Cakewalk vs Traction vs used Cubase

[clueless]

nah - i'm j eric, not eric j

[IIRs]

It might be easier if we all agree on an alternative name for ericj23.. how about f*ckwit?

[IIRs]

or should that be f*ckwit23?

[jens]

sounds good to me!

[ericj23]

OK so you dont know why i would want to put a very short delay (for a chorus like effect on 5 minutes of beautiful acoustic blues playing from a friend - one take on one microphone) and why if the tempo depandence of this delay alters too much it produces a phasing like affect - which I don't want - it ends up sounding rather too much like the edge and not very bluesy

that's fine - but can you just acknowledge that this would be time consuming in traktion ? - it is easy in cubase - in the same way that a modular set up is time consuming in cubase and easy in traktion

or is it just time to throw more insults about ? you started it - i'm bored of it

[jens]

OK so you dont know why i would want to put a very short delay (for a chorus like effect on 5 minutes of beautiful acoustic blues playing from a friend - one take on one microphone) and why if the tempo depandence of this delay alters too much it produces a phasing like affect - which I don't want - it ends up sounding rather too much like the edge and not very bluesy

that's fine - but can you just acknowledge that this would be time consuming in traktion ? - it is easy in cubase - in the same way that a modular set up is time consuming in cubase and easy in traktion

or is it just time to throw more insults about ? you started it - i'm bored of it

o.k. - I'll explain you:

first of all you have to distinguish between microtiming and macrotiming -

microtiming refers to the timing between the single strokes of a given rhythm


macrotiming refers to the timing between several bars


When you play a guitar to a fixed delay and it sounds bad because the guitar is sometimes that much between the single echoes that there is some sort of phasing going on then this means bad micro-timing

When a band plays together and the whole band slowly but surely gets faster and faster to the end of the song then this might be bad macro-timing


You would never want to adjust the tempo of a song so that it follows the bad micro-timing of a certain instrument- that would sound like playing with the pitch of a turntable

you then need to get the playing fixed and there are actually just three options:

1. recording the whole take again

2. punching

3. editing/comping one or several takes so that you get an acceptable loop


When you have a band which raises slowly but surely the tempo then you might want to make the overdubs match that tempo but that isn't good style either - better give the drummer a click and if he doesn'tmanage to follow the click properly then there are four options:

1. recording the whole take again

2. punching

3. editing/comping one or several takes so that you get an acceptable loop

4. shoot the drummer, sell his kit and buy a decent drum-machine from the money...

[original flipper]

HI

'Jens' - you have done nothing but be helpfull!

No. really though the thing I have learnt 'Here' is that all too often someone who has not MASTERED how to use a host will say 'This host/Sequencer' is TOOOOO COMPLEX, and of course those who know it well will say the opposite - 'No, its comfortable'!

The real deal is that whatever host/sequencer/synth or whatever you use, if you use it regularly you will master it and it will no longer be that 'COMPLEX' beast that it was 3 months ago.

But in regards to XT, 'Jens' I have come a long way with it and can/could make my music in it but it still requires a focus that I prefer to put into the music rather than the program - and so we come full circle on my original point!!!

I can't think of any sequencer though that would not be able to give you the 'CANVAS' to make music with - given some time.

Flipper.

[clueless]

2. punching

the drummer?

[jens]

2. punching

the drummer?

sure - we did that a lot in the good old digital tape-machine times

- here's nice story:

we tried to punch him in -

'just play to the music - we'll do the rest...'

he stopped playing

'when are you punching then?'

'we were in the middle of the take'

'oh I didn't notice you were already recording'

'you don't need to notice it - we do it for you - just play...'

he concentrated harder on trying to get when the button was beeing pushed. He concentrated less on his playing. He stopped.

'what is it now? why did you stop?'

'I saw that you pushed the button again'

'not again - we just started recording'

'oh - I thought I saw you pushing it earlier - I'm gonna be more careful now to see when you are punching in'

'man - just concentrate on your playing!'

