[LAU] Demo: Soda P - Pent-Up

Mark Knecht markknecht at gmail.com
Tue Sep 28 23:12:38 UTC 2010


On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 1:23 PM, Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy at autostatic.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> After convincing my other bandmembers to move to Linux because of all the
> time we lost figuring out how all that proprietary stuff works we did get a
> lot more productive.
>
> So here it is, the very first demo-track from our rehearsal room, completely
> recorded and mixed with Linux.
>
> http://linux.autostatic.com/temp/sodap-pentup(mixdown20100919).ogg
>
> This is also the first band track that I tried to mix and master a bit. I
> fear I'm still a better musician than a studio engineer, but I've learned so
> much already the last two years, thanks to this list, LinuxMusicians.com and
> the guys at #opensourcemusicians (especially [lsd]/wootangent.net). What
> didn't help either is that I had to mix this track partly on my headphones
> (I do have a pair of decent DT770's) because of our little man sleeping
> downstairs: http://lou.dekenwaarestraat.nl/
> What did help is that I have close to zero experience with
> recording/mixing/creating music on other OS's. When I read how other people
> are struggling with switching from one OS to Linux I realize how lucky I am
> that I've chosen Linux from the start to make/record music with my computer.
>
> And we're still experimenting with the band when it comes to mic placement,
> which mic to use for what, amp settings, soundcard settings etc. Also, most
> tracks for this song were played in one take, simply because we don't have a
> lot of time (a few hours a week) and since it's demo stuff we had to let go
> of our perfectionism, we'll save that for the definite recordings.
>
> Software I used:
> - Qtractor (I'm a huge Qtractor afficionado)
> - Yoshimi with the Pulse Pad 3 instrument patch for the synth riff in this
> song
> - Guitarix distortion plugin for the synth
> - JAMin
> - SC4 and Calf compressor plugins
> - C* EQ plugin
> - Freeverb plugin (I still have to emerge myself in that convolution stuff)
> - Rezound (could someone please save that program from oblivion? It's just
> so much better than Audacity)
> - Jack1 with FFADO for our FireWire card
> - Ubuntu 9.10/10.04 (I still use 9.10 for various reasons)
>
> I enjoyed a lot playing around with this song, especially now that I finally
> have a room for myself at my home for my music stuff where I have some mics
> set up, a decent PC, some MIDI controllers and percussion stuff. I did the
> backing vocals, the MIDI stuff and the tambourine at home. I love
> tambourines but I hate playing them, it's a friggin difficult instrument, no
> kidding. I also tried adding some acoustic guitar but that didn't work out.
> Originally, this song is an acoustic song that I must've written more than
> 10 years ago: http://www.autostatic.com/beltree/beltree-pentup.mp3
>
> So shoot. Really, I'd appreciate any feedback so I can improve my recording
> and mixing skills (and eventually my mastering skills). We're a DIY band so
> if we could also do this very last thing ourselves we'd be thrilled.
>
> Best,
>
> Jeremy
> http://sodap.nl

Jeremy,
   Sorry for the late reply. I enjoyed this quite a bit and should
have written back sooner.

   For my tastes I thought most everything was quite good in the mix.
If you wanted to look at anything I'd probably choose to focus on the
bass but I have no specific idea what to do with it. To me it seemed
to be a bit the tonality in the mix could be better and _maybe_ the
playing could be different. I'm not picking on the player or the mix -
only saying that I think maybe the bass could be played a bit less
like the other instruments and then stand out a bit more.

   Anyway, overall it's quite a good piece of work. I hope you guys
will post more over time.

Cheers,
Mark


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