Deep and utter frustration

So, mastering. This part of it is all about getting into each track, listening to each individual instrument and tweaking the "sound" - tone, reverb, other effects - maybe trying to get rid of extraneous noise, all that sort of thing. Then I listen to the section and try and make the relative volumes and stereo placings work (having stereo is brilliant, it's gives you more "space" to fit instruments in, and for them not to mask each other.

Some of the sections have been broken into smaller projects, mostly because if there is too much on, cubase is susceptible to crashes. I have been having problems particularly with the sampler Kontakt, where it tends to (more often than not) crash when I try to master out a track. The first half of the second section was fine. The second half was the one where the title of this post comes from. Last night I spent an entirely frustrating 2 hours trying to master out. There were several things I have tried, which have been intermittently successful in the past - mostly around saving as a new filename and restarting the project, or making a copy of the project file and restarting, or restarting the computer and starting again. In more extreme cases I have had to get rid of Kontakt from the project and start again for that bit. Nothing worked. In this case it was a flute line I was trying to sort out, so I managed to master without the flute in, and took the flute line into a separate project on its own, thinking this surely must be OK - nope, refused to master and crashed.

Eventually I did get it mastered, when I decided to just try and change which reverb plug-in I was using. So maybe Kontakt and that reverb don't play nicely together (I'll have to watch out for that). This is a shame because it is a beauuuuutiful convolution reverb which mimics some real (and lovely) spaces).

So finally I got section 2 mastered. Section 3 took 15 minutes, and section 4 another 30. I'm just listening through now as write and it all seems quite nice and shiny.

After I have mastered all the sections, I need to have more listening to see if there is anything else I would like to fix, and then the final thing to do is check the relative volume of all sections. At the moment there is some discrepancy.

And so... into section 5

Early report back

After spending about 1.5 hours mastering the first section, (but the first 1/2 of that was trying to get cubase to work) I think I can say with reasonable confidence, it is going to be worth doing. I have tidied up rumbles, made things generally clearer and so on. Anyway, time to put in a few finishing touches and start section 2. (1.1.2)

I'm Baaaaack!

Hello again

So after a break of about 6 weeks, I started to listen again to the album on the first. This is the first time I have got time to be able to do some actual mastering (I wanted to have a GOOD listen first, and I've listened through about 5 or 6 times now).

Soooo.... mastering. I'm about to start, right now I'm not sure how much I need/want to do, given I have kind of been mastering as I go along. Also given my memories of so many crashes. There are some sections which definitely need a bit of work, but in general terms a lot of it sounds shiny already.

Time to dive in....

Lay it down

Well new decisions: a few of them in fact.

1. The album will not make the release date of 11.11.11. I could have made it but there are two really good reasons to delay. The first is that I can only make that date now by pushing hard, it might be rushed. The second is that I have always intended to run a "viral marketing game" for the launch - well I seem to have managed to get this turned into a student final year project (well I am a lecturer...) which means an ideal time for this from the student's perspective is to run the game during February. Therefore the release date is now moved to 1.2.12
2. I have finished phase 2, I don't thing there are any more musical changes to make to the album, what is left is "mastering" - getting all the levels, processing etc. to sound right. There are bits that I know are balanced wrong.
3. Because I can now with the changed release date, I am "laying it down" - in other words leaving it alone, no messing, and significantly no listening, for about 6 weeks. I will start the mastering process on 1st December. This is actually really good practice, it allows me to come back to it with fresh ears in a few weeks, and it helps me separate myself from the emotional attachments I have to it. I can almost tell myself that somebody else recorded it - in fact it was past me.
4. What to do in the meantime? relax a bit, and work on the artwork.
5. Speaking of artwork, there are three "e-books" I'm going to make to accompany the album, an art book, an explanation book and a "making of" book. These will be PDFs and initially may only be available to participants in the viral marketing game. The "making of" book will be based on this blog. The explanation book will have less in it and will explain the philosophy and ideas behind the music, and the art book will have a picture for each of the 27 sections of music.

