Too Hi Hat

This could just be me...but I find it very distracting listening to music where the hi hat has been mixed too high. As soon as I become aware of it, that is all I can hear. I am just listening to the album 'Hurricane' by Danny Bryant and there is some really nice guitar work and good songs, but some of them definitely suffer from 'too hi hat' and it really detracts from the songs - here it is the slow tracks; when the instrumentation is sparce the hi hat still seems to be mixed for when its full bore and so it's too overbearing in the track.

It's easy enough to test when you are mixing, just drop the level down really low and if the hi hat is still pinging out then maybe it's too loud in the mix.

'Wanna be Starting Sonething' by Michael Jackson is an odd example of this (and in this, I'm sure I am alone in feeling this!) but if you listen there is a rhythm on some kind of shaker that is for me, overly loud and distracting and as soon as you pay attention to it.

Practice for Creativity

I can really appreciate a technically adept guitarist, put hearing someone play a repetitive run does not generally excite me - It's when people do something unusual or melodic in some way (even at high speed) that I get interested.

Research shows that if you want to be a technically adept musician (or anything else for that matter) then the simple maxim of practice, practice, practice is the way to go - but what about creativity?

Research also shows that wrote practice does not lead to being 'creative'. Most musicians want to create their own 'voice'. Indeed I remember at about 13 saying to my classical guitar teacher that I wanted to develop my own style...without really understanding what that meant!

So, what are some ideas for creative practice?

Joe Satriani recommends using scat singing - then try and play what you sang to free you from your normal patterns'

Steve Lukather recommends practicing what you cannot play, so you are stretching yourself.

I used to play along to my favourite music and just try and absorb it rather than learn it note for note...sometimes that happened, but mostly I just wanted to capture the essence of the song.

Listen and play along to music that you generally wouldn't just to get ideas and influence, I don't really 'get' Jazz...but I enjoy playing along to extend myslef in different directions.

You could try re-tuning the guitar so the usual patterns don't work.

Get more rhythmical - great solos are not just 16th or 32nd notes blasted out, it has to have some syncopation so try just playiong some funky rhythms, or extending your rhythmic picking abilities.

Write some random notes down and try and play them and make them interesting.

Try to play just 2 or 3 notes in as many ways as you can, using all the possible techniques (slide up, down, bend up, down, 'squeeze' it with vibrato...)

Mostly..keep it fun and interesting, a bored guitarist does not make for passionate exciting music!

LANDR Auto Mastering

I happened across this from a CD Baby post and thought it was worth looking into, anything which can add the professional mastering sheen' in a cost effective way has to be good - especially the time it can save in tinkering with masters to try and get them as polished as possible. There is also the element of testing my mastering skills - how will they stand up against the system?!

To try it out I am using my current track in progress (a cover of Apache by the Shadows).

First impression wasn't great as it recommended uploading highest res version, so I exported a 24 bit 192khz version that it had been recorded in...turns out the highest res LANDR accepts is 92khz, only discovered after waiting half an hour for the 220MB upload to finish and get an error. So, re-exported at 96khz and 24bit.

Once it was uploaded and mastered I then downloaded the free (which is a nice touch) mp3 mastered version from LANDR's site . To compare I took my own master of the track and ran it through adobe audition to create a similar 16 bit 192 kps track.

First listen on my Mackie HR624 mk1 monitors, the LANDR'd version was smoother, and definitely weightier in the bass registers. My master definitely had a harder more brittle quality in the midrange. The LANDR version also reproduced a long reverb tail better in the staccato middle section where it can be heard pretty clearly. These differences could be in part due to the MP3 encoding and differences in the quality there.

One issue going this way for mastering is that fades have to be done ahead of time (which isn't generally recommended) or added afterwards...ok if you are going for lossless wav format, but not good if you have to re-encode an mp3 to add them in.

CD Quality Versions

So to really check out the auto master I paid my $9.99 to get the full  44.1khz 16 bit version. A/B'ing that against my mastered track - firstly, despite me not running my master hot at all, it was still a db or so louder than the LANDR one, so they definitely aren't going for peak loudness.

The LANDR version clearly had the treble rolled off compared to mine where I had only done some very minor eq tweaks. This treble roll off whilst adding a smoothness to the mix also seemed to take some of the 'space' in the mix away - which could be considered adding cohesion to the mix. To get the same sound required just under 2 dbs rolled off at around 2khz. Considering none of the instruments had any treble applied I was slightly surprised at this, so thought perhaps SONAR had somehow made the track slightly more prominant in the treble registers when exporting, so checked against the track in Sonar and this wasn't the case.
 

Remixing for Smoothness

So to try and get the best of both worlds it was back into Sonar and taking out the same 2db notch on the more prominant instruments to get the same smoothness so the master wasn't having to do a lot of remedial EQ. I then still notched out a little more tightly around 2khz to add a little more smoothness without affecting the overall treble response.

The Two Masters

I balanced the relative volumes of the two for the purposes of comparison - the links are to soundcloud where you can download the two wav files to compare.

LANDR Master

My Master

Apache Cover Artwork

The final mix and mastering is now done, so now it is just sorting out the artwork.

I wanted to get some kind of native american influence into it, incorporating guitars and shadows in some way to cover all the relevant bases for the tracks, and this is what I have come up with!

Apache - Recording Complete

Ive finally finished all the recording - the last part was the bass, which seems to have added an extra dimension to it. The idea was to follow the drums but in doing so it came out far 'funkier' than I expected, so it has given the song a slightly different feel.

The next part will be the mixing which I'm hoping to do over the next few weeks, I'll also get some more samples up to show the song development.

Apache Part 3

Whilst working on the drums I have been reading Mike Senior's 'Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio', which is a really great book that takes you through the intricacies of mixing step by step in a really digestible way.

This was fortuitous timing because as I have been building it up it hasn't quite gelled the way I wanted as the drums are getting 'lost'... so Ive spent quite a bit of time getting the patterns right, and now looking at how it can mix together.

I've also been listening intently to the mixing on Robert Plant's last album 'Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar' to get ideas or how to put Apache together. The album is a real masterclass in arrangement and use of a wide instrument palette.

Apache Project Part 2

This project has now also become about testing out my new recording environment (upgrade to Sonar X3 and Focusrite Forte Interface running at 192khz and 24 bit)

So, Ive been playing around recording a few bits and am aiming for an atmospheric intro at half speed with Apache style drums underpinning it before going into the 'standard' intro.

I'm pretty settled on the rhythm guitar arrangement comprising a slightly driven fender twin sound matched with my Taylor acoustic playing higher up the fretboard.

Now going to work on the synth arrangement to add some extra interest through the song, as well as experimenting with getting the lead sounds right and the lead melody variations.