TapperMike

Real Band - Realband is a real gem for Band in a Box devotees such as myself. It is not what I would consider a full bodied DAW. My version of Realband is dated I'm told that the issues I've experienced regarding midi input have been addressed and the new features of BIAB and Realband are quite exciting. Still I'm not ready to click the Upgrade button. Realband has a hokey homespun ui to match with BIAB. certain features that I've come to expect nay demand in a daw simply aren't present. While I continue to use Realband and more importantly biab on a daily basis and I would reccomend BIAB/Real band to the novice old school hobbyist enthusiast. BIAB is a dream for arranger/composer types in the writing process. Transferring biab songs to realband for more complete audio performance as well as mixdown completes it. While the audio cleaning features are enjoyable it still has a long way to go in mixdown/mastering. Samplitute/Magix - This was "THE ONE" Better midi support, better cleaning tools outstanding mastering tools (for it's time) Better UI, Better handling of audio singals. It was my be all end all. The effects looked and sounded like brand name hardware versions that I'd used back in the anolog galaxy of the 70's and 80's (long before iRig etc) The most important part... better dithering. Something that guys like me slave over and non engineers throw up their hands and just cry why about. There are a million things I love about this product and one thing I loath. It crashes all the time. Too much bloatware in the code. Errors popping up constantly. For some reason while in the past it handled mutiple audio formats and sampling rates with ease now it's a disaster waiting to happen. Abelton Live I've had various incarnations of the lite versions as supplied by hardware manufacturers. I've never thought the product was worthy of paying out for the pro based on what I've experienced with the light version. Terrible audio sample rate adjustment. Sometimes things are recorded at a very high sample rate and other times low. Depending on which codec was used (there are several codecs out for any given format) This can crash on import. No rhyme no reason. Mediocre audio input processing. I know the whole zero latency audio trick (and yes it's a trick) too bad Abelton hasn't figured it out. Midi latency and cc issues. (Why the freak is it so bad and doesn't handle/filter aftertouch at all) It seems to me they added all this wiz band time correction / quantization to cover up for the fact both they and users can't get something right the first time. So be amazed at the broken record fixer. I'll admit. After playing with trackers and using hardware sequencers forever and a day I was completely baffled by session view. I didn't get it and I was too arrogant to RTFM. I was no stranger to EDM production hardware but I was still flabergasted. Once I finally adapted to session view and dealt with the poor midi implementation. I was in stupid heaven creating the most inane of iname loops and playing with the scene and loop features. So much so I rarely delved into the arrangement view. It was amusing and trite, I much preferred jazz improvisation and conventional songwriting and arranging. It's funny I often thought about trying to pursue employment with Abelton as I have backgrounds in programming, and production. So now.... Now I have a very very limtied budget. Any aspirations of returing to audio production recording or general musicianship playing on a pay basis have all but vanished. Lean, stable, capable of handling midi and audio with equal respect. Decent plugins for post processing. My Choices are_ 1. Mixcraft: (it looks good, the vsti's I already own I have not trialed it. 2. Reaper: This product is loved by younger budget concious types. It's still very flexible but you have to dig. The guy at the top is a little zany. But I love how he goes out in the public forums and addresses matters head on. I think he's got one heck of a track record. I admire his dedication to code. And I like the fact that he builds software and tests ti on less powerful computers. His stuff is designed to work with average joe computers, not super server powerhouses running xeon with rme audio cards or high end macs. 3. Studio One2 (artist): This broke industry standards when it was released. Die hard big brand producers ran from bloatware to embrace the stability and grace that Studio One has to offer. So many others that have walked in my exact same shoes in regards to big name daws have switched for good.

