"Claustrophobic" mixes

[Guest voclizr]

I wonder if anybody who's ever listened to my stuff takes notice of the "claustrophobic" quality in the mix. I listen all the time with headphones, but I can't seem to shake this feeling that there is no "spaciousness" in my mixes and everything seems to be right up against your head and I find that annoying! I use reverb in my mixes to create depth. Maybe I'm using too much. Can too much reverb cause this? Appreciate any help.

John B.

[hariossa]

I did a listening to "follow" and "Nuclear Confusion" with my headphones and yes, it sounds a bit like you said. Maybe you can try to use less reverb on each instrument and add a little general reverb to the whole mix, experiment with that.

Try not to add much reverb to the low end of the mix, you can use an eq ahead of the reverb to avoid that.

[hariossa]

I liked "Nuclear Confusion", you sound a bit like Roger Waters at some points! it's kind of an Alan Parsons tune. Nice.

[Guest voclizr]

Thanks Hari!

Yeah, it kinda occurred to me that while reverb creates a sense of depth, too many reflections going on at different spots could make things cluttered and result in the claustrophobic sound. I wanted to verify it with some of you guys who have been doing this longer than me though. I often wondered if the "digital" factor also plays into it. Back in the late 80's when I was doing 4-track cassette analog with my Alesis Microverb II the reverb always seemed to spread the spacial field out, especially using the large room patches. With this setup I can crank up the largest room setting as high as it will go and it still hides in the mix. I also have to take into consideration that the keyboard sounds have their own reverb, which I can't alter. Thanks for the kind word on "Nuke". I remixed it again last week after finally figuring out how to do an "automated" mixdown. The touch sensitivity on my keyboard can be a pain sometimes as it makes the volumes vary and results in more cues at mixdown (which I hate). So this makes it easier, though it takes a bit longer but once you have it , it's there to stay until or unless you change it. I'll try your tips. Thanks again!

John B.

[tachyon]

I'm not sure that claustrophopic is exactly what you mean. To me it is perhaps more a digital clarity lack of ambience vibe that you tend to get with (what sound likes) MIDI tracked stuff digitally recorded. As with any suggestions, and certainly all mine, YMMV.

As pointed out above it often works well to limit per track reverb and then tie the mix together at the end with a single carefully chosen room ambience reverb so it sounds like your instruments and voice are in the same performance space, rather than all performing in different reverberating spaces.

A time worn technique with vocals is to pick a reverb that sounds good and wind it up so you can just hear it when you solo the track. Then drop the vocal into the mix and drop the reverb until you just start to loose it. It is still there but will be at that delightful level where it enhances the voice without being obvious. You don't tend to hold notes with a long vibrato so I would suggest a large padded room reverb to give quite a thick warm comet like tail trailing off behind you voice. A small predelay keeps the vocal clean.

Before you get to the mixing stage you can remove the digital purity from tracks by passing them through a real valve preamp and re-recording the signal. The intruments you are using don't sound top of the line but will sound a lot sweeter if you warm their sounds up with a valve. Single valve pre-amps (usually sold for there 48V phantom power feature) are cheap and that's all you need.

Always a delicate topic but it might be worth using some subtle pitch correction on your voice. In nuclear confusion when you go to the higher notes at "one day you say" you wander off pitch.

The background hiss we used to get off tape and still generally have live adds a subtle ambience. A low level warm pad or some strings chording very low in the background recreate some of this subtle ambient warmth. As does adding some noise for that matter.

On a final ambience/claustrophobic note I find your tracks a bit mechanical. There seems to be no appreciable velocity change note to note. Perhaps you don't have a velocity sensitive keyboard, or perhaps you are programming with constant velocity or perhaps you are playing it with a completely even touch. The vibe I get is that this is rigid velocity MIDI rather than being fooled that I am listening to real instruments. This constant velocity robs the mix of the ebb and flow of tonal colour and volume position you hear in a real instrument played live and so contributes to a lack of ambience/spaciousness as the instruments seem to occupy quite rigid positions in the mix.

Touch typed, unproofed, YMMV.

HTH

James

[Guest voclizr]

Thanks for your thoughts, Jim.

