Mornats

This is fantastic software package. The asking price is worth it for the full Kontakt alone. Absynth and Massive are two of my favourite synths, the pianos are great - The Giant in particular, Supercharger is my favourite compressor.

Yeah it's pretty much square, with maybe up to a foot along the "long" wall (no the one my Yamaha's are on). So I'll just consider my room as good training for ears for the time when I can get a better room with treatment

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1505740626' post='3373903']
PS: your mixes sound consistently good anyway, so whatever you're already doing seems to be working just fine
[/quote]

Thanks! I think that comes from endlessly listening to them on my monitors, hi-fi speakers and headphones. And as I listen to all my music on either the headphones or my hi-fi speakers I can do a good comparison. Actually, you'll notice that my Tannoy hi-fi speakers are in a corner and I can hear the bass buildup in them so I can really tell if I've gone overboard with the bass. What I need to do more of is listen to music on my monitors to get really used to them.

I guess that problems in the room mean that I'm doing more careful comparisons as I know I have to get around the room sound more. One person's problem is another's learning tool eh?

The back of the room looks like I could fit some bass traps in there but I'd have an ugly bag on insulation right next to my TV. Although I could place one on top of the DVD rack maybe and store it out of sight until I need to use it. The other corner is an alcove so I'm not sure how a bass trap would work in there.

The front of room would require me to move my desk (making it impossible to actually do any work!) and would block the door so permanent bass traps just won't work there. I could possibly move my hi-fi speaker and place one on the desk but that would be an absolute pain to undo the wiring at the back of the speaker each time.

To give you an idea of what I'm dealing with here's a couple of pics of my room.

Front:

[attachment=253795:IMG_20170917_133241.jpg]

Back:

[attachment=253796:IMG_20170917_133354.jpg]

Not a bad idea. It won't get around the problem of there not being any space for it but it will let me hear the difference. Next problem to solve will be how to get 8 rolls of the stuff into the back of a sports saloon

Thanks Paul, very useful info! I think I'll be better off with the headphones calibration it seems.

So my new approach will be to compose and balance the mix volumes as much as I can on my Yamaha HS7s and check the mix on headphones to get the bass and overall sound right (the calibration will help with this as my M50x headphones enhance the bass a little). I'm well used to those headphones now so I think I can mix well on them. I'll still use my Yamahas for checking reverb as it's a very different sound in cans, stereo imaging and (what they were intended to do...) checking against reference tracks. I'll use my hi-fi setup too (Asus Xonar Essence STX > Rotel RA930 amp > Tannoy E11 speakers) as a second sound source.

Simply not having space in my corners for bass trapping is my biggest issue with sound treatment. I wouldn't even have the space to store them and move things round any time I wanted to mix so I'll leave that for the day I get a dedicated room for music

So even though I have to admit defeat on the room treatment for now, one thing has always plagued me with it. I always feat that if I spent hundreds on sound treatment and reorganise everything in my room to accommodate it then it may not guarantee that it'll fix the bass problems. I guess this is a barrier for many; simply not knowing if the investment will have a night and day difference. I'm sure it would but there'd always be a nagging doubt that it would be a gamble. Sadly there's no demo available for sound treatment

About that Sonarworks plug-in... My music room is my living room in a rented flat. It has a pretty big problem with bass disappearing in most of the room other than flat on the back wall and in the corners. Bass traps are obviously needed but I can't fit any in the corners as one corner has my workstation in (my speaker aren't in the corner, they on the best wall they can be on), one corner has the door on it, another has my TV in it (no space anywhere else for it) and the final corner is an alcove. So a bad room to say the least! I also can't install anything anywhere as it's rented.

So I've been thinking about the Sonarworks plug-in. Would this help alleviate some of the bass issues by boosting the bass so that it's about the right volume in the triangle between the speakers and my head? Or would it not fix such a bad problem in the room?

Thanks for the write-up The general incohesion in mine was totally due to me wanting to throw off anyone suspecting that my Doom array was going to come in and absolutely wasn't anything to do with throwing that one out quickly. Nur-hur.

The background talking/yells etc. is one of the atmospheric pads from Ethera Soundscapes. Some nice little gems in there.

Inspired by Stephen King's "IT".

