The Wagtunes Corner (Featuring My Best Yet)

[andrelafosse]

Why I Didn't: Laziness, plain and simple.

Why I Do Now ALWAYS: Tired of people telling me how bad my timing is.

Do YOU feel any differently about your work, after getting into the habit of quantizing?

It's one thing to do something to silence critics, but not personally care about an issue either way.

Genuinely curious if this has affected your own enjoyment of your finished products, or if this is a chore you feel obligated to do.

[wagtunes]

Why I Didn't: Laziness, plain and simple.

Why I Do Now ALWAYS: Tired of people telling me how bad my timing is.

Do YOU feel any differently about your work, after getting into the habit of quantizing?

It's one thing to do something to silence critics, but not personally care about an issue either way.

Genuinely curious if this has affected your own enjoyment of your finished products, or if this is a chore you feel obligated to do.

Yes, it has absolutely made a MAJOR difference in the enjoyment of my work.

But it is also a curse.

Now when I listen to old songs with bad timing, they make me cringe for starters.

But, it gets worse. When I'm working on a new song and I record a part and listen back to it before quantizing (I sometimes do that) the timing issues stand out so much that It hurts my ears. And then (this is where it gets worse) when i go to the piano roil to fix it, I many times find that I'm only off by a 32nd note. And yet, I am so in tuned to what perfect timing should be that even that little bit off bothers me. It is at that point that you know you're being obsessive.

The only place I don't quantize at all is with strings. Because of the slow attack, you need to come in a little early. And even if you're off a bit, it doesn't really matter because of the way string lines flow. In fact, you don't want to quantize strings because it makes them sound robotic. So all string parts I play live once and, if I didn't make any notes mistakes, leave it just the way it is.

Horns are different because they have a fast attack. Those I'll quantize unless they're legato and swelling. Then I might let them be a little loose.

But piano, bass, drums, all that stuff, quantized to the 8th or 16th note depending on the passage.

And then of course there are those times where I just can't play the part at all and enter it directly into the piano roll one note at a time. A lot of my fast guitar work is like that.

[NystagmusE]

Another one from my CD "Raising Kane"

Frying Pan Into The Fire

Too hot
Too hot
Too hot
Too hot

Such is life we all get burned
And for some a lesson learned
But to those who chance the flame
They soon find a deadly game

From the frying pan into the fire
The flames are gonna get higher
And your life will expire
It's too hot
Too hot

Dangerous the chance we take
And mistakes we're sure to make
But the bad ones we get baked
Pray to God for heaven's sake

Repeat Chorus

Instrumental Break

Repeat Chorus

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... ising-kane

Wow. I like this tune! I listen to a lot of classic 80s and some 90s pop and this fits in nicely. You could make a fun video for this and it'd be totally fit for some kind of nice Classic MTV thing. (too bad MTV betrayed itself and quit music videos, though!).

You have a knack for catchy stuff with good structure.
Thanks for sharing this. Lyrically it seems simple, yet on par with some Michael Jackson or Men At Work or Blondie type of stuff. This is a good thing.

[wagtunes]

Another one from my CD "Raising Kane"

Frying Pan Into The Fire

Too hot
Too hot
Too hot
Too hot

Such is life we all get burned
And for some a lesson learned
But to those who chance the flame
They soon find a deadly game

From the frying pan into the fire
The flames are gonna get higher
And your life will expire
It's too hot
Too hot

Dangerous the chance we take
And mistakes we're sure to make
But the bad ones we get baked
Pray to God for heaven's sake

Repeat Chorus

Instrumental Break

Repeat Chorus

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... ising-kane

Wow. I like this tune! I listen to a lot of classic 80s and some 90s pop and this fits in nicely. You could make a fun video for this and it'd be totally fit for some kind of nice Classic MTV thing. (too bad MTV betrayed itself and quit music videos, though!).

