Here’s what I’m calling a ‘plateau mix’ which means I got the song out of my head and more or less listenable in a mixing sense, (can’t promise much beyond that). I’ve posted lots of Blues and band stuff here over the years but I like most genres of music including a sprinkle of Prog once in a while. Not sure what genre this is but I’m calling it ‘Stoner Prog’. I had a lot of fun running my Baritone telecaster through our Studio Leslie on this one and I’m not sure what it’s fate will be so I’m posting it here for now and maybe it will see further work or get on an album later although ‘releasing’ anything seems increasingly absurd these days. It would be kind of fun to play live though I suppose…
What mixing has been done so far was done in Mixbus 10 Pro which is kind of new for me, I was pretty pleased with the channel strips and I only went off the reservation for Reverb (Fabfilter Pro-R2) and U-he Presswerk on the Master because I can find what I want with it in seconds. It sure cuts down on the number of Plugins needed…
The sounds are absolutely amazing and fit the style perfectly! I love the vibe you’ve created. Can you tell me a bit about how you recorded it? Did you do this on Linux as well? I’m really impressed and enjoy it a lot!
I think this just proves that with the right hands, Ardour and Mixbus can do wonders. We’ve got some awesome tools, so let’s just enjoy the ride and be thankful for it!
This song was done on my own and my workflow when doing stuff on my own is quite a bit more convoluted than when tracking with musicians. I don’t know how much detail you want so I’ll try not to bore you to death.
I started with the drums in Hydrogen (H2) and used my AVL Blonde Bop H2 Kit, when I started with Linux many years ago Ardour 2 had no MIDI so I got very comfortable with Hydrogen and that habit has stayed with me, I can really get patterns and ideas together very quickly in it, much quicker than in a regular MIDI sequencer. Although I play real drums myself this song would be quite a reach for me and would likely take weeks of practice, my son (who would be capable of playing this) currently lives far away and is a busy touring musician himself so I opted to program at least at this point. Once I was finished with the drum track in H2 I exported the MIDI file and imported it into Mixbus (on Linux) and I switched to XLN Audio Addictive Drums 2 (via yabridge) and I have created a custom keymap template that matches the Addictive Drums 2 keymap to my AVL Blonde Bop keymap so everything is perfectly lined up in relation to the kit pieces. An obvious question is…“why not use your AVL Drumkit LV2!?” and the answer is AVL sounds pretty good (especially for a Soundfont recorded by a farmer) but AD2 simply sounds incredibly life like, it has great per-channel effects, room and OH blending and dynamics. Swapping out kit pieces for the perfect super-kit is effortless. Such care was taken by XLN Audio in both selecting iconic classic drum shells and cymbals to record and also miking and recording techniques in a professional state of the art Studio that for me being used to recording real drums in the Studio nothing comes closer to real drums than AD2…
So with the drums done, I had been working on a different song using our Leslie rotating speaker with my guitar and I thought that sound might also suit this song so I tracked the main guitar with the upper Leslie rotor mic’d in Stereo for the quasi doppler effect and the lower rotating drum in mono. I added 2 more regular guitars through a Fender Vibrolux amp mic’d with a Sennheiser e609, an old Boss Turbo OD pedal was used to drive the amp. Later I added the bridge acoustic guitars with a custom Baritone acoustic mic’d with a Blue microphones “Baby Bottle” and I played a 4 string Fender Precision bass tuned down to B-E-A-D mic’d through a bass amp belonging to a bandmate with a funky old 70’s Kustom bass head coming through a ported 18" speaker cabinet which was also mic’d with an e609. The vocals were done last and I kinda made things up as I went along, I liked the idea of double tracking the Verses an octave lower than the main melody so I did that and some harmonies in the Choruses and Bridge and the Vocals were also done through the Baby Bottle. There was one Reverb Bus with Fabfilter Pro-R2 (via yabridge) and a Delay Bus with the ACE Delay. U-he Presswerk was used as a limiter on the Master Bus mostly because I don’t have much experience with Mixbus’ own limiter yet… That’s pretty much everything!
It was a pleasure to read your work report on the process. It’s great that you have succeeded so well. And it’s wonderful that high-quality music can be made with Linux tools. Of course, Windows plugins have been involved, but if they were ever to come to Linux as well, it would make many things easier. Linux, Ardour, and Mixbus are doing well. Long live music and its enthusiasts in every corner of the world!
