Album done in Reaper finished, please review!

Omni · 10-12-2010, 08:50 AM

Hola!

Some of you may recall my band Of Former Fame started a thread to ask for help mixing our album. Lastrite headed the call and did an amazing job mixing. Bubbagump even lent a helping hand in the mastering process!

I'm still waiting on the label to get it onto iTunes but I've posted it on various channels to hear.

We'd all really love to hear your feedback on the mixes and songs. Feel free to ask any questions on the process and hopefully Lastrite and Bubbagump can chip in.

Without further ado!

http://www.facebook.com/OfFormerFame?v=app_2405167945
or
http://www.myspace.com/offormerfame

Solar · 10-12-2010, 09:16 AM

Congrats mate!

Thanx for sharing and will for sure give a listen soon

Good luck!!!

Cheers!!

Omni · 10-12-2010, 09:30 AM

Awesome! Please let us know if you enjoy it and spread the word if you do

msuscorpio · 10-12-2010, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omni

Hola!

Some of you may recall my band Of Former Fame started a thread to ask for help mixing our album. Lastrite headed the call and did an amazing job mixing. Bubbagump even lent a helping hand in the mastering process!

I'm still waiting on the label to get it onto iTunes but I've posted it on various channels to hear.

We'd all really love to hear your feedback on the mixes and songs. Feel free to ask any questions on the process and hopefully Lastrite and Bubbagump can chip in.

Without further ado!

http://www.facebook.com/OfFormerFame?v=app_2405167945
or
http://www.myspace.com/offormerfame

Wow man, kudos! My kind of stuff! Excellent production value too. I'm really loving the guitar tones and the sound of the drums. Trying to figure out how I can incorperate sound quality like that into my own stuff. I play a similar genre of material. The background vocals have a great effect on them as well. Did you do any triggering? Are the guitars mic'd or some sort of amp simulation?

camerondye · 10-12-2010, 10:16 AM

Everything so far I've listened to sounds great so far. Give some details on what you used on the album...
cam

kindafishy · 10-12-2010, 10:37 AM

Love it. I've been following this since you first started looking for a mixer. Fanned by Music to Murder on ReverbNation.

Great job to you and everyone involved. It sounds amazing. Truly.

Lastrite, you did a great job on the mixing. Wow.

Edit: Oh yeah, OP request: "Please review". My review is that it fucking rocks. Buy this album!

Lastrite · 10-12-2010, 10:43 AM

You'll have to ask Omni for microphones/guitars/bas-guitar used exactly, because I forgot

Mixwise:

* Overall
- Lots of DDMF EQ
- Lots of Jeroen Breebaart's Red Phatt Pro
- Lots of Barricade Pro

* Drums
- Programmed
- Steven Slate Drumsamples

* Bas-guitar
- Schwa's Oligarc Drive (which reminds me I need to buy this license, on that now!)

* Guitars
- TSE X30 amp-sim for the rythm guitars
- Various Poulin amp-sims for leads and cleaner stuff
- Catharsis Cab IR's loaded in Cockos ReaVerb
- KarmaFX Delays and Flanger

* Vox
- Spitfish
- Schwa's CMX
- Kjaerhus Classic Delay

* FX
- Reverberate
- Kjaerhus Classic Delay
- Cockos ReaDelay

* On various busses
- Bootsy Ferric DTS
- Bootsy Density MkII
- GlisEQ

I'll be glad to answer any additional questions... and thanks for all the nice words so far

EDIT:

ps. Bubbagump didn't 'lend a hand with the mastering process'.... He mastered it and had some very helpful input in the last phase of the mixing-process as well. It was a very effective and enjoyable cooperation.

Bubbagump · 10-12-2010, 11:04 AM

I'll chime in on the Mastering real quick. One thing to know, Stef (Lastrite) did a great job on the mixes and I was simply the last line super nit picker as the mastering guy. So don't take any of this as criticism of Stef's work but much more like a typical mastering process with a good mixer.

Stef sent me the finals for review and I sent them back asking for a few revisions on drum compression, sub bass levels (I got stems on one song just to control the bass as there was too much going on in a range Stef's monitoring did not let him hear) and other minor minor tweaks.

The issues they had on the tracks were very consistent... which tells me room and monitoring were the "problems" which is a typical issue. This is a credit to Stef as it means he had control of his mixes and the "problems" were not from any lack of skill on his part but rather room and monitoring.