I don't MIDI, but I do use a self styllized form of "cheating" since I'm not a keyboardist. I play one measure on one track and the next on another track, alternating them back & forth and bounce them together. It works and it's cheap . One thing I'll never do is ask someone to evaluate my keyboard playing. I gotta do some research on the Valve preamp. Sounds like a good idea. My instrument does have touch sensitivity, but I'm kinda paranoid to use it too much because I'm afraid the volume will become uneven. It's a personal thing, I know and I gotta try to overcome it! After all, the touch sensitivity is what puts the emotion into the music and as you say, takes the rigidity out. I'm very impressed by your observations and how well you put them. Looking at your bio, you are a young fellow, but it sounds as if you have quite a bit of experience with audio engineering! It's good to have yet another person here at Songstuff with a high degree of expertise in this highly techincal area. Thanks again.

John B.

[Guest voclizr]

James;

Please disregard my "young fellow" comment above. I looked at your bio again and saw that there is no info on your age. I must be thinking about someone else! I sincerely apologise for this and hope I haven't offended you.

Sincerely;

John B.

[tachyon]

Hi John,

I'm old enough to know better and own a couple of small recording studios in the South Pacific. Music is a hobby/passion rather than a career although we have had a few songs do OK here and there.

Your technique does explain the sound I heard. IMHO your music would benefit from the use of MIDI given you are not a keyboardist. However I seem to remember from another thread that you have a hardware recording solution rather than a PC/Mac based system. Although there would be a significant cost involved a modern PC, Cubase or similar, and a decent sound card would make a world of difference to the quality of music you could create. I would suggest Cubase as you can probably get the LE version packaged with the sound card which puts the total cost just over the cost of a decent PC (which you may already have). Cubase allows you to mix Audio and MIDI tracks with ease and has one of the better MIDI editor around. Be warned that the more grunt and memory you have the better when it comes to Audio. A 2G Hz Pentium IV would be fine but you really want 1GB of RAM. You can pick these up 2nd hand quite cheap. Athlons can be problematic due to Intel specific optimisations that are made by audio software companies striving for best performance. Stick to Intel for minimal headaches.

Take tracked drums for example. With MIDI and velocity editing you track it up in Cubase then use the MIDI to drive your tone generator. Almost all keyboards accept MIDI input. A snare roll for example only sounds like a snare roll if the velocity changes (increasing) during the roll. Without the velocity change it just sounds wrong. A simple hat tap also has intra bar accents if you want it to sound right. Drummers often syncopate the Bass drum as well with a soft tap (low velocity) 1/16 before the backbeat. A realtime keyboard player varies the velocity they use on every note. If you record them with MIDI and then flatten the velocity so all notes have the same velocity it kills all but the most groovy of grooves. Also for many instruments (drums included) the tonal quality changes with velocity. Basically the more expensive the sound generator/keyboard the more tonal variations you have per instrument note. MIDI also lets you quantise (pull of time note onto time automatically) but the intangible 'groove' that a live musician has is imparted to quite a large degree by moving subtly in and out of time. Somtimes a fraction early, sometimes a fraction late. We rarely quantise but have people who can play pretty cleanly so just move the odd off time note into time, and fix the velocities on the odd too soft or too loud note.

Anyway MIDI is a pretty good reason to look at PCs. It is BTW a more of less future proof and portable solution which was also something you were interested in in that other thread. If for examply you record MIDI today and get a better tone generator at some stage in the future you can remix a track simply by running the MIDI into you new tone widget (say a 5 year old ex top of the line stage piano with broken keyboard that you picked up for a few quid) to take advantage of it's beautiful sounds.

Among the other advantages of something like Cubase are pitch correction and almost infinite reverb and effect possibilities.

All the best

James

[Guest voclizr]

Jimmy;

