MWM (Made With MuLab)

[sorohanro]

Updated, somehow, maybe is my headphones and my beautiful Behringer monitors fault, but whatever I do, I can't get it right
http://audio.ngfiles.com/333000/333568_ ... _Smile.mp3
With new EQ and reverb fixes... somehow It's not the effect I was going for... it's lost somewhere.

If anyone can give me a tip of having the snare that you hear in almost all 80s and 90s music, (all the pop ballads snare... ).

[Taron]

MUCH, MUCH BETTER!!!
Love it! It's respectfully supporting your phenomenal guitars and leaves the music in full control. I think you're right there.

[sorohanro]

Thanks.
Anyway, maybe not really related to Mu.Lab, but how they make those "epic" and "power ballad" snares ? (all the Bonnie Tyler, Berlin-Take My Breath Away)

[Taron]

I'll have to listen to it again, but one trick is to equalize one side of the reverb with mildly boosting high frequencies or cutting bottom. It creates a wider space and helps to avoid drowning the snare itself by its own reverb, you know. The other thing is that it's often a real snare, meaning that it has more dynamic and liveliness right inside. EZDrummer is very cool in simulating a real drumset, you might want to check into that. Great VSTi!

[sorohanro]

I've heard good things about EZDrummer, but for now, all I can afford is freeware
So, my main drums are Drum Core 3 free version, Addictive Drums free version, Yellow Tools Independence Free drums and Kontakt Player free drums... and some others.
Sometimes I use the bongos from Multisampla.

Maybe it's time to ask the drummer from my band to bring the drums and sample his drum set for Multisampla, then ask people to make more normal sets, eventually in MUX with all effects needed (compressor, EQ, reverb).

[Taron]

MU.LAB urgently needs visual feedback for EQing. I even wished it had a realtime spectral viewer, showing the saturation on all frequencies as a band in time. Even if you have brilliant monitor speakers, it still is painfully blind to not see what you're doing with an EQ. You can't spot spikes and it's tough to hunt them down...well... anyway...
A friend bought me a funny drumpad thingy which had EZdrummer lite with it. I had to get the full version. Now I just need to make a song with it, HAHAHA. I always program my own synth drums and hardly ever try to simulate a real band. Anyway...
Maybe later today I'll try something for you, see if I can get a nice 80's mix of a snare down.

[robenestobenz]

Updated, somehow, maybe is my headphones and my beautiful Behringer monitors fault, but whatever I do, I can't get it right
http://audio.ngfiles.com/333000/333568_ ... _Smile.mp3
With new EQ and reverb fixes... somehow It's not the effect I was going for... it's lost somewhere.

If anyone can give me a tip of having the snare that you hear in almost all 80s and 90s music, (all the pop ballads snare... ).

If it's the 80s rock power sound you're after, I'm guessing it's not the EQ, samples or anything similar that's the main problem, although I do reckon you do need quite a big snare to begin with - or at least one with a bit of a tail. If you're using a sampled kit that has adjustable amounts from various mics, being able to turn up the amount of room and overheads (or just duck the direct/proximity mics) will be another head start.

Then it's a LOT of compression. However, the special ingredient, the key word, the magic move here-- and probably why yours are not working that well atm-- is GATED reverb. Having a noise gate on the reverb prevents the drums from swamping the mix.

I'm not keen on the sound so I can't give you any more specifics as I haven't tried it, but a quick googlismo on "gated reverb drums" gave me:

Wiki with a bit of background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_reverb

Tutorial:
http://audio.tutsplus.com/tutorials/pro ... rum-sound/

//EDIT: oh, and for beefing up the snare, I CANNOT recomment Bootsie's FerricTDS highly enough. Just turn the dynamics knob right up and you'll hear it immediately. This could potentially cover you for the compression stage all on its own.

[Juan Mendoza]

I agree 100% with robenestobenz!

the key for 80's snares is the gate reverb, sometimes filtered, and sometines reversed, but mostly gate reverb. This is the way to put the snare right in front of your face but with this particular reverb in the tail.

Hope you find a way to get the sound you want, anyway your song sounds very good already. It's just a matter of tastes.

[Taron]

sure there's a gate on a lot of 80's snares, but I'm sure he refers to the ballade type spacey reverbed 80's rock snares, where the trouble is in the mix and not so much in the gate. Aside from that it's always about a certain integrity with the music, rather than in the simulation of some style. At the end it's how it all harmonizes with each other and if everything fullfills the desired function. Don't get to hung up on the gates.

The biggest problem most musicians run into when it comes to mixing is that too little attention is given to the frequency overlay and exhaustion. Too many instruments share the same space in the spectrum and compete with each other. It creates chaos that is hard to figure out unless you keep track of it right from the start. It's sometimes a very good idea to go from track to track in solo mode to make sure you know where you want the instrument to sit and what space it best occupies. Stereo is the other issue that has to be factored in, of course.

A gate simply helps to cut away dirt after a certain level and to avoid the sound (snare in this case) from smudging in reverb at lower levels. In the 80's they really started to want a clean sound. In many ways it's still so, except that artist have gotten more aware of with what they can get away with and how to avoid that clearly overly clean sound of that time.

Hahahaha, man, I'm talking as if I knew anything about this... I really don't. I'm just thinking here. I apologize for that, but maybe there's some inspiration in the above, I don't know. I just know that I still feel like I know nothing about mixing, whereby most of the evidence to that comes from my laziness or unwillingness to deal with challenging circumstances like within MU.LAB. I still need a lot of visual support to develop an understanding of what I'm doing. Being on headphones, however, is the worst part for a final mix. No idea what the bass is doing, no idea how it all bounces together in a room through speakers...it's really bad.

Anyway, there you have it...my two cents!

[sorohanro]

Thanks guys for all the help/ advices/ links/ feedback Really helpful.
Now I go read those articles and later make a mix again

[sorohanro]

Guys, I love you all
Actually that did the trick, EQ + a reverb on a send made very wide + gate = time machine back to 80s.

Let's see how that can be achieved only by using Mu.Lab devices

[liquidsound]

Sorry for being late here...

sorohanro that's beautiful!
I feel you easily coming through as who you are in your music.
I looking forward to more of this!

I'm very fortunate to be in this Mu.Lab forum together with so many talented musicians and developer, making this, an amazing place to be for a long long time.

[MuTools]

MU.LAB urgently needs visual feedback for EQing. I even wished it had a realtime spectral viewer, showing the saturation on all frequencies as a band in time. Even if you have brilliant monitor speakers, it still is painfully blind to not see what you're doing with an EQ. You can't spot spikes and it's tough to hunt them down

Aren't there good VST plugins doing that specific job?

[Taron]

Yup, I'm sure there are. There are also fantastic synths, yet, it's a different story, as you've already realized, to have a great basic set already in the app. Since you already offer an internal parameteric EQ for example through your filters, it would feel natural to have also the visuals that would make it more transparent, you know.

BUT I think it's really just a matter of getting used to working this way for me. I come from 10 years of Reason, you know. I'm conditioned to a kind of visual directness in regards to mixing and applying post processes (EQ, FX, that stuff).

You know, I'm ... it's... don't worry, really. I just need some more time. Found beautiful free VST collections and am about to explore. If you happen to know a nice spectral or EQ visualizing VST, I'd be thrilled to get it. I don't think such a thing was in there, yet.
Fantastic reverbs I found, though, aside from great compressors and such.

[MuTools]

FYI: I would love to add more visuals to the MU.LAB modules, and it's on the wishlist. But it will take some time. That's why i point to the use of specialized VSTs for now.