16-05-2015, 06:15 AM
Hey Dave, thanks for your comments and thoughts. No need to worry about being slack on commenting-- between my real job and my project studio work/hobby, I barely have time to mix for the forum and comment like I should. Fun fact, though... I'm working on some original material. The goal is to see if Mike wants to host it so you guys can mercilessly hack at it until it sounds something vaguely like music.
You're on point as usual and agree completely... to get this thing working the way we'd both like to hear it there'd need to be a lot of fader riding, automation, and arrangement tweaks. I feel like there's a lot of room for transitions and fills. With this tune in particular, a lack of suitable reference material was a struggle... D&B is virtually nonexistent in the US as far as I can tell so I only know about it what I've learned here and from listening to what I assume is popular on (gasp) Spotify, but I can't find anything helpful.
I thought your comment about compression was a little odd (just based on memory) so I pulled the session open just to look and see if I could work out what you were referring to, and there are literally three compressors on the entire mix... one on a rather uneven pad, a parallel drum comp in a few places, and one on the stereo buss that's really only reacting to the kick. However, I saturated or re-amped the hell out of just about everything to give the instruments a little more character, which unfortunately also reduces dynamics. Then of course I'm not a mastering engineer, so homing in on a target loudness for the sake of posting to the board is tricky and I probably did a little damage on the way out.
You're right, though, this and many other tunes in synth-based genres need a little more production than I usually take the time for... until a couple years ago when I started to learn mixing for the sake of my own recordings, electronic music was a complete blind spot, and I'm still learning.
I'm grateful you've been willing to ruffle my feathers to bring things like that to my attention, though. Thank your partner for taking the time to listen, also.
Re: 320 kbps.... Just checked and I've got my encoder set to 320 kbps, so I'm not sure if the artifacts you're hearing are related to data compression, a rendering issue or a fault in the mix. I'm encoding as I render... could that be the reason? I can safely rule out aliasing because that's an eventuality I'm very diligent about heading off during the mix. I'm applying noise-shaped dithering before rendering, but I can't speak to the quality of the dithering algorithm.... it's my understanding that virtually all of the dithering built in to modern DAWs is sufficient for pro-quality renders, but there's always someone on Gearslutz or similar forums that simply swears he can hear the difference between what comes with the software and the 500 dollar dither he got kicked out by the wife over... I honestly can't. I'm probably just using a lame (pun intended) encoder
what's your perspective on that?
You're on point as usual and agree completely... to get this thing working the way we'd both like to hear it there'd need to be a lot of fader riding, automation, and arrangement tweaks. I feel like there's a lot of room for transitions and fills. With this tune in particular, a lack of suitable reference material was a struggle... D&B is virtually nonexistent in the US as far as I can tell so I only know about it what I've learned here and from listening to what I assume is popular on (gasp) Spotify, but I can't find anything helpful.
I thought your comment about compression was a little odd (just based on memory) so I pulled the session open just to look and see if I could work out what you were referring to, and there are literally three compressors on the entire mix... one on a rather uneven pad, a parallel drum comp in a few places, and one on the stereo buss that's really only reacting to the kick. However, I saturated or re-amped the hell out of just about everything to give the instruments a little more character, which unfortunately also reduces dynamics. Then of course I'm not a mastering engineer, so homing in on a target loudness for the sake of posting to the board is tricky and I probably did a little damage on the way out.
You're right, though, this and many other tunes in synth-based genres need a little more production than I usually take the time for... until a couple years ago when I started to learn mixing for the sake of my own recordings, electronic music was a complete blind spot, and I'm still learning.
I'm grateful you've been willing to ruffle my feathers to bring things like that to my attention, though. Thank your partner for taking the time to listen, also.
Re: 320 kbps.... Just checked and I've got my encoder set to 320 kbps, so I'm not sure if the artifacts you're hearing are related to data compression, a rendering issue or a fault in the mix. I'm encoding as I render... could that be the reason? I can safely rule out aliasing because that's an eventuality I'm very diligent about heading off during the mix. I'm applying noise-shaped dithering before rendering, but I can't speak to the quality of the dithering algorithm.... it's my understanding that virtually all of the dithering built in to modern DAWs is sufficient for pro-quality renders, but there's always someone on Gearslutz or similar forums that simply swears he can hear the difference between what comes with the software and the 500 dollar dither he got kicked out by the wife over... I honestly can't. I'm probably just using a lame (pun intended) encoder
what's your perspective on that?
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!