TGF Do Something Challenge - Season 9 Week 5

[ᛗᛜᛜᚺDᛜᎶ Ꮤᛨᚳᚴ]

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Welcome to Week 5 of Season 9's "Do Something Challenge". We really hit a low point this week with only 4 entries (maybe it was meant to be considering it was week 4 of the Challenge) ;~((. I am sure you are all just trying to make the count easy for me, but feel free to submit as many entries as you like, I am hear for ya'! We are now at a total of 54 pieces of music submitted in the first four weeks of the Challenge! Great job all!! Here is a print screen of the spreadsheet (click on it or the link to see full sheet):

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Kudos to all who have contributed so far to this Season!! Get out there and encourage others to join the Challenge and submit some entries ;~)) MUSIC, it's the best (and best shared)!!

Week 5 will run through August 02, so get on it and make some more glorious noises!

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

#ORIG

 

[FuzzyAce]

These were mostly done with Native Instruments, some 8dio in there too. I promise I'll have a rock track later today, though.

#orig



#orig



#orig

 

[DrewJD82]

#ORIGINAL

Technically not one of my originals as the guys in my band wrote it before I joined, I played bass and did there's a couple rhythm tracks of mine blended in with the singer's that are more utility-based than 'for the song' as I tried to tighten things up with how I mixed them. This has been an exercise in.....letting the idea of perfection blow right out the window. They refused to record to a click and there's only so much editing I can do before things sound really not good. I've been working on the mix the last couple days.



And those damn hihats I can't do shit about..... Leads are coming on this after I find out what singer dude is doing with the vocals.

 

[FuzzyAce]

#orig

Rushed the mix on this one but my ears are tired and wanted to get this one out today.
A dose of guitar wankery.

 

[DrewJD82]

Man, the output from ya guys is a bit different than when we just started this!!! Fuckin’ sick!!!!

#ORIG

Killer job on the layering in this one!!

#orig

Rushed the mix on this one but my ears are tired and wanted to get this one out today.
A dose of guitar wankery.

This reminds me of a more recent Vai tune but I can’t remember which one, very cool stuff and great tone!

 

[FuzzyAce]

This reminds me of a more recent Vai tune but I can’t remember which one, very cool stuff and great tone!

Thanks! Although I wasn't consciously going for a Vai sound, I can hear where you might think that. Especially in the lead section with saturated neck tone mixed with some of the wider scale shapes. Zappa did that a lot too which makes sense that Vai picked up on it and ran with it. As did I from listening to both of them a lot.

Btw, all the core tones were from the Modern amp(s) in Metallurgy collection. Post eq and some processing too.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

[...] Killer job on the layering in this one!! [...]

Thank you, Drew. I appreciate you listening to the track. It was actually intended for last week, but I just couldn't stop fiddling with the velocity layers of the orchestral library and the mix in general. I'm still not really happy with the middle section, the acoustic guitar doesn't come through in the mix as well as I would have liked, but at some point I just had to stop.

 

[DrewJD82]

Thank you, Drew. I appreciate you listening to the track. It was actually intended for last week, but I just couldn't stop fiddling with the velocity layers of the orchestral library and the mix in general. I'm still not really happy with the middle section, the acoustic guitar doesn't come through in the mix as well as I would have liked, but at some point I just had to stop.

Lately I’ve been on a “Don’t touch the volume sliders, only the EQ’s” trip, you might have some luck brightening up the acoustic in the middle, even if it’s automated to only brighten up when everything else is playing. I generally determine if I’ll use EQ/volume/compression based on what else is happening at the time I need to hear the specific part. If the acoustic sounds great for the rest of the track, I wouldn’t touch the volume or use any compression, I’d just focus on the EQ until it’s poking out just enough.

It’s a dense mix/song though, that’d be a tough one for even experienced mix engineers to tackle!

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

Lately I’ve been on a “Don’t touch the volume sliders, only the EQ’s” trip, you might have some luck brightening up the acoustic in the middle, even if it’s automated to only brighten up when everything else is playing. [...]

Haha, I'm actually doing it the exact opposite most of the time. Getting the volume balance right first and then applying EQ if needed. I might have to give your method a try. I also already brightened up the acoustic guitar quite significantly, but making it even brighter resulted in just the higher notes poking out unpleasantly. Compression helped to improve audibility (I'm still learning compression, though. And I'm honestly still having a hard time to really understand how to dial in release effectively.), and I had to bring down the distorted guitars quite a bit. I guess that part of the track is really an arrangement issue. The acoustic and distorted guitars are fighting each other relentlessly because they are both in the exact same range. That was much easier to tackle with the strings section - I just transposed the sustained strings an octave higher once the guitars kick in and it instantly worked. Maybe I should have just used a capo and played the acoustic guitar an octave higher.

 

[DrewJD82]

Haha, I'm actually doing it the exact opposite most of the time. Getting the volume balance right first and then applying EQ if needed. I might have to give your method a try. I also already brightened up the acoustic guitar quite significantly, but making it even brighter resulted in just the higher notes poking out unpleasantly. Compression helped (I'm still learning compression, though. And I'm honestly still having a hard time to really understand how to dial in release effectively.), and I had to bring down the distorted guitars quite a bit. I guess that part of the track is really an arrangement issue. The acoustic and distorted guitars are fighting each other relentlessly because they are both in the exact same range. That was much easier to tackle with the strings section. Maybe I should have just used a capo and played the acoustic guitar an octave higher.

Fortunately, these are the challenges that bring progress! Compression took a while for me to grasp and I’m still not as content as I will be eventually. Just learning how to hear the compression is a challenge in itself. For a while I only used 2 compressors just to limit the differences between all the different types out there. I know using parallel buss compression on drums helped me learn a lot about how it was working because you have the non-compressed version right there to compare it to, so when you bring up the compressed bus fader you can really hear the exact differences between the two.