Entourage Paul Tucci
EntourageForum Replies Created
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Jesse,
Sorry to say that the geese did not survive the AI separation process. The new software is so smart ass now that the error message said something about killing two birds with one keystroke.
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I love the whole process of this piece. A little snow, grab the beater guitar, improvisation in nature, and then bring it back inside and expand upon it. The muse visits you and we get to here it.
You had me when I heard the overhead geese. Twice a year we get a delightful goose parade on their way to or from Montezuma Wildlife refuge. In the springtime they first appear hard panned right and slowly make their way to the left channel. In the late fall the imagery reverses itself.
For the final version of Snowday I’d suggest fading into the intro.
It’s easy to float along with the arrangement you have. Things are soft and pleasant sounding until the only thing that jarred me reared up from the woods. There’s that metallic percussion beast at 2:35 that sticks out. Its level drops later but that early entrance dominates the mood. I wonder if high passing that thing, dropping its level considerably and slopping it up with a long plate verb wouldn’t make it sound like cracking ice on the river.
The last “hah” of your chant at the songs finale is crying out for that same reverb treatment. I just want to end back where I was when I first heard the geese.
You don’t usually hear me talk about reverb like that so you must know I mean it.
🙂 @-PT
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Drew,
I might be the first to say it but I’d bet anyone who reads your question will wonder what “pulling down the vocal in the mix” sounds like. A before and after would help me hear exactly what your symptom is and what problem might be. How might you be using the delay? As a plugin on a channel? How much time are you using? Enough to create a slap back or little enough to create comb filtering which literally could cause level to drop? Mix percentage of the delay if it is on the channell? Equal level (50%) mix of a dry and delayed signal is the perfect recipe for comb filtering.
Gain staging?? Is the output lower with the delay engaged in line but at 0 time. Does the vocal level actually get louder with the delay plug in out?
So many questions….
Is it your terminology accurate? … Are you saying the actual vocal level goes down or might you mean that, with the delay effect, the vocal recedes back into the music. Instead of in-your-face-leading-the-charge vocals, they’ve moved back into the mix?
I ask if it might be heretical to USE an “Elvis” slap back delay sound in your working genres.
As Waylon Jennings once wrote “I don’t think Hank done this a way.”
Excellent subject line by the way. Reminded me of an old entry in my to-do list of rap lyrics.
“You quote Shakespeare, I quote Dylan.
I like Beastie Boys when they’re illin’ “
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Yowza. that’s just gorgeous.
PT
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Jesse,
I ditched the AI and took another swing at your piece. This time it was all from inside my head.
PT
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Thanks fellas,
When Jesse made that observation that it sounds like a real band he nailed it. There’s no layering of other instruments going on, no tambo on the second chorus to lift the party mood as Dana will reply. Pretty basic stuff but a catchy little riff. He’s learning to think and hear beyond the now, as the band plays, into what the band might could arrange to add syncopation and more textures. … He called me this AM and wanted me to listen to a bongo part he added to the intro of the next release.
Jeremy. I hope you get that Daddy-daughter moment. I’ll cherish the moment my boy came off the stage after a set at the local record store / punk club. First gig playing music other than the high school orchestra stuff. He had bug eyes goin’ on, just radiated energy. He was bitten by the bug. I can recall when precisely i was bitten by that same bug, but in my case there were hallucinogenics involved.
I’ve got good stories. Most of them are true. (@patent pending)
PT
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Jeremy,
Cool. I am always happy when suggestions I conjure up get adopted. It’s good training to figure out what the writer’s intent seems to be and then support it with something fitting. Thanks for letting me in the sandbox.
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You’ve created a very vibey invocation of sorts. You effectively take the listener on a journey. The use of or amount of verb on the voice is immaterial. There’s a valid experience either way. Different rules apply, it’s not a pop song.
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I didn’t even listen to the new version before this reply to say that you just set a new standard in replying. I think the format you used, quoting the listeners’ comments and then addressing them one by one is superb.
PT
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Yes, it is mind expanding and free of the potential jail time.
I’m thinking I can impart the characteristics of the smooth jazzy electric guitar onto the bones of the acoustic. We lose the thinness that exist.
I could use wav files of the nice sounding electric, A stereo stem of whatever makes up that sound, including multiple mics and verb and subgroup processing, if any.