Typically EQ wise there was some muddiness around 200hz I cut. I often bumped the vocal/meat frequencies a tad (750-1500 hZ). I deessed where needed. Stef mixed on HR824s which cross over at about 2.2khz and I think they have a bit of a hole here which caused him to have that area overly hot. I also added air at about 7.5k and up. Though realize, none of this EQ work required much more than 1db to 2db changes max. In some places I put a HPF at 30 hz to clean up rumble. Though, I also added some 40hz info here and there to give the kick some real nuts on better systems that can go that low.

On many of the tracks I used M/S to reduce the side. Not that the sides were too hot, but I wanted to make sure the vocal focus was correct. I felt that with compression and limiting the vocals were getting pushed back too far and with so much hard panned, the stereo image was still very wide and clear.

Past that, I compressed with Bombardier (Holy crap I love that comp for this sort of work) to shave off 1-3db before limiting and to glue up the space the mixes were sitting in.

Limiting got crammed through either Xenon or Eventhorizon+ depending on how I felt the limiter worked with the bass on the particular song. I really like EventHorizon+ as to my ears it sounds the most like clipping the input to a great A/D converter (the mastering process of lots of MEs is to clip their AD input ratehr than limit)... which to me is often the most musical way to limit things.

Lastly, dither was done via Schwa's excellent VST Psycho Dither.

Of course I trimmed and did the fades, but that is of little consequence.

Loudness wise, -10db RMS at the loudest passages seemed to be about right (this is just where it landed, don't think I was sitting there with an RMS meter to dial in loud). For loudness I just push limiting until I hear it go to crap and the mix falls apart... then back it off. At this stage, I loudness match limited and the unlimited track so I can hear them side by side. The limiting SHOULD be transparent and if I hear any weirdness or loss of quality between the limited and non limited track, additional tweaking is needed.

As for volume matching between tracks, this is something I do 100% by ear. Turn off the lights, close my eyes, pick the loudest passage of the loudest song as the top level bench mark and start leveling. I often bounce between the three sets of monitors I have (Mixcubes, Opals, Joachim Gerhard Sonics) to check my decisions and randomly pop to different areas of the album to ensure there is no volume changes. The vocal levels are god in all of this. With this sort of music, the vox have to be 100% consistent level wise form tune to tune. Random flipping around confirms that things are indeed "right" as anywhere I go on this record it should all "fit".

Any specific questions on tracks or process, let me know.

Omni · 10-12-2010, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lastrite

EDIT:

ps. Bubbagump didn't 'lend a hand with the mastering process'.... He mastered it and had some very helpful input in the last phase of the mixing-process as well. It was a very effective and enjoyable cooperation.

YES YES YES! I didn't mean to imply Bubbagump only helped mastering. I meant he lent a helping hand to the project and DID the mastering.

(phenomenally of course)

Equipment used:
Ibanez MMM1-stock pickups, elixir Baritone .68 strings,

PRS Mike Mushok Model-stock pickups, DT Strings DDT (this guitar wasn't used much actually)

Fender/Squier P-Bass with J-Bass passive pickups.

All recorded using Instrument input on a Line 6 Toneport UX8

Drums were programmed by hand this time around though we've often used a V-kit to get the basic MIDI. We programmed them with a basic Superior Drummer 2.0 kit I made and gave Stef a key map for the Steven Slate drums. Brent did the drums then I took them and cleaned up things I didn't think fit and applied some more humanization to them as well as moved around a few things to match the drum map for Stef.

Vocals were recorded on an old GT Electronics AM11 Large Diaphragm Condenser mic into a Behringer Phantom Power Supply into a Line 6 Pod X3 Live so Steve could record vox and comp them at home without me. No acoustic insulation at Steve's place so I'm surprised there weren't more problems. They were then run through Melodyne to tune them and adjust some timing problems that cropped up here and there.

Tracking and tightening were all done in Reaper at home before I sent the dry tracks to Stef for tone selection and mixing to save him the hassle.

Stef would mix it and send me links which I would make suggestions/disagreements on

and after many mixes we got the final tracks.

Stef put in so many hours I can't even imagine. I know I was getting tired of reviewing the mixes-I can only imagine his point of view lol.

