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Certif1ed

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Topic: Certif1ed - The "Band"
Posted: September 05 2008 at 09:29

The Intro blurb (skip to the bottom of this post to find our new demo!).

I looked for the old thread, but didn't realise that it's nearly a year since we've actually finished anything... I know it's been a long time, but phew!

Sadly, "Modern Man" has been retired from the Progressive Rock charts over at Garageband - not sure why, as it was still getting reasonable reviews - but now we need to get a new track in there, before "Avoiding" and "Strange" follow suit.

I'm hoping that this one will stand a chance - over the last year or so, and particularly in the last 4 months, I've been honing my sound engineering skillz.

What this piece is....

This piece is more a demonstration of mix quality than composition, so it won't win Progressive piece of the year - and the glaring holes clearly show that we're still only part way through re-engineering this piece.

Although it's obviously a WIP, I think it demonstrates an even closer fusion of rock/metal and electronica than we've managed in the past - and hopefully we'll actually finish it this year sometime!

As ever, comments on what you like or don't like are more than welcome - and if you've got any mixing tips (in a general sense rather than for the more obvious "events" in the piece), then all the better.

The Tech stuff:

We've got the rhythm guitars hard panned 100% L-R, with 100Hz rolled off all instruments except the bass, which has 40Hz rolloff. We also chopped a narrow band at ~600Hz, depending on the instrument to increase mix transparency, and rolled off the air on some of the more complex analogue synth sounds - but I still think the synths could cut through better and be a more menacing part of the texture.

The drums are giving the biggest headache - having cleared plenty of space for the kick, which cuts through OK, the snare has almost vanished on most loops, and the cymbals are lacking in the crash that is present in the original wav file.

I'm hoping that there's a kinda generic narrow EQ band that we can trim from the instruments to allow these to poke through, but I'm not sure how to calculate it - so I'm hoping someone already knows a rough area to investigate (we want shortcuts, not courses!).

The MUSIC

Here it is - the first new Certif1ed piece for a year or so: http://www.4shared.com/file/61825334/bea988fa/GAWWI.html

The password is Pr0gArchives

Enjoy!

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

cobb2

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Posted: September 06 2008 at 10:37

So hard to get anybody to say anything about others work around here. What's the go? If you are into progressive music you must have a thirst for listening to new music- I know I do. Pull your finger out, you lot and support your peers.

Anyway Cert, great production. Loved the sound- what came to mind was Hawkwind, or more particularly Hawklords- don't know why! Fantastic work on the vocals, but do I detect a reluctant singer who doesn't have faith in his own ability. Either way it worked to a treat. Liked the squeaky, shiny synths over the gutsy, grungy guitars.

Nice one.

Easy Money View Drop Down

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Posted: September 06 2008 at 11:30

Hey Mark, nice track. I find that boosting 2.5 a bit will help snares cut through, add too much and you get that 'Roundabout' sound.

I like the fact that the lyrics have something to say, but the vocals are the weak point, with a better singer you could compete with the big boys. The music hit me as grungy metal with an IDM influence. You can check out my acid jazz demos at myspace.com/zazerac or just click on my homepage.

P.S. I like the arrangement, 'proggy' but not in a gtatuitous way. The different sections make sense.

Edited by Easy Money - September 06 2008 at 12:25

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Posted: September 06 2008 at 12:36

Nice track! I like the production, but I think that the drums need to be a bit louder and the guitar - especially the high-gain parts - need a bit more presence.

As far as the song is concerned: It reminded me of Porcupine Tree a lot ... especially of tracks like Deadwing or Signify, which - like this track - are centered around a heavy guitar track, with an extended break in the middle during which the song becomes very silent/atmospheric and then slowly picks up intensity again.

Thumbs%20Up

Recently listened to:

Certif1ed

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Posted: September 08 2008 at 02:45

Thanks for the support, guys - the positive tone of the comments so far is really engouraging!

cobb2 wrote:

Nice one.

That could have something to do with me being a big Hawkwind fan - although I've never listened to any of the Hawklords stuff.

It was probably a bit unfair of me to post this Work In Progress (I just get frustrated that we've got about 30-40 WIPs and no demos at the moment...) - the vox are all first take prototypes, so Andy was working out the melody as he went along - and there's still a verse missing that needs to be written.

We've found some settings in Antares that we've never played with before, so hopefully the vox will be even better sounding on the next mix. My personal taste is for Antares to be undetectable - it's everywhere these days, and I hate the sound of it!

Easy Money wrote:

Hey Mark, nice track. I find that boosting 2.5 a bit will help snares cut through, add too much and you get that 'Roundabout' sound.

I like the fact that the lyrics have something to say, but the vocals are the weak point, with a better singer you could compete with the big boys. The music hit me as grungy metal with an IDM influence. You can check out my acid jazz demos at myspace.com/zazerac or just click on my homepage.

P.S. I like the arrangement, 'proggy' but not in a gtatuitous way. The different sections make sense.