Gotta go.

wrestling with a sampler

Huzzah! pass three is finished. There were not that many changes to be made in pass three, but my frustration with crashes reached all new heights.

It's the sampler: Kontakt, an otherwise beautiful piece of software from Native Instruments. My version is a few years old, and something in the combination of Kontakt, Cubase, Windows 7 and this computer is not happy. It mostly crashes when I try to mix down a section. So I have to kill the program process, reload the file, remove Kontakt, save, close Cubase, reload the file, restart Kontakt and re-put in all the settings I might have had, cross my fingers and hoe that this time it worked. Sometimes doing a "save as" and restarting with the saved as file helps. Sometimes doing a file copy of the project file helps.

And in this pass, for one particular section, I have spent several hours doing this in different combinations over and over hoping to get a usable result. I have done, finally, and after much struggle I have come to the finish of the third pass. This might be the last pass of tweaking before mastering commences. I will have to do a lot of listening before I can convince myself that it's fine.

What have I done in this pass?

• The rain at the beginning has had some flowing water sound added and altered a little to make it all work better. Right at the end of teh first track I use the beginning backwards, but the sound effects sounded weird, so while the music is backwards, the sound effects are forwards.
• One line of flute has been changed in 1.1.2 so make it less strident
• 1.2.1 has had the pitch bend restored on the recorder line - it had been lost in one of my getting rid of the crashes processes
• 2.1.3 has had some small volume tweaks
• 2.2.3 has had the most radical change - I have removed the bass drum beat entirely from the spacey section - I had tried loads of things to make it work and eventually had gone with the maxim "if in doubt take it out". It is of course different, but I think I'm already liking it.
• in 2.3.2 there are some guitar chords which are meant to be distorted and in the background. I have changed the sound processing on the guitar twice already, and now I think the sound is right, it just needed to be quieter.
• in 3.1.1 the strings I had introduced in pass one which were too quiet were now too loud, so I have made some changes, also added to the string only section so it has more melodic bits and is a bit less like the soundtrack for a Peter Greenaway film.
• I have added more notes at the end of the 3.1.1 section, and removed the discordant note. Basically there was a gap I wasn't happy about and I have been attempting to cover it. I played with lots of possible sound effects, but nothing seemed to work either musically or conceptually, so instead I did something different - extended the tune of the line by adding 2 notes, and now the gap has been shortened or removed or improved - I hope.
• in 3.2.2 there was an intake of breath through my nose while playing the classical guitar that was irritating me increasingly. 3.2.2 and 3.2.1 were all one project, and after I had managed to remove the noise with some clever editing, I then couldn't get a mixdown. This was over a week ago, and today I got a mixdown finally, possibly helped by finally deciding to separate the two sections into different projects.
• 3.2.3 cleaned up the fast classical guitar, and rationalised the processing - hopefully it is less hissy now.
• 3.3.3 brought down the volume of the flatlining beep. It was reasonable on the headphones, but there's something about the sound system in teh car that seems to push that particular frequency until it was deafening!

So, on from here - lots of listening and then mastering, which is the process of going through with a fine tooth comb and checking volume, tone equalization, stereo placement and subtle processing, so that it all sounds good, and clean, and as close to perfect as possible. To be honest, though I am going to keep a copy of how it all is now, because to some extent I have been mastering as I go along, tweaking and twiddling until it sounds, in my opinion, pretty good.

I listened to most of the previous two albums yesterday. It was interesting listening while I'm in critical mode, looking for mistakes and things that could be better - let's just say I think my standards have got even higher for this album - which I wanted to be the case.

All these tiny little details

So pass 2 is finished, lots of stuff tweaked. I have promised myself at least one more pass before mastering, and I still need to make some changes, but I feel like to some extent I'm mastering as I go along.

So tracks 2 and 3 changes. Seeing as I believe in making available my thoughts and such like, why don't I just paste in my ongoing notes (typos and all)....