I know what you're saying about PC based, and I'm beginning to wish I could have gone that route, but there are two factors that make it prohibitive for me at this present time. Price & space. About a year ago I started thinking about getting back into making music after a 13 year absence from it. In the late 80's and early 90's I worked with 4-track analog cassette. "Time Out" & "Absolutely" on my Soundclick page are two examples of that period. In the spring of 2005 I was wowed by the music of ATom2 who is another member of this blog. He had several free tunes on his Ampcast page. I don't know if you had the privilege of partaking in ATom's music. If you did, you know that he was able to get excellent results from his hardware based set which includes a Roland VS1680. Now, I don't know whether it's just that the 1680 is a better machine (circa 1997 technology with an MSRP of US $3200.00) or that Tom knows more about what he's doing or both, but IMHO his results were quite professional. So I started shopping around and settled on a Zoom MRS 802 8 track hard disk recorder. My instrument isn't as advanced as Tom's either who makes use of three professional synths with an extensive sound library, but I heard a few realistic sounds in the relatively cheap Yamaha PSR-295. Now, after spending the better part of a year making music this way and listening to some of the other highly talented people on Songstuff (and other indie sites) I'm coming to the conclusion that PC based IS the best choice in both sound quality and longevity. If the PC goes you just move the software over to a new one and you're back in business! Hopefully I'll be able to upgrade to this someday, but for now I'll just have to make do with what I have. But I'm keeping a close eye on posts by people who are using PC setups so that when I finally get to make that move, I'll be somewhat educated. I've already learned quite a bit from your posts alone, not just to me, but to others as well. I was originally looking into a program called REASON by Propellerhead Software. You're probably somewhat familiar with it, anyway. I know it's a very comprehensive instrumentation program, but what I always wondered about it is does it have recording capabilities, or would I have to use a program like Cubase to record? I see alot of these people on this blog use Soundfonts for their instrumentation. I was wondering too, in addressing the lack of space issue: Could a software based setup be used with a laptop computer, and if so what kind of soundcard would one have to use? Thanks again for ypur tips.

John B.

[tachyon]

Ah well that expains the sound. I was thinking Casio but did not want to offend you. Yamaha have some nice ROMpler sounds but you need to go to the PSR 1500 or 3000 to hear them. The S03 is quite cheap and has suprisingly good sounds.

The supreme advantage of MIDI is that provided it is tracked down with appropriate velocity information, as well as note on note off info you can use it to drive really good tone generators even if you don't happen to own any. Tone generators come in 3 forms: software, stand alone hardware, and keyboards.

I lean towards keyboards as they are multipurpose. You can typically generate, record, and output MIDI as well as generate nice sounds. You are limited by the ROM size and plugin boards as to what sounds of what quality are available. Hardware units are typically rack mounted versions of the keyboards, with the same sounds, for about the same price as the keyboards so I don't see the logic, other than size. There are of course units that don't have keyboard equivalents, just as there are keyboards without rack mount equivalents. Software tone generators are the most flexible in that a new sound is just a new patch away but they often require a lot of computer grunt to work smoothly - examples are Reason and Steinberg's 'The Grand' software plugin for Cubase.

Reason is mostly a software tone generator at heart and has a virtually unlimited number of patches with every sound you can imagine then some available. We use it all the time, it does lots of stuff and it can be linked into Cubase. That said IMHO it is more suited to techno and experimental music plus the desires of gear heads and it has probably the worst MIDI editing interface ever devised. It is fun to play with though!

You can happily make great music with Reason, and many people do, but for what you are doing I would stick with my suggestion of Cubase on PC as the heart of the system. Cubase is far from the only option, it just happens to be what we chose having tried several other options. Like all software it has good and bad bits (the default reverbs and the pitch correction are pretty crappy for example) however you can easily fix these issues with plugins. Macs are great but you pay more for the power you get vs a PC.

At the end of the day you want something you can afford and are familiar with so you can just get on and turn those great ideas into recorded sounds.

Anyway that's enough personal bias for one post.

Cheers

James

[Guest voclizr]

Alright! Ya got me interested. Cubase is a good recording system. What software tone generators do you recommend? And what about the laptop issue? I'm figuring that I could use my Yamaha keyboard as a trigger for a MIDI software set up. In fact, I downloaded a few video demos of Reason and the guy is using a laptop computer, but he was only generating drum sounds. I'm not "sold" on Reason BTW. I'm just curious about it as I have heard some interesting pieces made with it. I'm also a bit intrigued with the inteface with all the modules like REDRUM, the SCREAM MACHINE and the Malestrom graintable synthesizer, just to name a few. It's also cool that you can get the back view and move the virtual patch cords around. Alot of visual "eye candy" with it. I know that's just fancy cover stuff and really doesen't necessarily make for a quality tone generator. I guess, though I was also impressed with what seems like alot of trouble they go to to record their samples (ie highly skilled players for their "Refill" program). Probably other products do the same thing.

You gotta understand that I'm new to this so I'm a bit be-dazzled by the fancy stuff and I'm facinated by it! . I'd like your opinions on some of the other stuff, if that's OK.

Thanks much!

John B.

[Prometheus]

John, if you don't want to fork out several hundred dollars for cubase, check the freeware thread in the "music gear" forum, and download Reaper... I've been very impressed with it, it performs the same functions as Cubase and in some areas is superior to the version of Cubase I use (v5.0) particularly in automation...