'well, but then give me a sign'

'what for?'

'why what for? - for that I know when the recording starts of course!'

'YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW IT - JUST PLAY'

'but how should I do a good take when I don't know when you are recording?'

- drummers...


- true b.t.w.

[jens]

HI

'Jens' - you have done nothing but be helpfull!

No. really though the thing I have learnt 'Here' is that all too often someone who has not MASTERED how to use a host will say 'This host/Sequencer' is TOOOOO COMPLEX, and of course those who know it well will say the opposite - 'No, its comfortable'!

The real deal is that whatever host/sequencer/synth or whatever you use, if you use it regularly you will master it and it will no longer be that 'COMPLEX' beast that it was 3 months ago.

But in regards to XT, 'Jens' I have come a long way with it and can/could make my music in it but it still requires a focus that I prefer to put into the music rather than the program - and so we come full circle on my original point!!!

I can't think of any sequencer though that would not be able to give you the 'CANVAS' to make music with - given some time.

Flipper.

yes, I think you got it rather right - when I started working in eXT it wasn't like I knew it all at once - I had to ask a lot of questions and I had to invest a lot of time - but I knew it was worthwhile - and now that I am used to it I can say its workflow is really fantastic - but I only know this because I was willing to invest...


b.t.w.: please Martin, if you have a question don't hesitate to send me an e-mail!

[ericj23]

nice post jens

but in truth this guy's playing is absolutely phenomenal and it is pretty much in time - the macrotiming fluctuations are small but alas the recording was a bit thin so a short delay was used as a send to beef it up - any effort to use repeats sounded weird as there are lots of notes in this so a single repeat was used

a constant time say 10 ms meant a sort of phasing/flanging happened on a couple of bars so it was easier to map the tempo and apply a temposynced delay - this was rendered and nudged forward till the rendered file was about 8 ms behind the playing but it speeded up for the fast bits to give those parts the dynamics they needed

i suppose i could have used a constant time and just put tempo ramps in for the slightly less tight bars but hell the way above worked fine

[djsubject]

i said a 5 minute peice - 100 bars - so making your 100 bar sized slices is quick and easy - or you just cant say youre wrong ?

i would suggest learning to read

i have started a little work with platinumears & its not fair, his timing realy is shit hot!

platinumears do i get that £10 now or after the post has been responded to?

Suck my dick bitch, you won't get paid!

No Payment?

did i mention that allthough the timing was good the music was not?

only joking my singer loves the riff you sent

[IIRs]

i suppose i could have used a constant time and just put tempo ramps in for the slightly less tight bars

..or automated the delay time.. or created the delay effect by copying the track and moving it back (so it could be edited if needed).. or you could have taken the time to position the mic properly so it didn't sound "thin" in the first place.

[jens]

nice post jens

but in truth this guy's playing is absolutely phenomenal and it is pretty much in time - the macrotiming fluctuations are small but alas the recording was a bit thin so a short delay was used as a send to beef it up - any effort to use repeats sounded weird as there are lots of notes in this so a single repeat was used

a constant time say 10 ms meant a sort of phasing/flanging happened on a couple of bars so it was easier to map the tempo and apply a temposynced delay - this was rendered and nudged forward till the rendered file was about 8 ms behind the playing but it speeded up for the fast bits to give those parts the dynamics they needed

i suppose i could have used a constant time and just put tempo ramps in for the slightly less tight bars but hell the way above worked fine

it could also mean that you just chose an inappropriate delay-time - but for thickening up better try to use a chorus instead - but when as delay is too rhytmic and very upfront in the mix - you often need to play the guitar to the delay - the timing gets automatically better - adding the delay afterwards often won't work...

[ericj23]

all true - as for the mic it was positioned fairly well but it was the £15 one that was in the guys house

not a whole lot i could do about it

PS did experiment with chorus too - that's sort of why i liked having the tempo map - just to try different tempo based fx

but anyway - was for a demo cd that he could give to people to get gigs - he was quite happy with the original - I'm the one who couldn't leave it alone