"I'll kill you all! Ha ha! I'll drive you crazy, and then I'll kill you all! I'm your every nightmare you ever had, I'm your worst dream come true! I'm everything you're ever afraid of!" - Pennywise.

Oh wait, hang on... what happened here? That's not my usua....

https://soundcloud.com/mornats/carouhell

Step right up, you'll float too!

I can't get this out of my head when I look at the photo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnLNXquIBVs

Where's the Doom in that?! I'm gonna have to get creative...

Congrats! It was a superb piece.

I shall have a listen tomorrow

Thanks

Got another track for you all.

This one was started by accident. I received an update to a sample library that I own and was playing around with some of the samples and it just kinda came together. Now usually, if you're a listener to the monthly composition challenge on here, you'll notice that my tracks have a page long list of instruments and sample libraries. This one however only has two sample libraries - Zero-G Ethera Soundscapes and Spitfire Audio's Albion One. It's Ethera Soundscapes that I was playing with when I put this together.

It started with the bass drum which was put through Ethera's internal arpgeggiator, as was the synth bass. The vocals are Ethera's forte and this is the new phrase legato that was introduced in the 1.2 update. It's quite nice but buggy on a few phrases (legato distorts heavily) so took some careful use to avoid those bugs.

Albion One provides the staccato strings and woodwinds. I'm loving the woody staccato sound of the woods at the moment. Albion's ostinatum provides the ostinatos, a little tool that I love. These were helped a lot by Frozen Plain's Obelisk, which is essentially a chord maker. Dial in the chord you want (and swap between them with keyswitches) hit the root note and you have a chord. This allows for very accurate transition between chords when using the ostinatum or an arpeggiator. Kirnu Cream (the Computer Music edition) was my arpeggiator of choice.

Izotope's Neutron provided the mixing and Ozone provided the mastering.

I knocked this up in an afternoon yesterday and tweaked it for an hour or so today. It's one of my quickest blank slate to release times ever I think.

And yes Douglas, it's in Dm (I didn't mean to, it's just that every time I mess around I use Dm as it's the second easiest scale to learn after C major and this all started as a quick mess around.)

The photo was taken in Southville Cemetery in Bristol. Other than in the monthly composition, I use all of my own photos on my tracks. The pictures I've submitted to the challenge when I've won it have all been my own too. I don't think I've ever mentioned that before.

https://soundcloud.com/mornats/fallen

And whilst i'm rabbiting on, a word about my mixing method. I have two sets of speakers. A pair of Yamaha HS7 monitor speakers and my ancient custom wired and sealed one-of-a-kind Tannoy E11s. The Yamahas are supplied with sound via my Focusrite Forte interface and the Tannoy's through an Asus Xonar Essence STX soundcard going into a (also ancient) Rotel RA930AX amp. I also mix on a pair of Audio Technica M50x headphones.

My living room, where I do all of my music production, is terrible for accurate bass. There's a huge deadspot in the middle third of the room and even near my Yamahas the bass drops quite a lot. I only get what I think is a more-or-less accurate amount of bass when I sit at the far back of the room where the bass builds up. It's a nightmare and I have no room for bass traps (and it's a rented place anywhere so no chance of installing anything). So I tend to hop between my Tannoys and the Yamahas and the headphones a lot. I know the sound of the Tannoy's incredibly well as I've had those and that amp since 1990. I'm using reference tracks a little more than I used to but not as much as I should. I have trouble finding tracks similar to mine to use as a reference.

I'm obviously in a chatty mood today but I'll leave it there

Hey Al, you may have seen this already but it's worth checking this out: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/248509-beginners-guide-to-home-recording/

Regards to the two DAWs you get with the Focusrite, these are cut-down versions of the full software so there'll be some limitations to them (there should be a good comparison chart on their respective websites).

Protools is one of the industry standard DAWs however it's quite expensive and they've gone down the subscription route which starts at £23 a month (or around £600 for a perpetual licence. Ableton is popular too.

You can probably get an upgrade price from the cut down versions.

Anyway, if you're wanting to delve more into the software and learn it then compare the full versions of each first as you're likely to upgrade at some point once you start hitting any limitations in the lite versions. Or it could be that the lite versions do everything you need for recording a band

You can also consider alternatives. Reaper gets a lot of recommendations (this is my DAW of choice). You can check out the trial that doesn't expire, and grab a (very cheap) licence if you like it. Some say it's not too intuitive for a newbie but I stepped up from GarageBand to Reaper without problem and found it could do pretty much everything I ever wanted it to do

Arithmetic was never my strong point

I wonder if a few voters think they've only got one vote.

