Yeah, yeah. I know I'm crazy and evil, but if you'd like to take a listen to something I made a little while back:

(direct download link):
removed for space issues, sorry, thanks for the comments and helping out, I was just getting deaf from ear-fatigue with this very peculiar track - happy mixing everyone on your own projects!

thread can be removed, if the mods desire to

All I'm asking from you dear .orgers is how does it sound? I can't make up my mind how something like this should be mixed. Does it jump out of the stereos? It doesn't need to be hi-fi by any means (more like a bootleg with additional sonic experimenting on top of it) but should sound like music in reasonable limits. The sound sources are genuine vintage effects from the late 70s and a real analog synth. The glitches were done digitally for the most part, as well as screwing up with a vinyl player.

It sounds fine to me on my pair of studio monitors, but I am suspecting this kind of recording approach might end up sounding too all over the place (or alternatively, muffled) on more regular hi-fi stereo setups. All help is appreciated!
[Edited 1/3/08 8:28am]

Even though it doesn't need to be hi-fi, you do kinda need to equalize the drums, I'd say. Very kinda late-eighties sounding, too - just asking, did you mean it to sound like that?

Sounds fine from my end...I like it...

Yes, of course it's meant to be a cheesy 80s sound, like recorded from a radio with tapedeck or something. I'm basically just trying to find.some kind of mixing balance on this one, so I can make further more complicated ones next - maybe even a few numbers of proper funk music instead of this kind of humour-fest. Seems like if you sample drum hits from 80s records - that have a processed 80s sound already - directly and then apply another layer of compression on the overall thing it's bound to produce all kinds of unpredictable results. A compressor can't seem to be able to keep with all the additional IDM / lofi glitches on top of it (and the drums have been destroyed with phasing anyway), so if I'd want to fix it I'd probably have to do it manually track by track.

Thanks!

i had to play round with it on Media Player to brighten it up.....
but than again... seems i got different earwax than most around eeer
Very grand master flash and Furious 5 on some levels.....

have you tried matching it up with
a similar sounding CD and your monitors..... ?

Happy 08

Thank you for that comment, that helps a lot. I don't think there's anything wrong with your ears, playback systems just vary and when you're taking risks with the mixing as I am doing here the results will be unpredictable on different speakers. This is why I posted the track here (and also because a lot of you are used to bootleg outtakes )

The thing is, it sounds brighter here than most CD tracks "of the same kind" (if there is any) - which means probably that the problem isn't too much high end in itself but some muffled mids that suffocate the response elsewhere. It knew it was a troublesome thing to get right, obviously because I'm doing everything intentionally wrong with this one. Kids don't try this at home.

(changed the link for a new brighter version, but don't know about this one either... I'm off for a nap )
[Edited 1/1/08 5:20am]

novabrkr said:

Honestly, I don't hear any difference between your first and your second,
so I'm not sure what's wrong with my ears....

Maybe it's just my sound system...

Thanks a lot for everybody's comments. there's nothing wrong with anyone's sound system - I didn't record the thing properly as it just started with a quick demo and was never meant to be a proper track (I've just fallen in love recently with synths again). You've been of the greatest kind of help even with this input.

Here's s few things to consider for people who sample, for instance, 80s records (just remembered this from the old days when I was still making this kind of stuff on subpar systems - old bad habits from my teenage years):

If you sample the drums directly from an eighties record and they have already been heavily processed and reberberated like often was the case during that time, they will cause an incredible amount of headache if you try to mix the track properly later on. When you compress the whole mix of your own track and you'll inevitably have to compress an already exaggerated reverb tail in the same process, things are most likely going to get really hard to work out. The 80s drum sounds were of course quite thin to begin with, so a multiband compressor is going to create really unpleasant results as the rest of the mix consisting of your own instruments has a far wider frequency spectrum. In other words, they don't really mix.

You're far better off working with direct samples from the drum machines themselves, rather than going for a "100% authentic sound" and sampling a record.

Other than that, also notice that if you are using vintage effects like I am here they are going to generate quite a lot of hiss and rumble as artefacts and modern mastering compressors can't keep up with them at all. In the old days, when things were recorded in the analog domain and by miking up amps even in the case of synthesizers, a lot of low-end rumble and hiss got filtered out naturally. When you go direct with these effects a multiband compressor is just going to create a lot of "hidden" boominess Even if it wouldn't necessarily surface at your own playback system, it will do so at many other systems. Rumble in the low-end will clog up many speakers completely, so that not a sufficient amount of high-end manages to seep through. Studio monitors are not always optimal for checking out these things, as the high end tends to be so "well defined". I have Yamaha MSP10's myself - I think my track sounded decent on those, but definitely NOT on others where I checked it out.

With gear like that it's best to check out the signal with headphones before committing a final take, if you intend to record something seriously that is. For instance, a CPU fan at your home setup might cover a lot of that hiss and rumble generated by the old gear, and it's going to be troublesome in the mixing stage. Degrading sound quality intentionally is also a risky business, as you will never know outright how things will sound on other people's systems (I guess with some practice it should work).

I've been doing artsy industrial stuff for the last several years, so I was just applying those same techniques here - so still have to learn / [i]re-learn a lot, now that I have myself also the tools I have always wanted for myself. I'll still try to rescue this track, as I absolutely loved making it. And will try my hand at making more funk music in the future as well for my own pleasure.

And one more thing I learnt from here: don't add delay on the bass, [i]ever. Even if it is tempo-synced.

Thanks a lot, maybe these points will also help somebody.

some people get ear damage
from not hearing things.....
- like a slap round the ear hole


anyway.....

a 3rd shot in the mid high tones brings
it upto "comparable" CD quality over here
thats on media player if it helps

new tune please...

edit
didnt realize you were gonna drop all that,,,,,
With the sounds people are making these days....
that stuff dont relate.... take away the rules
and we got all this new stuf coming thru

musicians are mostly robots..... stock on their own programing...

i'm going the other way.....



[Edited 1/3/08 10:07am]

i found a compression button on my thing....
- its alright ya know... might use it more... thanks nov...

come play on youtube....
http://www.youtube.com/wa...Y-IkAhEtoM late 2007
[Edited 1/3/08 10:22am]

Novabrkr, I have to be honest with you, I don't have a full tone range
of hearing, so after you brightened up your creation, I just may
not have been able to distinguish the difference. So it probably
really is my ears and not my sound system or your music.

However, I'm enjoying nevertheless...thanks....


[Edited 1/5/08 5:58am]

ear tickles are so much nicer..... than slap static rings


somatimes....

I made a new mix that sounded just okay everywhere I listened to it (altough a friend remarked that "those glitches really do give out that you're a university student from Finland"). I just experienced an incredible amount of ear-fatigue that sometimes creates bizarre results, and I hadn't done anything like this in years. It was a huge challenge for me, but I think I will do better in the future.

Thank you everybody for your comments. Means a lot. I will try to create some proper electro-funk tracks in the spring, once I've finished my gloomy silly industrial record. Just for pure fun, and out of respect for the music itself.

Where's the link to hear your song?