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Subject: reviving a mix

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Original Message 1/10 02-Nov-02 @ 11:10 PM - reviving a mix

panama

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Well as I go on a journey in getting my mixes to sound better--I have to understand how to get my 'past' mixes to sound better.

I have a few mixes I wanna keep going because the music is decent. But I've run right into a problem. A lot of my eqing and sound processing has really destroyed a lot of the sound. The tone is pale and dead. It bothers me.

My question is... How do I get the sound back? Were talking drums, synths, guitar lines, and basses. I was thinking I could re-track the guitars or maybe play the guitar line from the amp into a speaker and mic the guitar for added color. And for the drums, well I dunno--find the old samples and resequence? The bass, resequence that too??? I've found it really hard to work things backwards. It blends wrong.

Anyone know of any tricks or tips to color the sound or maybe create some harmonics that were destroyed in the eqing? The music is guitar/synth/bass/drums.

I could really use some pointers on the drums though. A couple of the drum mixes sound like ass and I think that could be most of the problem.

any help would be great. time for me to get this thing going.

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Message 2/10 02-Nov-02 @ 11:18 PM - RE: reviving a mix

xoxos

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learning to recognise the point where you don't touch it any mroe.. you go to fix one little thing from there and it may be a 'correct' thing but whatever you change just loses the voodoo. when it's there, just say okay.

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Message 3/10 03-Nov-02 @ 02:10 AM - RE: reviving a mix

Mindspawn

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Sadly, overprocessed files will generally always sound that way. Not much to do for getting the original dynaics and tone back. Coupla things to try:

Expansion and or stereo narrowing/widening. For some parts a bit of expansion might help to reintroduce some harmonics. I've also had some luck with Ozone's Harmonic Exciter for some tracks. You might also try either making bits more mono (sometimes helps for drum bits) or in some cases, widening the sound.

Distortion. A bit of distortion, or more like saturation really, can sometimes introduce some warm harmonics if stuff has gone a bit brittle.

If the sound is really dead, you're probably better off trying to rerecord/resequence. It's quicker in many instances.

Some things I do when I mixdown an old track are:

Turn off any FX or FX tracks, solo the drums and bass to make sure they're grooving together, add in one or two elements at a time dropping anything that makes things muddy, re-eq everything, overcompress/over-effect/distort one or a few of the tracks, get a good balance, add back in the FX and/or FX tracks, get it to sit, and bounce it down to a two-track. Leave it for an hour or two, then come back and see what havoc you have wrought...=)

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Message 4/10 03-Nov-02 @ 03:01 AM - RE: reviving a mix

influx

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are we talking midi or audio?

if its midi...triggering samples and modules/synths...why not just replace the samples and tweak the sounds?

and if its audio sequences...I dunno....you have the midi still?

re-track?

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Message 5/10 03-Nov-02 @ 09:58 PM - RE: reviving a mix

panama

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I'm gonna try some exciter plug-ins... if that doesn't work I'll have to re-track a lot of drums and guitars.

I do have all the midi files but most of its audio. drums and guitars...

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Message 6/10 03-Nov-02 @ 10:32 PM - RE: reviving a mix

influx

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ok well...heres the thing

for drums theres a program called audio replacer...

its a search and replace type thing...

wont work for your guitar really...or it could depending.

what are you sequencing with?

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Message 7/10 04-Nov-02 @ 11:23 PM - RE: reviving a mix

panama

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synth parts/basses and drums are all sequenced under Pro Tools with the exception of using a MC-500 for live stuff. I use a midiman 2x2.

audio replacer? how does it work?

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Message 8/10 05-Nov-02 @ 07:58 AM - RE: reviving a mix

krisgot

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How about a compromise between processing audio and reprogramming? Listen to the old audio. Maybe some of the parts sound good in that version. Use those parts as loops or single shots and then program on top of that: Say bassline, perc etc. I had that excact problem ("Where You Go" in case you are interested) and left the piano riff/bass/conga/string untouched and layered new stuff on top of that. Now, this works well for some dancemusic so it depends on your song.

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Message 9/10 05-Nov-02 @ 08:27 AM - RE: reviving a mix

influx

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now theres an idea.

the audio replace...it analyzes a .wav file and then puts whatever you want in place of that

just like a search and replace for text..

in cubase you have an audio pool, and you can pick any file in that pool and replace it thereby replacing all parts that used that file

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Message 10/10 05-Nov-02 @ 08:34 AM - RE: reviving a mix

psylichon

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a bit more specifically,

in soundreplacer, you can specify 3 different volume thresholds (kick, snare, hat let's say), and you can then specify 3 different samples to trigger when transients at that given threshold hit. So if your loop is clean and the hits are easily differentiated, you can make a new loop with the groove of yer old one.

Of course, if you have seperate drum tracks then cheers... it's easy to use then. I've seen sessions where an entire live drummer was replaced with samples. And it grooved! It's only for Pro-Tools RTAS and TDM. I have the PC RTAS 'evaluation version' if you wanna try it... ;)

psylichon

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