Disco - Funky Grooves - this any good?

[mrowberry]

@ burbo... Done Just reuploading again thanks for that...

Slightly off topic here but does anybody bother with Mastering? I'm never quite sure whether to get a track mastered or not.

I've read in one of the Taxi books that For film and TV it's not essential when submitting songs? But then when screening is a mastered song gona jump out at them more, or is this something the company in question can worry about later anyway?

Always a difficult one for me as mastering is out of my field which means I have to pay to get it done, and when your never sure if the tracks are ever gona get used it's a cost I could do without really as it soons adds up!

[burpo]

The subject of mastering used to baffle me
until I gave up on thinking about it.

What I will do is pass along the opinions I
heard on the Taxi UStream webcasts.

If you're dealing in single tracks, don't bother with
mastering. Just make sure your levels are good within your mix.

Most of us are submitting individual tracks to be used, stand-alone.
We're not making albums. (Am I dating myself?)

That's what they said and it makes some sense to me.

[jimrix]

Hey Martin

Aha another fellow Brit!

Nice groove, and the bass licks later on made me chuckle, nice one!

Good comments from burpo, yes, makes sense, if you've nailed the mix may not need mastering.

Personally I feel it could do with a touch of tasteful compression and limiting, as when this hits a harsh broadcast limiter it could throw your mix out of wack. Similarly, you could zing this up a bit with EQ across the mix.

And another way of looking at mastering is pimping your mix - giving it a nice suit for the interview

Happy to help if you'd like to hear the difference, I have toys for this, just drop me a pm.

HTH

Jim

[orest]

Hi there!
Really nice track! You are very talented I might add!

I feel this track to be a little hybrid, Disco and smooth jazz. I think a faster tempo more low end would make it more typical disco.
I think it's the Rhodes piano lines that makes it a little towards the smooth jazz for me.

I also think a great mastering on this song could do magic, tighten things up and get that low bottom up as well.
The ending of the piece was too abrupt, especially for film and TV, the almost always request a stinger, natural fade out no abrupt endings or fade outs done by the computer.

I always master my pop/rock/R'n'B stuff, but I rarely master my orchestra stuff.
As long as you get the result you like and the producers are satisfied, well, continue that way!

[mrowberry]

Hey There,

Thanks again for all the feedback and comments... I've got a guy who does mastering for me so will ask him to do a sample and see how it sounds.

@ Orest, I'd be grateful if you could explain a little more on the ending. How do you mean 'Natural Fade Out'?

I think I'm at the stage with this where I'm gona submit and just see what happens, I would like to look at that ending though so if you could expand on that I'd be really grateful.

Thanks again,

Martin

[orest]

Hey There,

Thanks again for all the feedback and comments... I've got a guy who does mastering for me so will ask him to do a sample and see how it sounds.

@ Orest, I'd be grateful if you could explain a little more on the ending. How do you mean 'Natural Fade Out'?

I think I'm at the stage with this where I'm gona submit and just see what happens, I would like to look at that ending though so if you could expand on that I'd be really grateful.

Thanks again,

Martin

Natural fade outs mean, say, if you strum your last chord on the guitar or play the last chord on the piano or both, just let it fade out afterwards. If you play a single note, hold the single note and let it fade out and so on. The producers like this kind of thing and it's called a "stinger". If you sign a contract with a big music library, they will almost always require you to do this edit as well of the full version.
It can be like this:
Full version
Underscore (no melody and big percussion stuff)
60 sec edit
30 sec edit
15 sec edit
stinger (this is the long notes that natural fade out in the end, (the end of the song) around 4-7 sec in length)

[orest]

And, this listing is for use in film and TV, so if you are very unlucky, they can turn the song down because of the end.

[mrowberry]

That makes sense that you for that.

So basically whenever pitching for film on tv finish on a sustained chord, probably the root of whatever key your in and hold unit it naturally fades.

[Silversun]

You can tell you love this genre. Good stuff !

Agree with a lot of the comments here. Think you definitely could do with getting this mastered...its far to polite at the moment. It needs to pump a bit. For me you need to fundamentally make the track about the groove. I would back of the reverb on the drums (make them pretty dry) and bring the kick right up. The whole genre was based around dance and the club scene of the time so strip the mix back to drums and bass, get them grooving and add everything in around them. Might be worth adding a bit of dirt to the keyboard sound aswell.

EDIT: One more thought. If your being authentic , disco bass tended to also have a bit of top end aswell and wasnt so bottom heavy. Add a bit of 1khz or so to your bass sound and compress it.

Cheers

[playagibson]

I just listened to your new mix and it sounds like the seventies !
Careful with the bass slapping that was more 80's. They did however play with a percussive style that sounds close to slapping.
As far as mastering goes, try adding tube style compression on your output channel in glue mode. This will help pull it together and make it grainier.
A lot of us can't send our songs out for mastering before each posting . I load up my output channel with a mastering eq, tube compressor, brickwall limiter and a rms meter. ( all daw plugins )
I get the sound I like than I bounce it down to an mp3.
If I want to get more experimental, I'll bounce it down to 24 bit and add a phase,flange, reverb...to the entire mix and then bounce to 16 bit. This is also a great way to do your fades.
The great thing about it is you can adjust the individual levels and eq's at the same time, instead of getting a mix back and freaking because a certain
instrument got buried.
I know it's not the proper way of doing things, but for Taxi and especially if your a dispatch member, it's the only way, at least for me.