I tried an experiment on one of my solo tracks last night, and found I could punch a hole in around 1.7 in the other parts and get more snare - so thanks for putting me in the right ballpark!

I always try to cut rather than boost, and while it's painstaking, going through each part and snipping a little seems to work better to my ears than boosing an individual track.

The other thing I want to do is to try to get the IDM part of it a bit more forward, so it sounds more like fusion than an influence.

MikeEnRegalia wrote:

Nice track! I like the production, but I think that the drums need to be a bit louder and the guitar - especially the high-gain parts - need a bit more presence.

As far as the song is concerned: It reminded me of Porcupine Tree a lot ... especially of tracks like Deadwing or Signify, which - like this track - are centered around a heavy guitar track, with an extended break in the middle during which the song becomes very silent/atmospheric and then slowly picks up intensity again.

Thumbs%20Up

Interestingly, the way I got more gain out of the rhythm guitars was to CUT the gain! I also deliberately cut the presence, following advice I got from Brandon Drury's Home Recording forum, which is excellent http://forum.recordingreview.com/ - I'm signed up there as my alter-ego Bludgeoning Spawn, BTW.

On the Virtual amp, I took the gain down to 7, stripped most of the bass and low mid, and upped the channel volume as high as I could without it clipping - so it peaked around -0.5db.

There's NO compression on the guitars - the sound was so consistent it didn't need it, and sounds more natural to my ears.

You're right about the drums - hopefully bringing the bass down a couple of notches will help fix that.

Thanks again for the positive comments - I hope the production tweaks I mentioned are useful, and here goes mix 2 with the additional tweaks I'm picking up...

Edited by Certif1ed - September 08 2008 at 07:56

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Tony R

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Posted: September 08 2008 at 07:32

Nice! Sounds like 2008 Porcupine Tree meets 1995 Porcupine Tree. Probably your most accessible track to date.

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Posted: October 11 2008 at 15:34

Here's another one - but a bit more rough and ready than the last one - the last verse is missing, and there are production gaffes all over the place.

Things we're going to address (but won't have time for, for the next few weeks, sadly);

1) The bass is too boomy and loses time - I was trying to do a single-take improv for the entire track.

2) The guitar solo is submerged in the mix.

3) The rhythm guitars generally are a bit too tinny, thanks to my new habit of stripping the mids. I reckon we can put some mid range back for some meatiness.

Here it is: http://www.4shared.com/file/66550540/ecfa7e4/LiarLiar7.html

Apart from this, I really like this new song of ours - anyone else concur?

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Posted: October 12 2008 at 04:18

Like it. Some nice guitar panning. I thought the guitar could have used more highs- don't know whether you EQ'd out the highs or you recorded from the front pickup, but it tended to be a bit muddy. Good melody in the vocals, but too soft at times- it sounds good, so bring em up a little.

Great song, with great potential, so yes- I concur.

addition: I am still humming it after one listen, so some nice hooks in there.

Edited by cobb2 - October 12 2008 at 04:22

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Posted: October 13 2008 at 03:46

Thanks, cobb2!

Now I go back to it I hear what you mean - I heard the rhythm guitars as tinny, and overcompensated by minimally EQ'ing the bass (I only rolled off 40Hz). Yes, I used the front pickup - and it's an EMG Hz, which is probably why it's so "fizzy" in places - but I wanted the thicker sound, because even the SD Invaders on the Westone don't seem to deliver that amount of meat when you drop-tune down to C.

I think it's the bass sound providing the "mud" on the whole - it's a 5-string, and I'm a bit nervous of eqing at the bottom end, as the B string tends to disappear altogether! Maybe I need to experiment a bit more here, because my standard trick of killing 600k just kills the bass sound, as I'm (unusually for me) using all 5 strings in the runs.

That was the "after" on the vox - I EQ'd and brought up every part in the mix, even adding some <5k boost to help them cut through. We'll definitely revisit those, as, like everything else we do, they're essentially take 1 prototypes.

I guess repeated listens to all that booming isn't too good for the ears... back to the mixing board!

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Posted: October 24 2008 at 09:12

We got some bonus studio time

Did we work on our existing stuff?

Did we heck as like

Instead, we worked on this little ditty that's been skulling around the "Prototypes" bin since August... last year

http://www.4shared.com/file/68208940/47bbb2fa/Watching_10.html

It's still a prototype as ever - there's no last verse, the ending requires a lot of tidying up, and the guitar solo needs a shape rather than a random selection of widdly-woo. It was fun, though.

This one's a bit Halloweeny, with Theremin and church organ (presets!), Thrash metal style riffs (a first for us!) - and even cookie monster vocals buried somewhere under the crypts of the chorus.

They're watching you...

edit: BTW, you'll need to turn it right up to hear the intro properly...

