pushing my boundaries... "The Unknown"

[southpaw]

Sorry for being unclear Lydia. Its hard to give production input when their are so many subjective facets and variables involved, and we dont know what each other understands and doesnt understand yet - about it... That said, pm me if you want me to better explain a point or have a specific q and ill try to give you some ideas. (Dont worry, if i dont know the answer.. I make it up! )

[crystallions]

Oh - don't apologize - I really appreciate that you took the time to help me. It is not your fault I haven't done my homework so to speak. I really should know what all of those things are. (at least have an idea...)I am still looking for that book (thought I knew where it was... tells you how the floor in my office looks... ) but as soon as I find it I will read through your advice again and look up the things I don't know what they are. Then I will play around with the mix of the piece. At that point I will probably take you up on your offer and pm you whatever questions come up.

[crystallions]

I found the book and have read through the advice being able to look up what things are and what they do. Now I am actually starting to look forward to learning how to mix. (and Digidog - you don't have to explain your post anymore. I think I have figured it out.)

[allends]

Feb 7, 2009, 7:42am, crystallions wrote:I found the bookIt was always hard for us to find things at our house when our kids were young like yours. Allen

[kitz]

Nice!! Try using a mastering tool like Maxim to kick up the volume - it just seems low all around. That might take care of the missing bottom end. Kitz

[t4mh]

LydiaI don't like the engineering part either. I would much rather be an artist at what I do than working the technical end of things. However, we have chosen to be in command of everything in our music rather than to out source these jobs. I guess we had better be ready to make it sound as good as we envisioned it through the writing process. Think of it this way, if you were the orchestra conductor you would still have to stop and get the violins to play that part in a certain way.You can do this!Keith

[mazz]

Lydia,Cool pice, I like the incessant repetition in the strings, it creates tension. I'm still working on the mixing of the electronica and orchestral, it's tricky. I've been composing the orchestral stuff first and then adding the electronica and I think it may work better the other way around but I haven't tried that yet.One thing I've found on pieces like this is to take certain aspects of your loop and bring them in one or two at a time. For instance, on your loop you have some fast 16th note parts, some slower middle parts and then the low end kick drum pattern. Each part of the loop fills in a part of the sonic spectrum. So try combinations of the different groove elements, like kick drum and one 16th part or all high or all middle. Then when you bring in the whole groove, the spectrum widens out and a dramatic texuture shift happens, which takes care of the dynamics without necessarily needing more volume. Also applying filtering effects to a loop and then gradually making the mix between the filter drier and drier or raising the cutoff (if using a lowpass filter) or suddenly bypassing the filter can help build dynamic feelings with electronics. The filters available nowadays, like the ones in Stylus, can be used to isolate certain parts of a loop because they can be tuned.Keep playing, it sounds great!!Mazz

[crystallions]

Thank you all for your great advice and encouraging comments! I am reworking the mix and am actually finding it fun to play around with EQ (and other things that I can't remember what they are called at the moment). I have only worked with the percussion and bass so far. I am hoping to have a new mix before the month is over.Kitz - I like the idea of looking at mixing as being a conductor who is telling the orchestra exactly what they want and helping them achieve that sound.