You might find it a little daunting at first, but it's well worth it and there are people here who will help you get your head around computer based sequencers if you need it... The only reason I am not switching from Cubase 5.0 to Reaper at this time is because I've been using Cubase for so many years now that I can operate all it's functions at high speed and push it's limits now, so it would be kind of like discarding an old worn leather jacket that I'm totally at one with...

[Nightwolf]

Nice analogy Prom. So, you are liking Reaper better than Kristal then? The screenshots for Kristal look a lot more like a pro recording deal to me. Did you try Kristal?

[Guest voclizr]

Thanks for the tip, dudes! I've got to use discretion cause my current PC is pretty limited.

.....that should make it possible for you to choose with discretion!

-Sir Ralph Richardson playing Dr. Austin Sloper from The Heiress

[Donna]

JB, this thread is telling to say the least.

You aren't a keyboard player? What are you, then (seriously)...your lines are all done via keyboard, are they not? You orchestrate, reach for the lilting strings; chord progressions; solos...

Let's hope James will cure you re: the touch sensitivity - you know what I mean! Dynamics is reality of music. It's real-ness.

JB, you've always given me encouragement, esp as a player, I wish I could do likewise for you because your musical ideas I think are sound! (So to speak) IMO, always keep that part forefront which concentrates on theme music/all your ideas. Step out and sing/play.

At least I (hopefully) won't complain anymore about not being a keyboard player myself - think you've cured me.

[Guest voclizr]

Hey Donna!

Thanks for your kind words.

I don't really look at the not considering myself a keyboard player a bad thing. Looking back on my life, I DO wish I'd have taken up the piano at about 9 years old and practiced it intensely and became a skilled player, but I can't change history. I'm proud of the fact that I'm a musical creature and that I was given an ear for music and a love for it, so I just do what I can to get my ideas materialised. Yes, I'm not a technical player by any sense of the word. Some of us are players and some are good at composing and arranging and some have the ability to do both. But I do have ideas. I have tunes going on in my head all the time and I develop them as best I can as I go along. Some of them don't work out at all, but sometimes they turn out better! When I first got the idea for "Follow" I almost didn't bother developing it because I thought it would turn out bland and colorless, but it became my best yet IMHO. There's so much atmosphere in that song in both words and music. I didn't see it at first, but I'm glad now I followed through with it! Sometimes magic just happens when I'm working on the tracks and things come together that I didn't plan on. That's a neat feeling. Like James said, MIDI is a good option for somebody like me, those who have the ideas but lack the technical "finess". MIDI allows you to tell your ideas to the computer (virtual band) and "they" can play it with the presision it requires. You can even program a bit of the "human element" into it in the way of varying tempo and expression. Some look at this as cheating, but I don't. In medicine, you got specialists and you got surgeons. The specialists don't operate. Their skills are to "think out" the solutions and the treatments, but the surgeons are the technicians, the guys that are good with their hands when it comes down to taking things apart and repairing them. The same can apply in music, although like I said above, there are people who are good at composing and arranging AND are also good technical players (I really envy those guys). I'm glad you're finding inspiration in what I do. You certainly have enough talent and creativity within yourself to make your music the way you want to make it. That's the most important and essential element!

John B.

[Guest voclizr]

Donna;

In fact, You're an inspiration to me too!

I find it awesome that a wife and mother of a large family with all the challanges that presents still can muster enough creative energy to create music like you do! To tell you the truth, I don't think I would have enough energy to spare to be that creative if I was in a situation like yours! That I find inspiring!

John B.

[Donna]

thanks, JB.

pax...

[Prometheus]

Nice analogy Prom. So, you are liking Reaper better than Kristal then? The screenshots for Kristal look a lot more like a pro recording deal to me. Did you try Kristal?

Kristal is excellent apart from a few points... One is that it is limited to two plugins per channel, another is that you are limited to sixteen channels, and another is that you cannot link channels... Reaper suffers from none of these limitations... Reaper, to me, looks like it's in the same league as Cubase, Pro Tools and Logic, and is free... I must admit, it totally blew me away when I tried it out...

Looking at logic V4 for example, it looks like a kids toy from the screen shots, but is actually a very powerful package indeed... Reaper does have less eye candy that Kristal, but if you can get reaper to work on your PC, I would definitely recommend it...

Edited July 18, 2006 by Prometheus

[john]

Hey John

How are you getting on with your mixes? Any improvement? Has the advice helped?