Member Dana Nielsen
MemberForum Replies Created
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Ooh, what a ridonculous deal, @smoothygroove, thanks so much (as always) for the heads up!!! You da man!!
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Joe! Man – even tho I forgot to reply to this until just now, I did read it when you posted and added to my holiday queue and me and my fam listened to the whole album prob 5 or 6 times over the break via Spotify on our Sonos system while decorating and cooking. What a wonderful album, sonically and shredding-ly! And loved the youtube vid too, man! Thanks so much for sharing!
Re battery & solar, for the Endless Field album we used a Goal Zero battery with an additional solar panel that hooks up to the battery with a long cord, which allowed us to hide with our equipment in a least a little bit of shade while the solar panel cooked out in the direct sunlight. @jlew still has the battery and panel as far as I know and he and @horse continue to get use out of it I think!
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Love it, man! I know the lyric is supposed to be sad, but this puts a smile on my face. Hope your Christmas was very not-blue!
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Yeah, Paul!! Damn, sorry I’m so late getting to this glorious garage choir – you sound killer! I’m assuming that’s you sangin’ and self-harmonizing? Very cool. Feel like this would fit perfectly into a Cohen Brothers film. A distinctive, charming and memorable twist on a classic. Well done! And hope your holidays were “divine!”
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PS – Just a reminder to all:
- please upload songs as mp3 rather than links per the Read Me in the Member Spotlight forum.
- Also please give your posts a unique title to make them more easily identifiable and sortable. Adding the song title to your post title is an easy way 😊.
Thanks fam!
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Dude, this is awesome! I’m listening on headphones at the moment and will check it out in the studio tomorrow, but it sounds sick in the headphones! Great work! So much fun ear candy and arranging, it’s got booty and sparkle, the singer sounds great, and it’s a killer song – sounds like a hit! I’ll give this another listen on the bigs when I get a chance.
Only thing that stood out to me is I really wanted a loud, chunky, 8th-note, no-accent tambourine during the section at 1:35 (post-chorus?) to give it a lift and some party energy for that section.
Who’s the artist? Did u produce and co-write too? Bravo! 👏
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Holy smokes you guys … I’m testing out some new (sorta expensive 😬) integrations to make our Mix Protégé videos completely searchable. Try it out here on our recent Q&A hang and see what you think!
- Try clicking on the magnifying glass and searching the word “limiter” for example.
- Try clicking on the AI “magic wand” and asking it to “list all plugins mentioned in this video”* (ah, shoot, looks like that requires login, at least for the trial account I’m on at the moment – but it’s got amazing potential! I’ll attach a screenshot below as an example)
- Try clicking the Chapter icon for waaay more detailed chapter locations than I could/would do by hand (all created in an instant).
It’s pretty trippy!! Lemme know what you think.
PS – while I’m in trial mode there isn’t a way to embed the vid here on MP with all these advanced features so, meantime, this link will take you to my app.membership page.
app.membership.io
Zoom Replay: Mix Protege Q&A 2024-12-13
Event Summary: The Q&A session offered a dynamic and collaborative space for participants to explore audio production topics. Led by Dana Nielsen, the session included discussions on mastering techniques, loudness normalization, favorite production tools, and workflow tips. Participants like Franco, … Continue reading
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Here’s the screenshot of what the AI “co-pilot” thingy looks like … this made my jaw drop!
I’d love to be able to share this feature with u all here, embedded on Mix Protege if possible! I’ve got an email in to the developer to see if that’s possible on one of the paid tiers…
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Haha – You just haven’t heard this side of Jesse before! Check out this album he made back in 2008 that I mixed which reminds me of his new track “Blisters.”
@jlew – hearing this album again just now was so fun! It’s so good. And when I hear it I am instantly COLD 🥶 from the memories of being in that (amazing) vacant, mostly-unheated hanger of a studio in Oakland, CA during the winter.
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Haha – all good!
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Sick, man – great work!
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Hey, @nategomoon! Thanks man – holidays have been good; hope yours have been too!
The only reason for -2db or -1db true peak is to protect the sound quality once your master is transcoded to one of the shitty– err, I mean “lossy”– compression formats we all listen to most of the time. This is especially noticeable when listening on the free or ad-supported tiers of various DSPs, as well as all social media feeds.
Lemme explain… That super loud -0.01 dBTP master will sound awesome when played back in a lossless format like Wav or FLAC, and it’ll probably also sound pretty damn good as a high quality mp3 or Ogg Vorbis on the paid versions of Spotify and Youtube. But if you’re listening on a free tier (or on any social media platform) you ain’t gettin top shelf audio! They serve freeloaders the “well” spirits … a weak 2.5kbps shot of rum mixed with flat lukewarm Diet-Codec served in a Variable Bit Rate Dixie Cup… with no ice!
Suffice it to say, super loud mixes mastered to the the bleeding edge of -0.01dBTP often sound distorted once transcoded to lossy formats with lots of data compression.
One indispensable tool in my plug-in arsenal that helps me get ahead of this guessing game is ADPTR Streamliner. (And, wow– it’s on sale right now for $39! That’s a steal.) It’s a really cool plugin that let’s you hear in real-time what your song will sound like on ANY tier of ANY platform — it’s like hearing into the future!
It really is eye-opening (ear-opening?) to poke around, auditioning all the different codecs. And you can even click the “Artifacts” button to hear ONLY the residual artifacts. If you’re a fan of submerging your head underwater while crinkling aluminum foil as close to your eardrums as possible you are going to LOVE the Artifacts button! 🔊🥴
plugin-alliance.com
NEW VERSION 1.1 - Codec auditioning, automatic level matching, and state-of-the-art loudness and dynamics metering to get the perfect master for all major streaming services.
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Awe, thanks, Joe! I’m so glad you connected with the Endless Field music and vids – and I love that you, too, are doing a lot of outdoor recording in nature!
You should check out the livestream page for vids of me working on @horse‘s large ensemble project, which also features @jlew – it’s more absolutely gorgeous music from these two ‘bad cats’!
mixprotege.com
Grammy-nominated producer, mixer, engineer, Dana Nielsen, brings you behind the scenes streaming LIVE from his Los Angeles studio.
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Hey @pat – great question!
Quick Answer: I start all mixes with Sonarworks turned on (@77%).
Explanation: Sonarworks’ “SoundID Reference” plugin is a speaker correction product designed to “correct” shortcomings in your listening environment (i.e. frequency dips and resonances created by speaker placement, room shape, proximity to reflective surfaces, etc.).
So, to answer your excellent question, I’ll ask you a question of my own:
When would be a good time to correct my listening environment so that I can make well-informed mix decisions?
- a) before I begin mixing so I won’t make EQ and volume decisions based on my individual listening environment’s shortcomings.
- b) after my mix is finished so I become thoroughly confused and might decide to start over again. I love a bottomless pit of acoustic challenges and confusion.
😂 Hopefully the answer is clear. But you do you! Also worth noting: 77% is a blend amount that I quickly decided on years ago and have never changed. It sounds “right” to me and works well for me and my environment. Your results may vary, and I recommend everyone to find a blend % that works well and sounds good to them in their own environment. And if that means 100% works best – so be it! Nuthin wrong with that.
Hope this helps!
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Awe, this means the world to me, @dave – thank you SO much!!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the replay and that it jogged your memory about RX, too – haha. That software is absolutely bonkers!
Happy holidays to you and yours as well, man! Thank you!
