I've been spending the last several weeks (since the end of July update I last posted) working on updating and remixing songs from the two most recent CDs. Current results can be heard here:
Rob's Soundcloud Page
And of course I have thoughts to relate regarding these songs and both the original versions and my most recent remixes. What else could you truly expect??
First I'll start by talking about the original versions of the songs. What the hell was I on when I mixed these back then?? I don't really remember a lot EXCEPT that I was in a hurry to get everything done - Luciana was pregnant with Lucas, who was due in August, and by the time we hit June of 2009 she was in a really horrific mood suffering with sciatica and all sorts of fun stuff. Of course, even though I had planned on being done the mixes by the end of April or early May with the mastering done end of May - there was a lot of stuff that came up which needed fixing. Plus, around the April timeframe I'd asked Alan Morse if he could contribute a guitar solo to Mesmerize since I was experiencing burnout and stumped about how to approach it and even down to what countermelody would be suitable for the piece. Alan was very busy, and being a patient sort I sat and waited for a long time for Alan's contribution. At some point around June 20 I just said "ok, can't wait any longer..." and spent an evening with my guitar noodling around with an acceptable tone just throwing down some lazy loose bluesy stuff eventually resulting in the solo that made it on the CD. I had my friend Trevor Sadler waiting on getting to mastering this project - so I really got down to mixing already way way behind schedule and got these together as best as I could. I cheated a lot - NDV had sent the drum tracks as separate mike files and then included a raw drums mix that was intended as a reference file for how he heard his drums in the context of the songs. I was behind, so I flew in the stereo raw mix, did some really minor compression and EQ (mostly for punch on the kick and crack on the snare) and that's how they stayed. I then did submixes for Andy's drums and by the time I got to Zsolt's work, my ears were toast. I really wasn't fond of the cymbal tones so I tried EQ'ing them and with the mike bleed I experienced some phase cancellation which made it even worse. Completely frustrated at this point as well with some timing & meter issues on his tracks, I rendered the submix and then chopped up and aligned all the downbeats with the click track, resulting in a very mechanical feel to those tracks. Being pressured to just get this done now by my very unhappy and very pregnant wife (and to be fair, I should have been done long before this point) I got all my mixes done and reviewed by Paul and Mark, and then sent them to Trev.
One day after sending the mixes to Trev, in comes the solo work from Alan. Multitrack and multitake, Alan was wonderful, except I wasn't in the frame of mind to go through and comp his work into one solid take... I tried a few things, but never got anything that he or I liked as a final version. I had published the assertion that Alan was playing on the track as well, so being behind and not wanting to cause a kerfuffle I didn't change this on the website and other pages or even the CD cover (which was completed by Ed Unitsky at this point). Therefore, the CD credits Alan with the solo even though it's yours' truly.
Now, earlier in 2009 or maybe even late 2008, I'd been thrown for a loop by the ever opinionated Shawn Gordon, owner of ProgRock Records, who'd replied to my inquiries about getting a distribution deal by giving a very negative critique of the 5 song EP I shipped off to him containing Mesmerize and 4 other tracks from the Fine Line project. Regardless of having prequalified the EP with him saying these were very early versions of the songs, he slaughtered them and I was pretty bitter about it to the point that I became even more determined to show him and presumably everyone else they were wrong. The songs were neither "boring" nor "repetitive" - where there was repetition it was fully intentional to build tension, and being a dark moody album it couldn't have happier songs. The EP was also missing some of the instrumental stuff like Atonement or First Piece - definitely songs that cranked up the excitement level. The cover songs that filled in the end of the CD were intended to raise the mood a bit but failed in that regard.
So yes, the really well recorded parts ended up getting slaughtered in the mixing room. Definitely my bad. Funny enough, no one called out the drums as sounding not great EXCEPT for Zsolt, and a resounding silence from both Andy and Nick spoke volumes - but what got called out was a weak vocal performance that was my attempt at being moody and reflecting the darkness of the CD, and all the guitar geeks out there called out the piezo pickups on the acoustic guitars - the pingy nature being annoying for them. Trev had made the best of the mixes during mastering but no way to cover for some of the failings.
This brings me to the efforts of today, and what has been accomplished, and what is yet to be done.
First and foremost - I'm making up for not doing real mixes of the drums originally. I've imported the group of tracks being the drums for each song, and then because I've invested in new legal versions of software processing I finally got around to doing a lot to clean up the mess I'd made. Some of the timing/meter issues weren't as obvious as I'd originally thought as well - there are some, but not nearly as much as I believed. Cymbal tones are still not my favorite part of the tracks Zsolt did, but they're workable. Judicious gating and then using iZotope Alloy 2 presets got me 95% of the way to good drum tones, and I continue to work the remaining 5% to tweak.
Thinning out keyboard and guitar layering through judicious panning and reduction/removal cleaned up a lot as well. Using iZotope's Nectar 2 on vocals really paid off as well - I still need to record new vocal takes for most tracks, but as functional working remixes they actually sound a lot better.
The first three songs that I remixed I had not done the drum track imports though - I was feeling my way around the new hardware and software, so I kept it simple. Mesmerize was focused only on getting a nice comp'd Alan solo into the mix, so there's still the issue of NDV tracks to be imported. But all 3 of the Andy tracks and two of the Zsolt tracks are posted on the link above in their fully reworked form, and if you have the CD or the original mp3s then you will hear the difference.
Next up for the remix treatment, and it's pretty far along but I have meter issues to tidy up is Adagio in A minor - hope to have this ready for posting by end of next week. Which leaves Temple of Lost Souls as the last of the Zsolt tracks to work on, and then I'm onto NDV's. Temple is HUGE - lots of everything in there, plus I think this is where a lot of meter issues will arise given the length of the composite track itself. It will need a serious trimming of keyboard and guitar parts especially in the metal tinged section where I will need to find a female vocalist to take on the vengeful wife section. I'll be working on the drums the first pass and balancing out the remaining parts - logic dictates I should remove all the filler tracks (double tracked guitars, etc) from the first mix, but while I have good intentions I never seem to achieve this. I will need to try harder :)
There are still a large number of tracks remaining to be remixed - I've been concentrating on Fine Line songs recently because they're very current and don't cause problems with Cubase 7.5. But there's still some serious tracks remaining to do from Sound of Thoughts, and of course reproducing all the songs from Onion as well. It's been almost a month of effort, 11 total songs have gotten some form of revisioning - at this rate I don't think we'll be ready to get to vocals and guitars until the end of September or mid-October. And then that effort will drag into December likely with final mixes at the end of the month.
Wow, that's a bit of a bummer... at least I have a timeframe to work against. That also means the new year will start work on new material - two different projects I have in mind right now.
Ok all done. Have a great day everyone!
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