In addition, I want a raw version of iPhone recording of the acoustic. I’ll do the high passing and treat the geese humanely in the process.
I am super curious to explore this process. I won’t make your deadline but @dana can always replace the audio file if I pay dirt and you want to incorporate it after the fact.
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GesseBear,
Snowday would be the perfect song to utilize this guitar magic and push it even further.
Yes, the acoustic is thin sounding but in the context of the creation of your song, indispensable. I didn’t hear it as a big issue. Are my standards low? I don’t think so. Some men would look at a freckle-faced woman and say “splotchy face ginger.” Me, I tend to fall in love. To each his own.
What if… we could grab the iPhone recording and separate out the acoustic guitar from the critters flying around and your breath and then set it aside temporarily?
Then we take your current project and strip away the smooth electric guitar musings with the intent of using its characteristics to make the acoustic guitar sound similarly?
WTF? you may say.
Part of the AI capability allows imparting the audio characteristics of thing A to be imparted onto thing B. That’s the basic nut of AI mastering software. How does my hobbyist level recording compare to professionally-recorded and chart-topping songs of a similar genre?
What if… we applied that thinking / technique to a single track? The in-the-wild recording of your beater guitar might could shapeshift into some hybrid that sits invisibly amongst the others.
You down?
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Jesse,
Good ear! That little rhythmic hiccup at 2:11 appears to be friction between the bass guitar and the marching snare drum playing parts that compete with each other.
Too many peeps vying to fill that little space??
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JLew,
For the visual learners, this may help to understand the process.
The white and green tracks in the session are my live 2 track mix off the console and the guitar stem separation created in RipX. I then duplicated the green guitar separation in my DAW and changed its color to red. Despite all the verbiage, I’m only working on 3 stereo tracks here
The next image is of the EQ applied to the green track, the separated out guitar. This the channel I high passed and added 20 ish mSec to and created a cheapo widener.
The next image is of the EQ applied to the red track, a duplicate of the green separated guitar that I changed the color to red. Just like the roses she’s singin’ about. You can see the low pass filter on the graph disallowing mid and high freqs. The inserted pitch shifter (-1 octave) created the musically related deep bass that warmed up the guitar’s tonality.
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Jesse,
This timely guitar article showed up in my mail today. Passing it on to you.
izotope.com
8 tips for using reverbs and delays on guitars
Learn how to use reverb and delay to enhance your guitar tracks in mixing. Discover tips and techniques to create depth, texture, and space.
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Jesse,
Usually I’m good with words, apparently that explanation was not my usual.
Allow me to go about it differently so that the math does its mathing more clearly.
I only used four channels on my console for the live performance. One vocal mic, one DI for her acoustic guitar, and two channels for the stereo vocal reverb return. Vocal and guitar DI panned center, the reverb returns panned hard left or right. There’s my stereo image feeding the speakers AND the onboard USB recorder simultaneously. Whatever relative tones and levels I send to the house speaker system also goes to the USB recorder That’s my live 2 track.
Post processing starts by importing that 48K/24 into my DAW.
The stem separation process starts when I take a copy of that file and import it to my stem separation software. That’s where the AI voodoo happens. You prompt the software to extract only the acoustic guitar from the live 2 track. The software spits out a stereo file with only the acoustic guitar to the best of its ability. The acoustic guitar went into the software in dual channel mono and will exit the same way. Dual channel mono, equal level to the left and right of a stereo channel.
Now the math starts….
I import this stereo file into my DAW and label it guitar stem 1.
I duplicate that channel in my DAW and label it guitar stem 2.
I now have a total of three stereo channels to work with.
Channel 1 is my live 2 track off the console
Channel 2 is my guitar stem separation that will then be high passed and delayed differently on each side of this stereo channel to create a sense of air and width to my originally mono guitar. Mix enough level into master buss to just widen the sound of the guitar.
Channel 3 is my stereo guitar separation that will then be low passed to 160 ish Hz so as to feed the pitch shifter plug-in only signal that creates deep bass. I’m trying to create bass frequencies that the guitar itself was not producing. Mix enough level of these faux freqs to create the illusion of resonating wood warmth.
Better?
That’s a great idea to add pictures of the DAW session and audio files.