I'd like to give a shout out of thanks to the Mixcraft suggestion. Right now I'm debating between Studio One2, Reaper and Mixcraft. With Pro Tools it's all about. Perception. People percieve that it's the big bad name in audio product that everyone must have it. And it works against you in the big leagues because it's an expectation artists have. Here's in interesting comparisson. I work in the FLASH industry. (t's not as dead as markerts would have one believe. My company makes a "me too" product http://www.swishzone.com/index.php We have a wide variety of users from novice/amatures to major firms. Professionals like our product because it's easier to use and cuts down on production time. Yet they still keep flash around for those who insist that it be made with adobe flash. Adobe Flash has it's own set of quirks and limitations as well as features that would break the bank for us to adopt. We don't want to be adobe and our goal is to bring our own unique flash made simpler identity. The same can be said about the state of Pro Tools. It's easily recognized as being at the top of the food chain. And many a production house as well as educational facility blindly accepts whatever Pro Tools throws their way. Pragmatism is what you make of it. Is it more pragmatic to embrace an industry standard in hopes of attracting major names and big budgets or is it more pragmatic to work in an environment that insures quick and equally effective results. I am neither pro brand identity nor anti-brand identity when it comes to daws. If something has worked for me well in the past I may continue to go along with it. However if it does not meet my expectations I will not hold out and wait maybe for them to fullfill it. I don't throw good money after bad. Here is an abridged summary of what I have had or still use. Cubase - I was using cubase back during windows 3.1 I still have various versions of cubasis laying around that were free with various purchases. God awful UI. Midi tracking was better when I was using a midi to printer port cable. Fairly decent at CC support for plug ins. I applaud Steinberg for VST1, VST2, VST2.5 but not VST3 They offered up an industry standard so that instruments and effects could be used across multiple daw/host platforms and raised an industry up of plug in makers both professional and amatuer. They did what hasn't been done since the implimentation of midi itself nor afterwards. VST3 takes a lot of minor players out of the game. VST2.5 has all the features of VST3 without the draconian licensing. I've had many cubasis software versions that have been packed with various hardware controller. Still crappy ui. Cakewalk - Here is another oldy of mine. I got Home Studio back in ...'95 since then I've also owned various incarnations including protracks and sonar. Better midi input implimentation worse audio implimentation. Functional effective UI I had numerous problems with hardware integration. Hardware that I specifically purchased for it's integration capabilities with Cakewalk. Things like channel bleeding controls not functioning as they should. SouceForge / Acid - I believe it was before Sony's aquisition of Sourceforge but I could never get the damn thing to work I paid a lot of money for it, no support and no refund. It was bloatware sometimes I thought all the ram and processing power in the world wouldn't save it. And in my case I was right. I purchased Acid when it was still owned by Vegas. That was my money maker for a time. A large multimedia conglomorate had aquired flaskit and wanted to invigorate it by providing free loops. They paid me good money to start the show and I produced a large assortment of loops for them. After the ball started rolling they offered it up to the masses where anyone could upload loops and apply various rights to them. http://www.flashkit.com/loops/ I also made contributions to the movie sound FX library. Through my involvement with flashkit as a member and flash designer I would get thrown a bone from various other flash developers usually for incidental music without the rights restrictions that dealing with a company like taxi as well as the other costs. As well there were a growing number of acid users who were willing to pay me for my mixdown/mastering and occassional session work adding tracks. I knew it wouldn't last but it was money and work. I would have people contacting me showing what they had done previously some were specfic (which I prefer) about what they wanted and or needed and some where less specific (which can lead to inhouse problems especially in bands) I would evaluate the rough stereo cut. Explain what I thought was needed and offer a pricing guide for those services. I gained both a lot of credibility and a lot of rejection. Someone might take my ideas and feel they didn't need me or take them to a different party. A few would come back and be more then happy to pay me for my services. I never overcharged for my work. And sometimes that would be hell if I needed to put in extra effort and time to get the job done right. Acid was aquired by Sony and many of my base were working in the sony version. So I had to. The first installments of Acid were incredibly dummied down and lacked the features I'd come to know and love about acid. I felt that the price increase wasn't worth it. Still I relented and caved to Sony. I'd ended up doing more then a few tricks to pull the tracks out then work in Cakewalk and later Magix/samplitude. If the customer only wants the end result of the stereo tracks that's fine. However If one has to then try and get the tracks back into acid it's impossible (well not impossible simply degrading audio quality) I through good money after bad chasing acid hoping for a return to the level of quality I'd experienced with the Vegas version of the product. Sony's representitives told acid user who were also clamouring that... We weren't the demographic. We were too smart for the product. They saw the cash cow as those who weren't engineers but temp workers or hobbyists. My working with Acid was originally enjoyable and while it didn't make me rich atleast allowed me to make some money in the industry. It was also fleeting. There is no longer an environment where I could make money using acid and no desire to use the product. Even though in successive years sony did step up the game a little. It pales by comparission to the rest of the industry. I have other issues with sony sufficent that I never want to deal with the company at any level for anything they may have. This is not limited to the daw market. Adobe - I have way, way too many issues with Adobe, some may not be what people think. While I have worked in studios using adobe products in the past I won't be working with 90% of thier products any time in the forseeable future. more.....

