well with the overall vibe of Eastern music.
This post will be short and sweet. I have posted an HD time lapse video on YouTube (and made it available for download at full 1080p resolution) that I shot during the course of an entire night.
I figured I couldn’t rightly post something so beautiful without music, so I just whipped something up in 10 minutes.
Apparently you guys like it, and people have been asking me to post it separately. So, I am. Enjoy!
When I sat down to compose my latest track, I also set up the time lapse rig with the idea in mind of letting you see the way I work…in a condensed form.
Ableton Live 8
What you’re watching is four hours worth of composition, stemming, mixing, “bussing”, and mastering reduced to three minutes. You’re listening to the final result while you watch it being created! I thought that would be cool. It’s probably really stupid. (The video is at the bottom of this posting, or you can skip right to YouTube to watch it in your own domain.)
In the first few seconds of the time lapse, you will see me working in Ableton Live 8. I am “stemming” (bouncing/rendering) the parts to 32-bit WAV files. For example, I am separating the piano part from the guitar part and so on.
Adobe Audition 3
The rest of the video is spent in Adobe Audition 3, my baby. Some musicians and audiophiles are probably repulsed that I would use Audition for all my mixing and mastering. I have a few words to say about that, as it turns out. Most importantly, I think that there is no “best” multi-track suite or DAW software. Rather, I think how you use the tools are your disposal is what matters. I could never turn around the same quality product in Pro Tools, for example, because I have little to no experience using it. On the other hand, I do have an extensive background in radio, where Audition tends to dominate the landscape.
I’ve easily spent tens of thousands of hours of my life in front of Audition. It’s at that point that you get into an interesting zone where you’re able to “think” in Audition, almost as if it’s a language. Setting levels, EQ, mixing, etc…they all become second nature. I don’t know the psychology behind it or if it’s just muscle memory, but when you tear down the need to think about the menial details of production, you become a fluid producer. What’s more, I’ve stuck with Audition simply because it allows me to do 90% of what I require as a musician, remixer, and mastering engineer without needing third party plug-ins. That is to say…out of the box, Audition is up to the task of almost everything I need to do. (This is true of any competent DAW or multi-track editing software.)
As you read on about my work flow or process, you’ll realize that I have very little need on a day-to-day basis to supplement Audition with third party plug-ins. Even when I do require a plug-in, I’m pretty religious about the ones I will use, and it’s a short list. It’s a combination I’ve become so comfortable with. A comfort level to the point where I’m free to be artistic within Audition instead of procedural. It’s able to keep up with me, it’s flexible enough to let me change my mind all the time, and the details of its inner-workings don’t get in my way as a creator.
This is probably how YOU feel about your DAW, be it Pro Tools or whatever. My only point is that it’s not the tool, but how you use it. Finding that synergy is absolutely critical to being able to “create” rather than “screw around with settings”. Long story short, Audition is that tool for me. (Rant complete.)
You’ll see my process for setting up “first draft” masters of songs. First, I begin to tinker and arrange the stems and parts and samples to get a feel for how I want things laid out. You see me change my mind a few times near the beginning. Then, once the overall layout and flow of the song takes shape and is to my satisfaction, I begin to work on the sound of each specific track or instrument.
C4 Multiband Compressor
It’s at this point that you will see me using many different tools. I rely heavily on the built-in plug-ins provided in Audition (reverb, channel EQ, etc) and also the Waves plug-ins. Specifically, you will notice that I fall back on the C4 compressor on almost every track.
Once I’m happy with the sound of each instrument or track, I get a little more serious about the overall mix itself. I will create a bus for each logical group to simplify the mixing/mastering part. In audio terminology, a bus is just a group. For example, instead of having all the percussion and drum tracks go straight to the “Master” channel, I can route them to a bus called “Drums”. (These show up as yellow faders on screen.)
This lets me make changes to all the constituent tracks at once. This is handy for two reasons. First, if you’re going to apply the same effects to all your drum tracks, you can do it in one place (the bus) versus each individual track. This saves you a TON of processing power (and time). Second, it helps with the final stage of the process…mastering.
Towards the end, once the bus for each group has been set up and the mix is “okay”, you will see me open the automation lanes for each bus. This allows me to basically “draw” the volume and set keyframes over time. As an example, the loudness of the piano and guitar varies depending on the density of the mix and what else is going on at the time. In this case, I fade them down gradually whenever the cello and violin solos kick in. When your tracks are properly “bussed”, it makes mastering much faster and pleasant.
L2 UltraMaximizer
The audiophiles and other musicians out there are wondering what I’m using on the master channel for the “final mastering”. The answer is the L2 from Waves. About 99% of my tracks are mastered with the L2. The other 1% are usually the L3 MultiMaximizer. But, I usually prefer the “loud and proud” tendencies of the L2. (Waves products and plug-ins have a reputation of being “pricey”. While this is true to some extent, I’ve personally never lamented a purchase. The proof is in the sound for me. What’s more, an investment in the best tools can never be a mistake.)
When you combine Audition with each bus with the L2, it makes mastering almost magical and fun. You negate the need to worry about tedious details and allow yourself time to experiment with the mix of your track…the best favor you can do for yourself as a musician or engineer.
Enough jargon! On to the fun part…the video! Be sure to watch in HD if you’ve got broadband!
I’ve also included the audio on its own, in case you’d like listen without video or to keep a personal copy (which I’m fine with). Just remember the copyright warning about using it for anything else.
This one is hard to describe. It incorporates a lot of sound design done in Absynth 4 and Guitar Rig. I have also dipped into my arsenal of crazy, raging, angry guitars.
The production phase was a procedural experiment for me, cutting music specifically to picture. I can’t post the images, but I can definitely post the music. It starts off slow with some of the sound design, but quickly evolves into an angry, thunderous beat-down.
The pace is picking up on the Ambient Project 2009. This marks the second track to be marked as mastered and “final”, and there are four more songs that are currently sitting at the “headphone master” or “intermediate master” stage.
That is, to say, they’re a fraction of a percent from being finished.
This track will be an interlude between two longer tracks. A way to change the mood and flow of the progression of the album. You can listen to and download the 320Kbps MP3 below, or feel free to grab the FLAC version (about 8 megs). I encourage you to download it, scrobble it, share it, and help get the word out. It’s being released under Creative Commons one way or another!
This track actually dates back to the summer of 2006. It was created entirely in Absynth 3 on a crappy laptop with a Celeron processor while I sat on my ex’s porch in Rock Hill, South Carolina. I was dabbling with creating space-ish sounds in Absynth, and came across this lush sonic landscape. I played a few notes, and it just seemed to work, so I kept it (shaking off the filth that comes with making good music on bad equipment). Believe it or not, this was one take…the only take that was ever done. The only modifications to the track since 2006 has been to master it and add the sub-bass accents near the middle. Otherwise, it’s completely untouched.
The first remix I did with any amount of exposure was of NIN’s “Only”. It’s still the longest remix I’ve done to date, clocking in at just under 11 minutes.
Fresh off the…assembly line (?).