Chris Martins · 10-12-2010, 12:56 PM

All of this sounds REALLY good! It just goes to show that direct recording can definitely compete with traditional recording now and that you don't need a huge overpriced studio with an even bigger SSL console to make great sounding music ( even though that'd still be sweet as heck ! : )

Omni · 10-12-2010, 01:52 PM

I think the big advantage of a studio these days is not having to clean up tracks and letting someone else mix. Since we were able to utilize Stef and Chip it took a hug load off my back. I was able to just record ideas and then clean them up. Not having to clean them up would have been really nice as I could just go with the flow.

Of course, if I played tighter that wouldn't have been an issue either lol

PerunZG · 10-12-2010, 01:59 PM

I really like it. Especially like the vocal.

Omni · 10-12-2010, 02:16 PM

Thanks! We spent a lot of time trying to make them interesting to listen to and giving them something to say.

Solar · 10-12-2010, 02:17 PM

Album Mix and mastering sounding really good (comping is well done). Great job to the people behind this great journey and The BAND, you guys have delivered well. Vocals sound amazing too, love the tone and the Eq style in them. They fit well in the mix and everything is well balanced. Very refreshing!

Thumbs up to ALL of you

Wishing you great success,

Cheers!! Kudos

msuscorpio · 10-12-2010, 02:54 PM

Well, you got a Facebook "Like" from me!

Btw, ther are a things about each of youtr songs that I'm digging, but what are you guys going with as the first "single"?

richie43 · 10-12-2010, 03:16 PM

Very Cool stuff. I love the thickness and depth of sound. Also phenomenal job on the mix and mastering. Inspiring to hear what can be done on reaper by "regular" folks. By the way though, I looked up your label (Deka) and I mostly found reports of scams. I'm just mentioning this because the music is amazing, the work on the tones is super-hero, and I would hate to see something with so much heart and integrity get wasted on a scamming scumbag. Keep up the great work and good luck.

Also, an old band of mine was completely independent (no label support, paid for everything) and we were able to sell quite a bit on Itunes and even got some commercial radio play. I'm just sayin... labels are nice but not as necessary these days, and sometimes even a hindrance.

Bubbagump · 10-12-2010, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by richie43

Also phenomenal job on the mix and mastering. Inspiring to hear what can be done on reaper by "regular" folks.

Who said we were regular.

richie43 · 10-12-2010, 03:37 PM

That's why the word is in quotes! Artist are obviously the most stable and normal people on the planet. I'm a musician, hang out with tons of artists, and they seem perfectly normal to me....

scottedog · 10-12-2010, 05:14 PM

Great job all around!

fwiw, I mix on the 824's too and had an ME tell me to watch out for 200Hz & 2kHz as well, so I would agree that it's the monitors.

Lastrite · 10-13-2010, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottedog

Great job all around!

fwiw, I mix on the 824's too and had an ME tell me to watch out for 200Hz & 2kHz as well, so I would agree that it's the monitors.

Sounds like an excellent excuse to buy a second pair of monitors to me

bloodorangeonline · 10-13-2010, 06:47 AM

Brilliant job all round. Excellent songs.

tjalsma · 10-13-2010, 07:30 AM

Great, professional sound.

I like all the little nuances that you usually don't hear from music with programmed drums - 'can't imagine how long they took to program.

I also like the music stylistically. Great stuff all around.

My band is currently recording an album with REAPER and you guys have set the bar incredibly high!

Omni · 10-13-2010, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by msuscorpio

Well, you got a Facebook "Like" from me!

Btw, ther are a things about each of youtr songs that I'm digging, but what are you guys going with as the first "single"?

Thanks for the "Like"!

Probably Gummie Bear. It has been the most popular on our EP by far so it makes the most sense to milk it for all it's worth!

Quote:

Originally Posted by richie43

Very Cool stuff. I love the thickness and depth of sound. Also phenomenal job on the mix and mastering. Inspiring to hear what can be done on reaper by "regular" folks. By the way though, I looked up your label (Deka) and I mostly found reports of scams. I'm just mentioning this because the music is amazing, the work on the tones is super-hero, and I would hate to see something with so much heart and integrity get wasted on a scamming scumbag. Keep up the great work and good luck.

Yeah we researched them a bit and talked to a few people who were on them. The scam thing was resolved at the Better Business Bureau or something and was supposedly just some angry band making a fake claim.

We re-wrote the contract with the help of a lawyer to ensure we wouldn't get screwed and it's pretty much all in our favor compared to most other deals I've heard about. I'm hesitant to state their name still since Google does not shine on them well but we'll see how it pans out. lol

Worst case scenario is we dump the contract and do it ourselves. One of the Deka artists has learned how to do much of it himself and is helping me out here and there.