Wow, Mike great read. Your post belongs in a blog somewhere.

Yikes I was posting in response to iko and then Ramesh replied before I posted. Anyway. Iko this is for you though it may be of value to anyone reading this thread. This is where guy's like me get all wishy washy for a reason. The entire recording process is like ... economics. Everything affects everything else either directly or indirectly. Example if you solo a channel so you can hear that channel only and then apply a little eq that audio signal may sound great in solo mode. But when you bring in the other channels what you did will affect how you hear the other channels to a greater or lesser degree. So A Rhode is good when you have a properly prepped room. I cannot afford to build an isolation booth in my apt. An isolation booth Isolates the sounds to the room itself and what is being recorded in the room. They are like... if you've ever walked into a walk in cooler like restaraunts have and turned off the cooling syste. The reflections are hard so then you have to sound proof the walls/ceiling and floor to reject all the audio from the instrument or voice. If you have a sensitive ribbon mic in a room and you are recording a voice in that same room and listening to the recording as well as any playback recordings.... Your mic is going to pick up the sound of those other things on the mic and then down the line. This is known as bleeding Bleeding is when one sound is no longer in isolation. The fantasy or ideal is that you want to record tracks with as much isolation as possible in order to properly process them in the later stage of mixdown[/b[ It's not a good idea to think you can save bleeding issues in the mixdown. If the bleed is minimal you might be able to suppress the bleed with a noise gate. More often then not if you try to completely eliminate the bleed with a noise gate it will have a detrimental effect on the sound quality of what you actually intended to record at the time. Simple solution.... Use headphones for playback sounds and try to isolate your live instruments (if you have more then one such as singing while playing guitar or more instruments) Understanding mic characteristics if you have lots of them or one allows you to make the most of what you have. I'm not rich though at one time I did own a small studio which bankrupted me and all the stuff was sold off to pay off creditors. I lost big and I'm still paying off the debt many many years later even after. Now I practice guerrilla recording. I don't use warez. I will occasionally use freeware. I generally use modestly priced plugins for sounds and use the effects inside my daw or soundlibrary rather then chase after expensive plug ins that I may use once or not at all. Okay... so as usual I still haven't touched basis with a lot of things that need to be discussed about the initial recording process. If I get too side tracked with mic selection and placement That will be all too consuming and maybe a little scary. Next up the signal chain for recording and understanding meters.

