▼2 COOL THINGS
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COOL THING #1
As I published my new album, Patrick Mattarelli, known here as melodieensoussol has contacted me and kindly offered to add some analog touch to the Fractal Universe track in his new studio.
So, the mix was split up to 10 separate tracks (drums, bass, synths, noises, etc.) and sent to him. What the man did was simply amazing! I’m not going to get into the entire process and technical terms, but in short, it was like this: the split tracks were analogically summed with hardware equipment, sent to the mastering tape recorder for compression and saturation, and finally, the tape recording was re-digitized.
The overall results were marvelous. The mix sounded much more professional, stereophonic and vivid. The overall sound acquired warmth and depth, and the stereo field was dramatically expanded. Different instruments suddenly got new dimensions and distinctive position in the 180° stereo field, while in my original mix (I realize that now) they sound piled up in one heap in the middle. You can't beat analog hardware with virtual digital simulators – simple as that.
You can download Patrick’s mix here, compare with my original mix and see for yourself. Listen both with headphones and without.
Notice how cool sounds the bass in his mix. I asked Patrick how he did that and here’s the secret: the line signal was re-amped, put on a fender hotrod deluxe 112 and recorded it with a gentle ribbon mic. This adds some angry tube sound to bass without too much distortion thanks to the Fender. It always a good thing to add some recorded track to a digital project, because it introduces some kind of "life" to it.
So if you guys want to pep up your tracks with analog summing and real tape saturation, I wholeheartedly recommend you Patrick Mattarelli. The man knows what he’s doing and takes his business and your tracks with all due seriousness. -
COOL THING #2
For those who want to play around, the split tracks of Fractal Universe are available for free download in 24bit/48 khz WAV format.
Initially, I split the mix to 5 tracks: bass, drums, sound FX, synths and vocals+synths. Some sounds were overlapping a bit, so Patrick requested to separate them more. Hence the mix was split to 10 tracks. So if you want to make a remix, or simply use the samples in your other projects, feel free to do so under CC BY-NC-SA license. It would be nice if you post your results here.
It's 117 BPM, G minor scale, by the way.
Have fun! -
well i must say i agree with the expanded stereo thing as i noticed. also the remix had somehow deeper feeling in it (or like what you mentioned "life").
i also am amazed that recording with mic can be this much clear and healthy!
beside the above i didn't notice any other major differents between the two. i guess that's because i listen to enjoy but artists listen to improve (beside enjoying of course!). -
ti didn't notice any other major differents between the two. i guess that's because i listen to enjoy but artists listen to improve (beside enjoying of course!).
Couldn't agree with you more. Musicians and non-musicians experience music in completely different ways. The subtle nuances introduced in the new mix would be a quite significant difference for audiophiles and those who understand a thing or two in music production, but if you consider the fact that young people nowadays listen to music mostly in MP3 format through their mobile devices, I wouldn't expect the average Joe notice anything at all. Apparently, your ear is quite good.
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so did i get it correctly? you mean MP3 format makes differences less sensible? actually about the two above tracks, i just listened to them with headphones as i thought through them music would be more clear. and also because i use a laptop, there's no additional speakers for the stereo sound to be reasonably heard.
so is it a big difference to listen without headphones?
about music taste i should add that i've managed to listen to some masterpieces with extreme attention in order to feel the music thoroughly. but like everybody else i mostly listen for the joy so that no extra energy is used. -
you mean MP3 format makes differences less sensible?
What I meant is that there are too few people who can really grasp and appreciate good sound quality. Most people listen to their music with means that can't reproduce the full spectrum of sound. Not only that they use lame hardware, they also use lame formats like MP3 and the worst part of all it - they are absolutely happy with what they hear.so is it a big difference to listen without headphones?
Sure, it's two different things. -
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CommentAuthorSouthOMike
- CommentTimeNov 6th 2011 edited
Should a person listen to an MP3 on a small Phillips component stereo, with the MP3 on a flash drive - it may have no bass, tinny high range and a muddled sounding midrange. But! Put the same MP3 on the same flash drive into a highend stereo (fill in your own countries high dollar stereo) that has more than a single speaker in 2 plastic speaker boxes and you will definately hear a difference.
On headphones, the sound(s) are all right by your ear, but depending on the style of the headphones, one may not "hear" all the small musical nuances that high end speakers may allow. Case in point: Listen to "Dear Prudence" by the Beatles on your MP3 player, then find someone with a highend stereo and play the same song. All depending on your ear, you should be able to hear the talking going on in the background as the record ends. Never heard that on my ancient Panasonic component stereo with the futuristic plastic speakers. Once I played the same thing on my the brother-in-law's Bang & Olafsen turntable with a set of monitor corner Klipschorn speakers, I heard things on that album didn't even know existed!
Making sense now? -
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It sure is a difference to listen with good or bad speakers. Or to listen with headphones instead of speakers.
But you shouldn't hear any differences between a 320 kbp/s MP3 and a WAV, even with studio monitors. Jamendo's 192 kbp/s MP3s do sound slightly different though. -
yeah i know there are differences about that.
and also it's clear that a 320 kbps MP3 will convey more details than a WAV or lower quality MP3 per second. but the thing is why those details are not recognized when played by lower quality speakers. i know that ear is important but that's a little confusing. keep in mind that the same file is played. i guess it's either because some speakers can't create those details (because they're so tiny) or because they're not of enough quality to be heard.
i usually use my in-ear headphones (it's not a famous brand, chinese i guess!) and i think it's quite good. most details that i haven't noticed for the first time in a track were because i wasn't listening carefully and didn't analyze what i heard. according to your experiences it seems by using higher quality speakers, there will be more details to reveal. -
1.: Using headphones, the left and right side are louder than using speakers. (Speakers: middle is loudest, left and right are lower)
So if there are instruments/whatever panned hard to the right/left you sometimes only recognize them using headphones.
2.: Tiny speakers: not all bass frequencies used in the song are audible; e.g. pure sub bass is not audible.
3. Bad speakers: distorted sound; some frequencies may be emphasized-> some instruments are way louder than others.
And of course, listening carefully is probably the most important factor. -
...stereo field was dramatically expanded. Different instruments suddenly got new dimensions and distinctive position in the 180° stereo field
Apparently, making this is easier than I thought. Here Patrick shares some of his knowledge:Everybody knows and uses reverbs. But meanwhile "panning" is not a big secret to anyone since stereo recording was introduced, a term like "depth" of the audio signal is not immediately clear for everyone. So, let us explain in simple terms what we mean with "depth" and what reverbs have to do with it ...
The first picture shows a comparison between panning and depth:
Let's introduce a track with a stereo synth sound ...
And a second one ...
Once we start to add compression to the sum or to both single tracks, the following happens:
Both signals of synth 1 and synth 2 start to overlap extremely. The result is, that the two sounds aren't really distinguishable one from the other anymore, due to the compression.
As both are stereo synths you can't simply pan one to the left and the other to the right. Sure, you could equalize both signals. But there's another way to settle them well in the mix.
The "opposite" of a compressor is a reverb. Ok, that's a very simple way to look at this equipment, but for our actual purpose it's alright. As you see, there's a lot of space behind the signal of synth 1 ... So, let's place synth 2 there, simply by adding some reverb.
If you compress the sum later, both signals will be closer one to the other, but they won't overlap and the listener can distinguish the instruments.
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CommentAuthorofficernarc
- CommentTimeNov 29th 2011
gonna remix some saregama. cuz that's how i roll. -
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Any progress, officer?
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