Any ideas on how to sell 1,000 units (1k cd's or 10k songs)?

The real reason we went with Deka is the paid tour after 1K units. Otherwise we wouldn't have bothered. If we can do the 1K unit sales, we'll get a well paid 25 show minimum tour opening for a larger artist with Deka covering tour bus, food, and lodging. It's pretty vital we make that goal as we'd be unable to bail from work for a tour on our own.

I REALLY hope each of you will consider buying it when it's out and passed the word on to your friends.

Omni · 10-13-2010, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tjalsma

Great, professional sound.

I like all the little nuances that you usually don't hear from music with programmed drums - 'can't imagine how long they took to program.

I also like the music stylistically. Great stuff all around.

My band is currently recording an album with REAPER and you guys have set the bar incredibly high!

Thanks for the kind words!

I've gotten pretty good at programming drums and can do a whole song in about 3/4 hours. Since I had my drummer do the rough tracks and he's newer at editing, they took a lot longer lol.

Omni · 10-13-2010, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solar

Album Mix and mastering sounding really good (comping is well done). Great job to the people behind this great journey and The BAND, you guys have delivered well. Vocals sound amazing too, love the tone and the Eq style in them. They fit well in the mix and everything is well balanced. Very refreshing!

Thumbs up to ALL of you

Wishing you great success,

Cheers!! Kudos

Thanks Solar! And might I add, your avatar gets me a little hot and bothered. lol

msuscorpio · 10-13-2010, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omni

I REALLY hope each of you will consider buying it when it's out and passed the word on to your friends.

Ya, dude, I'm in for one when you get it out....

Omni · 10-13-2010, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by msuscorpio

Ya, dude, I'm in for one when you get it out....

999 units for sale on the wall!
999 units for sale!
Take 1 down and get others to buy
998 units for sale on the wall!

msuscorpio · 10-13-2010, 11:32 AM

Lasrite, I might be interested in getting you to mix a few songs for me. My band plays a similar style to OFF. Is this something you do regularly or was this a one time thing? Send me an email when you get a chance and we can talk further. namingwednesday@gmail.com

mtsproductions · 10-13-2010, 01:13 PM

Great work sounds really really good particularly the vocals, is there a cd version?

Omni · 10-13-2010, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtsproductions

Great work sounds really really good particularly the vocals, is there a cd version?

The CD will be available "soon." Our indie label is supposed to let us know this week when it will be available online.

sumpm1 · 10-13-2010, 06:22 PM

The mixes sound really good. I love the music. The drums stand out, very poppy snare.

Bubbagump · 10-13-2010, 06:50 PM

Wowser... just listened to the MySpace and Facebook streams. They butcher things terribly. There is at least an improvement of 3-4 times over this streaming mess in the actual masters. Facebook is the better of the two but MySpace really sucks.

Lastrite · 10-14-2010, 03:37 AM

Yeah, myspace is about the worst thing you can do to an audio file... It's a shame it's such a requirement for bands...

mtsproductions · 10-14-2010, 05:44 AM

soundcloud is the way to go, no mp3 garbage, you can upload a 24/48 wav file and there is an option if you want to convert to mp3 so you can use it in faceBOOB and MyHole.

Omni · 10-14-2010, 09:12 AM

We're on Soundcloud too but I uploaded mp3's.

I don't think you should expect audiophile quality when hitting the web. If you want quality, that's what you buy the cd for. Know what I mean?

There's always a compromise of course.

plgrmsprgrs · 10-14-2010, 09:31 AM

Great work! Inspiring!

Bubbagump · 10-14-2010, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omni

Know what I mean?

What I was essentially hinting at.

TheMusicMan · 10-15-2010, 10:50 AM

Fantastic Mix and I think "The Pharisee" is my favorite song on there. Good freaking job!

Omni · 10-17-2010, 10:01 AM

Glad to hear you like The Pharisee. That one is gaining some steam. We thought it rocked when we first made it but it took Stef to really bring it out.

Omni · 10-25-2010, 12:38 PM

Last we heard the album wouldn't be out til November 9th but it looks like it's up!

For those of you who expressed and interested in getting it!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Among-Us/dp/B0...f=pd_rhf_p_t_1

If we hit 1,000 units we'll get a paid tour that will literally change my life so PLEASE consider buying it.