Back for a short bit. Okay controlled use of levels and or compression. Lets talk about setting the trim and vocal technique. The trim. The trim is the first level control and affects everything thereafter. This is why it is always located near the actual input of a mixer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-SPn1B1H0M Here is a common problem that engineers have with musicians when setting the trim. An engineer needs that a vocalist sing as loud as possible to set the optimum level. Not to high to there is not clipping (an unwanted distorted muffled effect from recording too high) and not too low so an optimal dynamic range and headroom can be achieved. Now live and recording situations are quite different. And often require different mic's and eq settings. In live situations the main goal is to get the levels up and eq the hell out of it to reduce feedback issues. The more you use feedback rejection methods as a means to an end the more muffled the sound becomes. If the levels are too high for the stage monitors it can cause permanent ear damage for the band members but if it's too low. They can't hear themselves no matter how close to the mic. Especially in a band situation. Live situations can be hell if there is not good communication between the engineer and the musicians. Recording situations can be equally hell for the same reason of poor communication. When a sound engineer is setting the trim levels those shouldn't change. However sometimes when setting the level a musician/singer will not give the same volume out put as they do when performing. Sometimes they set the level and then the musician/singer performs more quietly which causes the levels to drop. More often as the song goes on the musicians "rise up" singing/playing harder / louder then originally intended redlining the meters. Which is a little bit like what happened with your song. As you bring more excitement you sing harder and play harder. On analog tape this would have caused a mild soft tape distortion at best. In the digital realm this results in clipping. When the singal is too hot it clips. The sound is distorted (though not like guitar distortion) the higher frequencies disappear and everything sounds more muffled. Yes, headroom is good for EDM but EDM already starts with a very limited dynamic range and once you go beyond headroom you've hit the volume ceiling which is clipping. Heavy Metal and EDM are the only two musical styles which should use maximum headroom. Adjusting the trim during recording is destructive and non reversable. (almost) all other volume levels during the initial recording are not. So what does this have to do with Alanis Morisette and you? As mentioned earlier studio mixing is not like live mixing. You don't have to eat the mic in the studio and it's best that even if you close mic it be set further back. This way the levels won't fluctuate as much with changes in singing or playing volumes. When you sing at a very soft level come closer to the mic. When you sing at a normal level stay a few inches back. When you sing strong with full voice sing past and off axis from the direct line of sight to the mic. As well you can sing strong without as much force and still have a forceful strong delivery. It takes a little time to develop. But your heartfelt singing can exist at a slightly lower level. Why I prefer using two mic's even when mixed down to mono. When you have a center focused near mic it picks up highs in a natural way that don't sound as synthetic as adding hi's to the the q. When one uses a slighty more distand large diapham ribbon it captures the mids and lows better. It also adds a quality of "air" even in a treated room. It's also easier to manage levels after trim but before the signal chain. ....more to come

I love stories and brushes with fame especially when combined. I've got a lot of them myself. No money to show for it or recognition but I've got the stories. I'd rather have the experiences to chat about then not to have any

Well Tom atleast you've got a story to tell for playing with them. hmm Black Sabbath Blue Monday - Fats Domino http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3e_y9Bc7hs

I'm debating on moving over to Reaper as a Daw. I have an older version of Sonar which I can't find my registration info so I can't update. I usually prefer to work with samplitude for the mastering suite but it's been crashing like mad. Latency is huge with Live. I've had cubase. I'm more interested in a less frills less spills type of environment like Studio One or Reaper.

It's impossible to do so after the fact. And impossible to give a one size fits all. I love these forums because songwriters as opposed to producer/dj types are in it for the long run. They expect to go through revisions along the way. The same is true for recording and mixing. In an instant world it's still better to step back and treat the arrangement / recording and mixdowns as separate parts of the journey. It starts with good arrangement and recording techniques. I am a firm believer in old school hardware four tracks for songwriter types as opposed to daws. Because It makes one focus on arrangement. I own this.... Which you don't need and has a lot of confusion. What would be preferable for you is a used (or new) multi-track recorder that you can transfer the format to your computer for mixdown and mastering. Something like rudi has. You actually only need two inputs but you will need to be able to send those inputs to at least four channels (preferably 6 or more) Dont get a fostex MR-6 The user inteface is difficult and the buttons are very hard and sticky and break easy (coming from someone who has and has broken the thing due to unresponsive controls) Tascam's dp series are fine. Roland BR series is fine, newer zooms (R8, R16, R24) are great (don't get older zooms MRS-4) The two big things is it unclutters the mind and you won't have to deal with latency issues. When you record Your job is to play the instrument and/or sing the song, not be distracted by a ui or fight with other things. Once you hit record look away from the controls and if at all possible away from the levels. (not always possible) they serve as a distraction. If you've set your levels correctly then you shouldn't have to worry about them. I know, money is tight. It is for me too (now) Side note: Mic'ing. I notice that aside from having a wide dynamic range on your voice the michrophone is positions for your voice. Between your singing loudness and the apparent focus of the mic. Your guitar is being squashed. The most prefered method is to record these separately. The second is to mic these separately with narrow focus mic's even if there is cross talk between them. Here is a dummied down understanding of phase cancellation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N0ER4A73QE I don't ascribe to all of it as when I mic I use different distances, The distance and type of mic's when paired allow for better/ fuller mixing during mixdown. Now I want you to listen (diss believe what you see and focus on the listening http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v9yUVgrmPY Alanis Moresette has a wide dynamic vocal range. You have a wide dynamic vocal range (soft to loud) And while I'm betting a multi-band compressor was used on the end it would have never gotten to that point without some ingenious mic'ing pre q and riding the gain and overdubs. She and the song go from wisper soft to extremely loud within a very limited dynamic range. Yet nothing is squashed and the quiet parts are "crisp" and clear the loud parts the other instruments and her voice arent' muffled. I bring these subjects up because. While I was listening to your song (You're a great vocalist) you had a moment when you performed a decrescendo on a sustained note and slightly turned your head away from the mic. Getting back to phase cancelation. Phase cancellation can occur even with one mic It doesn't have to be complete phase cancellation where no sound occurs. But I heard a little of that and a dramatic shift in eq that I struggled with a little bit then decided I had to take care of some bills. So there was that slight moment when it sounded slightly off in phase and slightly darker q and...unnatural drop in volume not consistent with your decrescendo. It drove me nuts trying to come up with something to compensate..... From my ears it sounded like a condensor mic with a narrow field pattern http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar07/articles/micpatterns.htm Anyway, It's time to go to work here. There is much to cover yet.

