30-05-2014, 04:15 AM
(This post was last modified: 30-05-2014, 04:32 AM by Pedaling Prince.)
I was surprised, and pleased, to meet another Atlantic Canadian here. Marc Gosselin, who graciously provided this multitrack for the site, was originally a guitarist for the Atlantic Canadian alternative rock band The Butterfly Effect, formed in the late 1990s; this is one of their songs. I hope he likes what he hears us doing with them; with luck, our work will encourage him to post more of The Butterfly Effect's tracks.
I actually wrote to Mr. Gosselin while I was working on this mix to give him a heads up that his was the next multitrack I planned to tackle. He gave me some very interesting information on the history of these tracks.
He and the band recorded them on December 31, 2000 in his parents' basement on two Tascam DA-88s. That caught my attention. I was familiar with the DA-88; I've never used one but I learned several years ago that the DA-88 was used for dialogue mixing on the later seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Of course, as both a Star Trek fan and a filmmaker, once I learned that I had to learn more about this machine. Given the era of its heyday I was actually very impressed with its capabilities; its only real shortcoming quality-wise was the fact that it's limited to 16-bit (hence the reason this multitrack, unlike all the others here, is not 24-bit). This is the first time I've ever worked with digital recordings from a multitrack machine of this vintage and, as anyone who's listened to my mixes of Street Noise's work knows, I just love working with old recordings.
But there was one thing he said about these tracks that really got my attention:
Oh really...?
Anyone here who's been listening to my mixes and reading my posts knows how much I love bass. So I took the above statement as a personal challenge.
When I heard the bass for the first time I had to admit he was absolutely right. This has to be the fullest, thickest bass I've ever had the pleasure of working on. It also sounded next to impossible to combine with anything else without totally swamping it. But I wanted that bass. It was too awesome to tame! I wanted it to rattle the rafters! I was bound and determined I was going to find a way to give it the sonic space it needed without dragging every other instrument into a quagmire of doom. So I hi-passed the bajeebles out of anything that moved a level meter, with the exception of the bass tracks themselves, of course, and the kick and toms. Everything else? Any low frequency energy on a track that didn't need it was quickly slapped in handcuffs and hauled away.
It took quite a while, not only hi-passing everything but making more liberal use of EQ than I generally do, but this was a special occasion where I had to push the envelope; I had my dream bass track in my hands and be damned if I wasn't gonna find some way to make this work!
I think it turned out remarkably well. Gotta warn you, though: if bass isn't your thing you're not going to like this. If bass is your thing, you'll probably love it... but for the love of God if you live in an apartment or something have pity on your neighbours and don't listen to it when everybody's sleeping! I guarantee you, unless you're in a high end acoustically damped studio specifically designed to absorb bass it will rattle its way through several floors of any building...
One other thing Mr. Gosselin pointed out was that many of these tracks were quite noisy. Well, they are a little, but for the most part I think they're on a par with Dolby A-type noise reduction treated tracks so they're quite workable without the need for any noise reduction. The only exceptions were the shaker and the first two FX tracks. The FX tracks stand on their own a couple of times in the mix and their noise was distracting, and the shaker is extremely noisy. So those two tracks I treated with aggressive noise removal using Audacity; the remaining tracks, I kept as is and simply cut out silent portions so tracks not in use at any given point won't be adding unnecessary noise.
It's after midnight here right now and I have to go to work in the morning so I can't review anyone else's mixes right now, but I'll be sure to have listen over the weekend; I'm very curious how all of you handled that elephant of a bass track...
I'm really looking forward to getting comments on this one, good or bad...
I actually wrote to Mr. Gosselin while I was working on this mix to give him a heads up that his was the next multitrack I planned to tackle. He gave me some very interesting information on the history of these tracks.
He and the band recorded them on December 31, 2000 in his parents' basement on two Tascam DA-88s. That caught my attention. I was familiar with the DA-88; I've never used one but I learned several years ago that the DA-88 was used for dialogue mixing on the later seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Of course, as both a Star Trek fan and a filmmaker, once I learned that I had to learn more about this machine. Given the era of its heyday I was actually very impressed with its capabilities; its only real shortcoming quality-wise was the fact that it's limited to 16-bit (hence the reason this multitrack, unlike all the others here, is not 24-bit). This is the first time I've ever worked with digital recordings from a multitrack machine of this vintage and, as anyone who's listened to my mixes of Street Noise's work knows, I just love working with old recordings.
But there was one thing he said about these tracks that really got my attention:
Quote:The biggest monster on this session is the bass track(s).. it's almost subsonic and if you're not careful, they'll consume a ton of real estate in the mix, resulting in a muddy sounding mix.
Oh really...?
Anyone here who's been listening to my mixes and reading my posts knows how much I love bass. So I took the above statement as a personal challenge.
When I heard the bass for the first time I had to admit he was absolutely right. This has to be the fullest, thickest bass I've ever had the pleasure of working on. It also sounded next to impossible to combine with anything else without totally swamping it. But I wanted that bass. It was too awesome to tame! I wanted it to rattle the rafters! I was bound and determined I was going to find a way to give it the sonic space it needed without dragging every other instrument into a quagmire of doom. So I hi-passed the bajeebles out of anything that moved a level meter, with the exception of the bass tracks themselves, of course, and the kick and toms. Everything else? Any low frequency energy on a track that didn't need it was quickly slapped in handcuffs and hauled away.
It took quite a while, not only hi-passing everything but making more liberal use of EQ than I generally do, but this was a special occasion where I had to push the envelope; I had my dream bass track in my hands and be damned if I wasn't gonna find some way to make this work!
I think it turned out remarkably well. Gotta warn you, though: if bass isn't your thing you're not going to like this. If bass is your thing, you'll probably love it... but for the love of God if you live in an apartment or something have pity on your neighbours and don't listen to it when everybody's sleeping! I guarantee you, unless you're in a high end acoustically damped studio specifically designed to absorb bass it will rattle its way through several floors of any building...
One other thing Mr. Gosselin pointed out was that many of these tracks were quite noisy. Well, they are a little, but for the most part I think they're on a par with Dolby A-type noise reduction treated tracks so they're quite workable without the need for any noise reduction. The only exceptions were the shaker and the first two FX tracks. The FX tracks stand on their own a couple of times in the mix and their noise was distracting, and the shaker is extremely noisy. So those two tracks I treated with aggressive noise removal using Audacity; the remaining tracks, I kept as is and simply cut out silent portions so tracks not in use at any given point won't be adding unnecessary noise.
It's after midnight here right now and I have to go to work in the morning so I can't review anyone else's mixes right now, but I'll be sure to have listen over the weekend; I'm very curious how all of you handled that elephant of a bass track...
I'm really looking forward to getting comments on this one, good or bad...