2.1.1 Cognition (future) "We Can Work It Out"
=============================================
+I love the deep bassy notes. Don't happen much on laptop.
leave first 2 and take off rest?
- yes dropped the lower


2.1.2 Perception (present) "I Can See Clearly Now"
==================================================
Wok lid still a bit random
- bit of enhancing, but cannot enhance it too much
guitars could still have more presence - how did I do it on 3.2.2?
- just louder
do I have 2 tracks of solo that have unequal processing?
-yes I did. My ears are good sometimes
overall volume could be higher
- yes, boosted
more and clearer perc
- cleared a bit maybe, louder certainly
- whole thing MBC and several tracks gated to clear up background

2.1.3 Memory (past) "Thanks For The Memories"
=============================================
more humanising on piano chug - need an emphasis on the 1, and maybe a left hand
- added left hand, changed the humanising, LH continues into first 2 verses


2.2.1 Physics "Physical Acts"
=============================
where da bass? make the bass rumble work at higher freqs too or drop it and get real bass
bass rumble irritates me, make it stop after a bit or fizzle or something
- kept - too good to mess with


2.2.2 Biology "Biological Imperitive"
=====================================
lose the bass rumble?
add something else at the low end for 1st part?
- see above, kept, not messing with it


2.2.3 Chemisty "Chemical Bond"
==============================
tidy up hammer-ons
- tried, failed left it


2.3.1 Rhythm "Beat It"
======================
handperc sounds a bit bathroomy
so does clapping - may need bigger reverb space
-changed reverb
last of the industrial noises hardly makes an impact
- bigged them up
review cymbal riff near end of some sections (used about 4 times)
- changed the riff for 1st 3 times

2.3.2 Harmony "Togetherness"
============================
drums -18.25 to reverb
can't hear bass on laptop on delay llama bit - strong on headphones but very low
- added a touch of the middle, but unwilling to mess too much
smooth transition into scales
chords still lack bite on scales bit (add bass?)
- changed guitar sound again
more bass synth on 2nd half of scales
- given it more
maybe piano now too loud in scales
- dropped a tiny bit
-crashing right now. Boo!
bring out snare in harpsichord
- done
harpsichord could be spikier?
(think I need to split of harpsichord and cannon)
- done
still need to deal with transition at end - or do I?
electric guitar feels like it's behind my head
overall feel at end a bit muddy - too much or wrong bass?
- string quartet fades

2.3.3 Melody "The Rutland Reel"
===============================
guitars louder at start for transition?
bass very different from previous - could be more
can't hear bass on laptop
overall satisfactory
bring out solo instruments a touch? Esp pluck
solo pipes seems to lose something
- some general fiddling & MBC

===================================================================================

3.1.1 Father "Abba"
===================
L: been listening to the panets?
strings too quiet throughout
- lifted lots
get rid of "fire"
- done
work on smoother dynamics
overall quiet?
loving the thunder
hang the last note slightly longer
-extended and added discord

3.1.2 Son "The Word"
====================
does one of the screams (4?) lack reverb?
-fixed
"It is finished" is too choired
- reworked
beep bass louder?
-no leave as
Ney still not working for me. Louder? More presence? more processing? different instrument?
no matter how much reverb I put on it sounds dry
Can the tuning be improved?
- tuning improved, stereo enhancer added and AVOX punch, much stronger


3.1.3 Holy Spirit "The Comforter"
=================================
nice Uke work
bring flute out from echoes a little
-done
glossolalia will be controversial - it's a bit forward - could be quieter
- taken down
bring in some ride cymbal?
- done
bigger snare! all drums in 2nd half except hihat which could be ride
slap bass too loud (but working nicely) need a bit of reverb?
- reprocessed

harp (normal) centre -6dB
Flute (all) centre -0.3dB pb reange down -2.0St

Multiband Compressor - clear vox
Modmachine Delay - kontact for 313 spirit
send to reverb - -14.06