I'll show you a little trick It's not a reverb effect or a delay effect Watch - http://tappermike.com/songstuff/chro11b.html First the duplicate track is played the same as the rest. Second (brief) I move the track over for a sever delay sound. Third time I back up the position so it is slightly out of alignment with the original one. Thats what you want... a very very slight shift along the timeline. The reflection is niether spring nor room nor dampened

This is apparently taking up more time then I have right now.

Unfortunately. The ceiling was too high. It may have been a 24bit 48k that got run through the mill when it was uploaded.then sc used normalization Right now I'm doing some rather elaborate post processing. Splitting the stereo tracks and duplicating them then processing each a little differently. Then remixing them in the stereo field.

I've heard the track. I have some things to do. I'll pm you with my response which will be rather lengthy.

Re Red Garland. In retrospect I should have used Erroll Garner as an example of timing as his playing was more overt with timing distinctions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM-77RvpJf0 Dick Hyman explains this at about 3:50 into it

It's that misicule slightly off the meter swoosh which richards pretty much stole from listening to Ry Cooder Re Evans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIfHtPwF8wY It's a long interview At about 2:30 he gets into discussing working against the meter and then demonstrates it to full effect slightly there after. A funny thing about timing and time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFzMjp3fQyk Gypsy Jazz specifies that when you change strings you use a downward rest stroke to the next string. This is regardless if you are going up or down the across the strings. It creates a sense of roughness as opposed to conventional alternate picking. A decending line is not quite as smooth locked in time as an ascending line. Eric Johnson explains "bouncing" technique here - at about the 1:10 mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACH5Z_YPmVg Bouncing not only creates a more organic feel to the tone it also is slightly off of the exact metronome placement. I've found that people who use more bounce in their technique/timing often end up being slightly (very slight) ahead of the beat in contrast with other musicians. This can give a certain push / energy to a piece without having to actually increase tempo or busy up the work.

It's most likely a levels issue not an eq one. Start with a limiter and work backwards

Black Dog - Led Zepplin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tlSx0jkuLM

Joy To The World - Three Dog Night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFypAB7nYGA

Bah it isn't like these titles haven't come up more then a few times. Everybody wants to have fun tonight - Wang Chung http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXu6QmxpJE

A few things of note. I'd left my chord/melody playing behind several years ago. Since you started this topic I've been re exploring that aspect of guitar playing. So thanks for that. If you can.... find a bassist. A duo is fine for smaller more intimate settings and a bass player will free you up so you aren't always supporting the melody line with a harmony. Also bassists generally have smaller ego's. They are easier to get a long with then say another guitarist or a vocalist where considerations have to be made for what song to play and who does what. And on a final note.... Writing your own arrangements isn't as hard as it might seem at first once you get the hang of it. It can be a lot faster then trying to find the material already completely written out in tab as well offer a creative opporitunity akin to improvising itself.