Regarding the Plugins, Certainly there are numerous other Linux native options that would have served well for the Reverb and Presswerk was native Linux. I was very close to using an Airwindows Consolidated one, and the ACMT plate was also on the short list. Where stuff like Fabfilter shines is hands-down the presets, dozens of well organized presets with names that give you a good idea what you’re in for and very little fiddling. Unfortunately AD2 is in a league of it’s own, I don’t know if they’ve been approached by Linux Users or not, I do know they are one of the Plugins that have been very reliable with Wine since Addictive Drums 1 back at least 15+ years ago. Fabfilter have also been long term reliable with Wine, also unknown if they’ve been approached about Linux ports…?
If I own it it I’m going to use it regardless of Platform…
If anyone’s interest has been piqued I posted some AD2 resources here a while back:
Style and genre is super immersive. Song is great. Arrangement and instrument voicings are, in my opinion super-tasty.
There’s just something about that snare that screams “programmed drums” to me.
Maybe it’s the interplay between the snare and cymbals (cymbals are kind of too precise for a live dummer), or maybe it’s just the those AD loudest snare hits. Addictive Drums have that habbit of not recording rimshots too good (not too realistic), so it sounds like they instead use to much processing to get that punchy sound in they’re snares. That’s kinda '80s pop-rock snare sound style which doesen’t blend to good with non-pop genres.
Also, something is distorting not too pleasantly. Seems like it’s the bass guitar when it’s playing those lower notes. You said it’s a super-fast first hand mix, so it’s maybe just unleveled bass going into the master limiter.
P.S. I forgot to tell you Glen that i realy admire your work on AV Linux, and i also use it pretty often. It’s like the coolest linux distro for musicians, ever. Crazy good stuff. Thanks, cheers!
Appreciate the listen and insights! Well, convincing programmed drums are difficult, programmed drums that will fool a drummer… impossible. I played the demo to my son and he’s already scheming to get home and undo my grievous sin…lol
That snare sample is a Ludwig supraphonic and no secret I was hunting for a Zep type of sound and the ‘Blue Oyster’ kit is essentially a John Bonham kit. I agree the snare has a bit of a weird sound but so does that particular snare in real life. To me it’s the ‘edge’ samples on the ghost notes that sound quite legit but the full snare hits are a bit weird. Definitely some massaging to do on the cymbals in general and I put too much compression on the AD2 track, definitely will go to an additional drum bus for parallel compression in future mixes. I don’t hear the distortion you mention yet but with a baritone guitar and a bass holding down those low B’s there’s a lot of extra low frequency stuff going on for sure. So far both a drummer and our bass player want to take a swing at it so this may just be a moot demo memory at some point…lol
Thanks for the encouraging words about AVL, much needed!
Ugritone doesn’t advertise Linux support, but their plugins can be downloaded from their website once you’ve purchased a license. I have their Total Studio Drums package. A bit off-topic, but if you forgive me, because the informational value might be somewhat relevant.
I’ve heard them discussed at Linux Musicians, I had a look a few times but I don’t really do any metal production and even their so called Studio kit seems biased toward metal or hard rock. In those genres it seems they have some great choices and sounds for sure…
To me it’s the ‘edge’ samples on the ghost notes that sound quite legit but the full snare hits are a bit weirdt
Yes, exactly.
We just have a common generational difference in expression . When I say “rimshot” i mean it like the loudest hits on the snare drum when you hit the center, but also the edge with full rocking power, like in, for example, almost this entire song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCzRKOCjkgM&list=PLMxy067kbpQjArEAPZjzZTsmdASuM0dhI
while, when you say “rimshot” you mean it in traditional jazz or reggae school sense - a hit close to the edge of the snare drum.
But, we are thinking exactly the same, and that is - full, loudest snare hits sound weird.
I remember i dropped Addictive Drums (frankly, version 1) after trying it long time ago, and went for NI Studio Drummer (and also, fusion set of Studio Drummer is the only one i like there) cause of this exact reason. All they’re(XNL) sanres had this problem. Sounded weird on full power.
Distortion caused by too much low end i hear when listening on Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro headphones which are bass sensitive, but i think it’s realy there cause there is no distortion on other tracks i listen to, and i can clearly also hear pronounced bass guitar in this track which is pretty hard with these headphones.
Well, you got me fooled on the drums, i thought it was a real drummer.
Would you mind sharing that Hydrogen file or the midi file from the drum part.
As a non-drummer i could learn a lot from that file.
Anyway, great song and to me it sounds real good.
Thanks for posting
Jean
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