Edited by Certif1ed - October 24 2008 at 09:14

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Negoba

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Posted: October 24 2008 at 10:51

I listened to the latest piece. Overall you guys have a great sound. The mix of heavy guitars and spacy keys works well for me. Song-wise, the repeated refrain happened a little too often for me though certainly the layering made it still interesting to listen to during that part.

Recording-wise, the rhythm guitars really are overpowering the mix. The lead vocals are covered up a bit and the drums and solo guitar are really low. The stereo split and double is a classic technique that sounds great, but it also allows you to lower levels a little bit. On headphones having one side of the rhythm guitar alternate between doubling and a counterline is something I'm not sure about. You've pulled it off better than I have in the past but I typically choose to double all the way through or really make the two sides contrast, separate tones, separate lines, the whole thing.

Just some mix ideas. This is great material to work with. The sound are good, the parts weave well. Nice work.

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Posted: October 24 2008 at 12:31

I will download and listen your music.

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Posted: October 24 2008 at 12:49

Cert this error appear:

http://www.4shared.com/linkerror.jsp?cau=1256&fid=61825334

Certif1ed

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Posted: October 24 2008 at 17:20

Hmm - I just tried it (on my laptop instead of my desktop), and got the file OK - and I see there have been 4 downloads...

Try again - and if you still can't get it, there's some more of our stuff on http://www.myspace.com/Certif1ed - I've put Liar, Liar and Getting Away With It up there, and I'll stick this song up there once we've worked on the arrangement a bit - I agree that there are way too many chorus iterations, and the rhythm guitars are too loud - and everything Negoba said.

The solo guitar is low for a reason - it's just noodle. I do try to make my solos have a logical flow that fits the song, but in this case, I just wanted something to give an idea of what the song would sound like with a solo in there.

We've got another session booked for Thursday - so hopefully we'll work on this some more, but we've got yet another song in the pipeline, which is a metal/trance/techno fusion...

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cobb2

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Posted: October 24 2008 at 17:37

Thoughts as I listen:

Making your own wooey noises- wooey!
Hawkwind again
Nice backing/lead vocal on chorus
Like the slower bridge
Another good change after the lead
Love the synth over the top- almost moogish.

For a first take this has loads of potential. The song structure is interesting and appealing, but not in a popular, commercial sense, I think. Again good hooks in the melody. The tone on the heavy, crunchy guitars give it a dated feel (hence the hawkwind- I think). Given full production and real drums, this observance would probably disappear.

An excellent mix for (as you call them) 'prototype'.

When are we going to hear something that is beyond the prototype stage?

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Posted: October 27 2008 at 08:43

Hmm - interesting about the tones - Rhythm 1 is using the "Master of Puppets" preset, and Rhythm 2 is using the "Satch Boogie" preset on the Pod XT - we were rather hoping for a modern guitar sound.

That said, I did find the "Master" preset a bit too bottom-oriented, so I cut some of that, to kill the boom, and removed the reverb and cut the presence on the Satch Boogie so it didn't cut through too much or muck up the "thrashy" riffs.

I really don't know when we can release anything beyond prototype, as we simply don't seem to have enough time (we get 3 hours most Thursday nights, and that's it) - and there are about 20 songs which we reckon are good enough to let people hear.

With positive feedback like this, though, I think we'll be concentrating on getting a good mix/arrangement (and redoing vox and solos) in the new year, and maybe release a 4-track EP in the first quarter. The other song I mentioned will probably be the 4th - I'll stick it up here after our next 3-hour session, provided we can come up with some lyrics...

We don't know any drummers though, and the production is going to have to be a hand-rolled job... we're getting better, but neither of us will make George Martin look over his shoulder...

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Posted: October 31 2008 at 11:29

Watcher remixed - with missing verse and a few tweaks.

I think the rhythm guitar still needs to go down a bit in places, and maybe we could trim a bit more fat - but it's getting closer to a finished piece - and just in time for Halloween

http://www.4shared.com/file/69148415/971dfeb9/Watching_11.html

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cobb2

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Posted: October 31 2008 at 22:19

Much better mix. Everything clearly defined in its pan. Drums, guitar and bass much better balance- it rocks. Vocals finally at a good level. Keyboards coming through like Uriah Heap in their fantasy period- nothing bad about that, I loved Heap.

Well done- something to be proud of.

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Posted: March 09 2009 at 05:12

4 months later, and we've been honing our mixing skillz - and I've been getting my teeth into mastering, the final stage on the voyage to getting a real product out there

So this is what I did to Watching "simply" by adding a multi-band compressor, 7-band equaliser, stereo enhancer and limiter to the final (re)mix;

We've got some more tracks to come, since we never stop writing - but by the time I post the newer stuff, I'll have had a chance to rework some of it (songs are never "finished" - they're ALWAYS "In Progress"

Edited by Certif1ed - March 09 2009 at 05:13

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cobb2

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Posted: March 10 2009 at 17:39

Excellent choice of mastering effects- you have given the song that "shine"- vague way to put it, but that's what I feel mastering does to the final mix.