What a great bunch of tunes. Another high scoring month (I rate each track out of ten).

Thanks for listening Douglas and for your review of it!

That piano is exactly the same patch (a blend on NI's The Giant and Ghost Piano from Sound Dust's Plastic Ghost Piano) from The Living Night. It sounds a bit different as it plays an octave or two below the one in The Living Night and is played faster so has a different dissonance to it.

The lyrics were from Ethera 2.0 Soundscapes and were one of the few patches with legible words in them. I was worried that they wouldn't make sense but I think they work. I have to thank RC 48 reverb from NI for the airy feel and NI's Replika XT for the more ethereal background vocals.

Neutron and Ozone were invaluable to the mix. Those presets are a good starting point and help you understand what "punchy and bright" sound like and how to get them working for you.

When I say it took two weeks mixing that's probably around 10 hours in total spread across that time. Time well spent as I learned a lot about mixing and mastering using Neutron and Ozone in that time. And as I said, when I did The Living Night I always had a sequel planned but it took a year to get something right. Hopefully the third in the trilogy (I love that idea) won't take as long

Edit: I forgot the mention that the staccato woodwind ensemble that does that fluttery ostinato is from Albion One and that patch sounds just sublime, I just love it.

Another edit: I used the famous Abbey Road technique to EQ the reverb and have to say, it works a treat! Vid if you're interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lNckK8N3to

If you can cast your mind and ears back to May 2016 I won the basschat composition challenge for the first time with The LIving Night (https://soundcloud.com/mornats/the-living-night).

It was always intended to be the first track of a duo with the second being The Dead Morning.

Finally, I got round to writing it, dropped it, started it again, did that a few times then ended up finishing it and I've spent the past two weeks or so mixing it and polishing it up.

https://soundcloud.com/mornats/the-dead-morning

As the blurb says:

Ethera vocals backed by Requiem Light choir set to Apocalypse percussion and the Albion One orchestra. Synths by Drumstruck and Massive. Piano is my special blend of The Giant and Ghost Piano.

Izotope Neutron and Ozone made a big impact on the sound of this. I hope it sounds ok to you!

Love those dancing faders! That Mexican wave they did...

It sounds fine to me too but Soundcloud does normalise tracks to -14LUFS so they all sound the same volume so maybe your source file is quiet and Soundcloud boosted it.

I think maybe I should put a cowbell through my Doom array.

I've been trying Ozone Elements on some of my tracks and I'm really liking it.

I read this article on their blog which describes what some of their presets are doing - https://www.izotope.com/en/community/blog/tips-tutorials/2016/11/inside-the-presets-of-ozone-7-elements.html. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like they've matched the volumes of the before and after and the "after" snippets in their videos are louder and naturally sound a bit better anyway. It's a shame as I've noticed a real improvement!

So, I did my own example. This is a track that I spent weeks mixing and tweaking and is one of my favourites in terms of the final mix. I applied the Punchy and Clear preset to it with the EQ slider at 60% and and tweaked the maximiser to -8.4db to get the output to around -14.5 LUFs (-14 is what Soundcloud converts music too and is commercially loud but not mashed so you can keep dynamics). It's actually a little quieter than the original but I still have a little tweaking to do.

I read what the preset was doing and applied a few of those tweaks to the instance of Neutron on those particular instrument tracks, notably the 100hz boost for punch and 300hz dip for clarity (that 300hz dip is magic) so I've essentially taken what the preset did to the entire mix and applied the same principles to other parts of the track so this is not entirely that preset at work. I tweaked the cellos and the percussion only though.

Here's the before, as a 24bit/44.1khz wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/blk5mnbhyarkshm/Moonshadow%20Old.wav?dl=0

Here's the after, again as a 24bit/44.1khz wav: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qc15si6hq1jbuzx/Moonshadow.wav?dl=0

I think it's an improvement. Those cellos are no longer a dull background tone but are much clearer and the whole thing opens up.

So now I'm a little torn between the simplicity and effectiveness of Elements vs. paying for the upgrade and possibly having too many options available that will make it easy to mess things up.