Remix TH-U , Nembrini Cali and BST100 in Cubasis 3

hacked_to_pieces

Two tracks of Rythm guitar one uses a preset from TH-U ambient bank and the other Nembrini Cali , bass is using PSA1000jr and the lead is BST100. Also used Funk drummer Blackhole, Delay 3000, and Nembrini reverb.

McD

I hope your open to some feedback if not skip my comment in the Spoiler.

I like the music... the playing, the notes selected, etc

The drums are just lost in the thick middle. The only fix would be to side-chain the drums into a compressor on a mix with all the other parts. Then the drums will not be lost and the track will sparkle with funk patterns that make that app pure gold. I've read that multi-band compression can help to isolate the bass track in the spectrum and insuring the bass is tight mono will allow it to surface in the mix. So, with tight present bass and drums that cut through you'll have a real masterpiece. There are many compressors that support side-chain input and I've been told Cubasis supports this but I've only learned to do it in AUM. I would ask for help to insure I get that right.

hacked_to_pieces

Thanks for the comment @McD, yes I agree the drums need work + cymbals sound like shit but in this case, they are just there to keep time. If it was attempting a real track I'd use DrumPro and export each drum on its own track to mix in Cubasis. Plus I did this on my ipad air so I was running out of DSP every five minutes. I had to freeze every effect and get the DSP down to 10% so I could put Pro C on the master bus and use up all the DSP again, after that, I was sick f&*cking around with it. And my poor ipad was starting to get hot.

McD

@hacked_to_pieces said:
Thanks for the comment @McD, yes I agree the drums need work + cymbals sound like shit but in this case, they are just there to keep time. If it was attempting a real track I'd use DrumPro and export each drum on its own track to mix in Cubasis. Plus I did this on my ipad air so I was running out of DSP every five minutes. I had to freeze every effect and get the DSP down to 10% so I could put Pro C on the master bus and use up all the DSP again, after that, I was sick f&*cking around with it. And my poor ipad was starting to get hot.

I'm definitely going to work on side-chaining. It's standard practice in studios to bring out the drums. Funk drum is not the problem but everything using the same frequency spectrum means you need to decide what gets lulled to the front and sidechaining plus up the drums but ONLY when they are active. It's like a volume knob tied to the envelope of the drum track. FAC Envolver can also isolate an envelope and convert it into a MIDI CC stream that could be attached inverted to a master volume somewhere in the mix to do what the side-chaining input does for a compressor.

tahiche

If advice is wanted... the track needs separation. It’s true that sidechaining would help, but in this case I’d say it’s 90% about frequencies. I would address frequency separation and only after that donsidechaining or anything else.
The synth pad (it’s a pad right?) is really loud and conflicting with both the bass and the guitars. I’d high pass it for sure, actually I’d high pass a lot in this track to let the bass breathe. It looks like you like reverb 😜. Reverb will accentuate whatever frequency conflicts are there. If you are gonna use a lot of reverb I ’d definitely high pass (remove low end below 300hz or so) the reverb if you’re not. ( maybe low pass too). And sidechaining the reverb from the start is a good practice, you duck the reverb during the note pluck and let it come up at the tail. That way it can be loud but let things breathe more.
Keep it up!.

tahiche

@McD said:
It's like a volume knob tied to the envelope of the drum track. FAC Envolver can also isolate an envelope and convert it into a MIDI CC stream that could be attached inverted to a master volume somewhere in the mix to do what the side-chaining input does for a compressor

Wow, I didn’t know this. Mind sharing a link where I can see this in action?. Sidechaining is tricky in iOS if the daw doesn’t have its own implementation. But this would be interesting for other effects too. I like doing that to tremolos. Make the tremolo aggressive when the note is loud but die as the note fades.

hacked_to_pieces

@tahiche said:
If advice is wanted... the track needs separation. It’s true that sidechaining would help, but in this case I’d say it’s 90% about frequencies. I would address frequency separation and only after that donsidechaining or anything else.
The synth pad (it’s a pad right?) is really loud and conflicting with both the bass and the guitars. I’d high pass it for sure, actually I’d high pass a lot in this track to let the bass breathe. It looks like you like reverb 😜. Reverb will accentuate whatever frequency conflicts are there. If you are gonna use a lot of reverb I ’d definitely high pass (remove low end below 300hz or so) the reverb if you’re not. ( maybe low pass too). And sidechaining the reverb from the start is a good practice, you duck the reverb during the note pluck and let it come up at the tail. That way it can be loud but let things breathe more.
Keep it up!.

Thanks @tachiche I appreciate the advice. I did get a little carried away with the reverb.

SNystrom

I would love to hear the new version of this track with all the advice above implemented.

There were a ton of complex elements in the mix and it was tiresome to my ears trying to pick each of the individual instruments out of the mix.

I would love to hear an a/b version of the song to demonstrate how a number of small tweaks can totally transform a track.

I really enjoyed the song and think it definitely is worth taking the time to polish it. 😊

hacked_to_pieces

Here a remix hopefully a better-balanced mix thanks for all the suggestions.

SNystrom

Oh, hell yeah!

That was a truly amazing transformation!!! 🙌

McD

I loves me some "shitty bass". Nice work isolating the drums.