3.2.1 "The Lust Of The Flesh"
=============================
something over drums into - sfx? female vox sexy
add night club background to whole thing?
- crowd & resteraunt at the beginning
- voice over "Party People, how are you feeling?"
bring in piano with bass?
- done
whole thing too loud? (compared with other sections). On general I have a few sections in a row which have got a bit louder
- nothing done, can deal in combiner
too much reverb on kazoo solo
- taken off a little
piano solo a touch too loud?
- dropped back a touch
check transitions into Chorous - need drumfill?
- added drumfill

[3.2.2 "The Lust Of The Eyes"]
============================
into pink floyd still a little "off" transition jumps sound
- better
I think that one of the two tracks is louder than the other
- not really but some changes at point
can I change the note at the end of the entertainer to a chord?
- yes
transition at end still not prefect. could an "ole" help?
- maybe in next treack
whole thing loud
- left
rasquiado too trebbly
- modified volume and compressor
nose noise near end of bleak midwinter
volume drop from bleak to god rest ye
- lots of work on transitions and getting the volumes right
- sounds much more like one take now

3.2.3 "The Pride Of Life"
=========================
something still not totally smooth about transition
- added an Ole
solo spanish getting lost in backing
- brought up a touch
drum solo is out better
bass may be too loud (very audible on laptop) - don't lose much though, as solo is clear
whole thing loud
- left

3.3.1 Sin "Darkness"
====================
chords in first half too loud? make them move about? vary volume a bit, and maybe timing
- no, fine


3.3.2 Repentance "180"
======================
perfect
- good


3.3.3 Sanctification "The Gleaming Cube"
========================================
music box works well bring it out a little
if in doubt add an sfx - over end of cube?
- added flatline
check bass timing in end section
- leave as is for now, looked OK

Any questions?

If in doubt, add SFX

This is phase 2 pass 2 and I have officially named this pass "if in doubt add a sound effect". I have always loved sound effects in music and so here we go.

Lots to report, I have finished track one. I have added rain at the start (not sure about it yet), and a steam train between sections 1 and 2 (very sure about it).

In section 2 I have slightly unhumanised the flute, I reckon it was slightly over-humanised.

In section 3 I have reworded the Xylophone solo so it makes more sense and is less random. Funny you didn't notice that when it was too quiet to hear. I've also microedited shaker, guiro, bass and guitars for timing. Once you have started microediting you never go back. It makes such a difference.

In section 4, I have changed the lead-in note to a chord, and done lots of work tidying the whistle which replaced the organ. And then spent ages trying to get a mixdown - it kept crashing. Theis was the point where it started to come home to me how far I have yet to get, and how close my slef-imposed deadline for release is (11.11.11) Eventually I fixed it by combining the whistle back into the 1st instance of the sampler. Unfortunately the process seemed to kill my pitch bends, so I will need to revisit them at some point.

In section 5 I did one micro-edit where the guitar solo hesitated slightly. Microediting is my new best friend.

in section 6 there was no substantial changes

in section 7 the big thing was the electric violin which had replaced the electric piano. It seems to be a theme that when I chuck something out and replace it, then that will need some work when I come back to it. In this case, the tuning was really annoying me - the clever sampler I have which bills this as "fiddle" has some tuning modification to make it sound authentic. In other words, when played with other instruments, it sounds wrong, so I found the switch marked "switch" which turned that effect off. Much better. Add a little chorus to thicken the sound up a little and Bob's your Auntie.

in section 8 I dealt with a brass band off to the side (I sorted out the panning) and tried to deal with some solo trumpet issues but eventually left it. This is a section where I am fighting with the sampler to make it behave well, and for once I can say "it'll do" because it's not really bad.

And in section 9 the only substantial change was to replace the old bit of reversed stuff from the start of the track with the new version.

All through there are slight modifications to volume and tone which I have not bothered to tell you about because they are manifold, important, but boring.