Acoustic uprights don't fair to well in any settings. They are hard to mic and don't travel well. Acoustic electric basses like El Captian 's don't last long. The braceing doesn't survive well against the string tension. If you are looking for something with some (little) acoustic properties that amplifies well go for a u-bass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfffmBWCry0 The also have developed a special string for a more electric sound http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JzF-5k0pog

I hate mechanical beeps. Especially if the beep is not in tune or even in key with what I'm doing. I find a simple soft kick, snare or side stick a lot more bearable. I won't put it on all the beats. It depends on the song but usually it's either One and Three or Two and four.

The beatles ballad stuff always works well and there are a number of jazz legends who have recorded them. A few selected Sting songs such as Fields of Gold, Shape of My Heart. Norah Jones would work really well but I'm not aware of any solo guitar transcriptions. It's always nice to have something contemporary in the mix. Unfortunately I'm no help with that. I don't follow contemporary music maybe Jack Johnson A lot of soloist jazz performers I've seen (keys, guitar) invariably have to sing a song during the show. They don't sing all the songs but they will sing an occasional song. Usually when one carves up the amount of time to play instrumental music the voice can be weak. That's fine. Sing a song softly and then move to another or at least have some conversation with your audience to let them know you are human.

If you are a classical style player it doesn't hurt to throw classical gas or an occasional classical song into the mix. It often gives you credibility with the crowd. I would avoid doing a whole set of ...classical standards as it may disenfranchise your listening base.

Some will take work, that's for sure.. There are several "schools of thought" for fingerstyle or combinations there of in the soloist guitar performer world. When I started playing fingerstyle soloist jazz there were very few resources for actual material yet endless books on how to play fingerstyle. I developed my own approach and started building my own arrangements it was a lot of work. http://lickbyneck.com/ has a huge assortment of pieces arranged for fingerstyle. The .exe isn't dangerous but I prefer reading in guitar pro format as opposed to the method used. I realize band in the box is the bane around here. Nonetheless you'll never find a larger collection of lounge type songs then the biab member users have and.... biab has a chord solo feature that will insert functional harmony against the melody in a few different jazz styles. I used to be in the hospitality biz and for a few years I'd work at these restaraunts in hotels. The slower nights still had live entertainment either duo or single performer. Many would bring backing tracks with them for drums and bass. Many biab users do this as well. They'll take biab backing track or an output of the biab file (midi. mp3 with them to a gig) Band in a box chord soloist is work. As it's primary function isn't to simply hand you an arrangement but to show you what is possible in arranging for fingerstyle. If you have some fingerstyle soloist experience it can enhance your experience but still you may need to fill things up and make minor changes to the arrangement to fill things up. It's a great tool for learning not always the best tool when you want something you can quickly add to a repetoire. The fingerstyle arrangements (I'm sure they are out there) for Guitar Pro are well hidden. It seems they were more popular with the powertab and tabedit community. Many of those have vanished as well. Most chord melody transcriptions now are in pdf format. All those things being said. I kind of stumbled on my own arrangement practices with simple sheet music like Wikifonia unfortunately wikifonia was closed down when funing for the material ran out. I'll also use biab and rather then go with the chord sol feature devise my own arrangements. I stumbled upon chord/melody the same way as Tuck Andress. After being in many bands I was in a position where I was accompanying a singer alone which required me to revise my treatment of chord/bass arrangements. Then one day I happened upon a melody and started harmonizing it. There used to be a vast community ahd huge archives for powertab aimed at fingerstyle/soloist guitar but they too have all been diminished. As well a smaller comminity for tabedit. Most current stock tab editors (guitar pro etc) will open these older ptb and tef files. But you'll do a lot of surfing the web to find fingerstyle transcriptions. I've honestly been thinking of assembling a collection of favored transcriptions however I don't feel comfortable linking to them online for legal reasons.