Free stuff!

[bargeloobs]

Barge mate, that track is STUNNING! Top job there!
I've been mucking around with my copy of Music Creator 6 (about the same price as Reaper), so far I quite like it, now if I can get the rest of the studio up and running, then I could start dreaming of awesome tracks like that, my current attempts at my perfect mix have failed badly.... Whelp, back to the studio i go!

Cheers pest, hey you'll have to put up some of your stuff mate, I'd be real interested to see what you've been doing.

[bargeloobs]

This is a continuation of the stem mix I was talking about earlier to hopefully demonstrate visually what's going on.
The screenshot is of the 'Blinded' stem mix (chorus), as you can see there's actually more going on here (track-wise) than the initial mix.

A breakdown of the tracks are as follows

Track 1 - A duplicate of the original Stereo drum mix, used as an ambient track (to emulate room mics) set pretty low in the mix with a thick room reverb and a few other goodies
Track 2 - Stereo drum mix
Track 3 - Kick drum duplicate for added punch and presence on the kick
Track 4 - Snare drum duplicate for added punch and presence on the snare
Track 5 - Toms duplicate for added punch and presence on the toms
Track 6 - Distorted Guitars
Track 7 - Bass Guitar
Track 8 - automation clip (flanger)
Track 9 - automation clip (filter)
Track 10 - Lead Vox
Track 11 - automation clip for lead vox volume envelope
Track 12,13,14 - Background vox
Track 15 - automation clip for lead vox stereo shaping
Track 16 - automation clip for background vox volume envelope

Once I'm happy with how things are sounding on this mix it gets bounced down to a single stereo track once again ready for final master.
Important point here is that the max peak on the output gain doesn't exceed more than -3db but preferably -6db so as to leave plenty of headroom for mastering.

[keloooe]

So with stem mixing you treat all the guitars in the mix as one guitar and use that to mix with?

[bargeloobs]

So with stem mixing you treat all the guitars in the mix as one guitar and use that to mix with?

You got it it man, all the panning, reverbs and everything you use to flavour the guitars was done back at the initial mix when we had individual control over everything.
With the stem mix I'm affecting all the guitars at once. The aim is not to alter the sound too much, after all you've got the sound you want at mixdown, the aim with the stems is just to clean the sound up and enhance it.

You can see in the pic the plugins I've used on the guitars (I named it 'Drumless mix') in the stem mix.

Ozone - was used purely for it's mid/side eq's to clean up any unwanted mid/side information (definitely my favorite plugin by far)
Bittersweet - was used to take out any rogue transients in the guitar mix
Ignore the 'Filter' and the 'Flanger', they were just automated to come in for a short section leading into the 2nd verse
Ferox - was used to give a subtle tape saturation to the guitar sound

[keloooe]

Just checked out the free VST plugins, I reckon I'll permanently use Ferox, I always love that vintage echo and colour that tapes provide.

Oh and there wont be anything from me yet, once I get the interface I want I'll start punching out my mixes!

[bargeloobs]

Just checked out the free VST plugins, I reckon I'll permanently use Ferox, I always love that vintage echo and colour that tapes provide.

Oh and there wont be anything from me yet, once I get the interface I want I'll start punching out my mixes!

You're using windows then?

[keloooe]

Definitely Windows Bargey, too poor for a $200 interface let alone a Mac

Also Music Creator allows you to upload to SoundCloud within the program, which I'll find handy indeed.

[bargeloobs]

Definitely Windows Bargey, too poor for a $200 interface let alone a Mac

Also Music Creator allows you to upload to SoundCloud within the program, which I'll find handy indeed.

Nothing wrong with working in Windows man, it gets the job done. Depending on how many tracks you're recording a basic two channel interfaces is surprisingly cheap, obviously if you're tracking a drum kit you're gonna need a few more ins, but for just recording one or two tracks at a time there's heaps of options out there at very reasonable prices.

This is what I'm running, I love it!! http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/M-Audio-M...item339c2774ab

[keloooe]

Nothing wrong with working in Windows man, it gets the job done. Depending on how many tracks you're recording a basic two channel interfaces is surprisingly cheap, obviously if you're tracking a drum kit you're gonna need a few more ins, but for just recording one or two tracks at a time there's heaps of options out there at very reasonable prices.

This is what I'm running, I love it!! http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/M-Audio-M...item339c2774ab

Yeah cheers for the link Bargey, I'm only doing it one track at a time, just makes it easier to control the noise levels (from other instruments / ambiance) in each track.

[robin]

Hey Bargey, another site I just found (not sure if it has already been mentioned), it doesn't have a squillion VSTs but they appear to be quality and well sorted into categories AND free.

http://bedroomproducersblog.com/free-vst-plugins/

And you will be proud to know that because of you and Kimball I have started listening to the production behind the music. I haven't done that for many years. Well there goes whatever free time I had

Cheers guys.