You have a knack for catchy stuff with good structure.
Thanks for sharing this. Lyrically it seems simple, yet on par with some Michael Jackson or Men At Work or Blondie type of stuff. This is a good thing.

Yeah, I can do some decent pop stuff. After doing it most of my life I should. It's nothing too deep but it's catchy. Well, some of it is. Believe me, I'm not in love with all my music. Some stuff that I've done I'm like "What the hell was I thinking" and just shake my head. Repo Man has to be one of my WORST songs in recent years.

[sleepcircle]

you do it with every single track so i'm not sure if it's intentional, in which case i'm not sure if i should be criticizing it—i may be wrong anyway—but it seems to me like the vocals are always a little far away and sunk back, and not very "present" compared to the rest of the instruments

this has nothing to do with it being vocaloid vocals, either—I've heard plenty of crisp, present vocaloid vocal tracks before. Is there a reason for this particular stylistic choice?




EDIT: also I don't like things to be PERFECTLY quantized--it steals some of the life and organic spontaneity from them. i usually only "partly" quantize stuff. like i'll nudge it back towards being on beat, but not quite perfectly align it.

[wagtunes]

you do it with every single track so i'm not sure if it's intentional, in which case i'm not sure if i should be criticizing it—i may be wrong anyway—but it seems to me like the vocals are always a little far away and sunk back, and not very "present" compared to the rest of the instruments

this has nothing to do with it being vocaloid vocals, either—I've heard plenty of crisp, present vocaloid vocal tracks before. Is there a reason for this particular stylistic choice?




EDIT: also I don't like things to be PERFECTLY quantized--it steals some of the life and organic spontaneity from them. i usually only "partly" quantize stuff. like i'll nudge it back towards being on beat, but not quite perfectly align it.

Let me answer both your questions.

1. Vocals. Stylistic choice. I don't really like up front vocals. My favorite songs from the 70s and 80s were with vocals with lots of reverb and set back.

2. Quantization. Doing it your way is too much work. As I said, I didn't quantize because I was lazy. So the last thing I'm going to do is quantize and then undo my work. That requires more work than I'm willing to put into a track.

[sleepcircle]

Re: the vocals, yeah I know about songs like that—and I like the way they sound, too—but it sounded different with them, somehow. In your songs, it feels almost like the vocals aren't quite connected to the instruments. Do you do any EQing of the reverb at all?

[wagtunes]

Re: the vocals, yeah I know about songs like that—and I like the way they sound, too—but it sounded different with them, somehow. In your songs, it feels almost like the vocals aren't quite connected to the instruments. Do you do any EQing of the reverb at all?

Do I do any EQing of my reverb? Um, no.

[sleepcircle]

it might reduce some of the conflict that's bugging me. i'm not sure, though, cause I can't see the histographs or hear any of the tracks seperately. if you're "too lazy" want to adjust your quantization, though, i'm fairly sure you won't want to bother adjusting the eq of your reverb.

maybe messing around with stuff like nearly-dry reverb (on the instruments) or mix bus compression or something could be low-effort enough for you—i'm not sure though. I'd have to mess around because I'm not actually sure what the EXACT source of the sonic disparity I hear is.

[donkey tugger]

2. Quantization. Doing it your way is too much work. As I said, I didn't quantize because I was lazy. So the last thing I'm going to do is quantize and then undo my work. That requires more work than I'm willing to put into a track.

Many sequencers (and some plug-ins, such as Kontakt) will have 'humanize' functions where you can add a small amount of timing randomization. If you're going for anything which is meant to be realistic, if you're not going to manually edit, I'd at least be adding a little bit of timing inconsistency - 2 minutes of a job!

[wagtunes]

it might reduce some of the conflict that's bugging me. i'm not sure, though, cause I can't see the histographs or hear any of the tracks seperately. if you're "too lazy" want to adjust your quantization, though, i'm fairly sure you won't want to bother adjusting the eq of your reverb or messing around with stuff like nearly-dry reverb (on the instruments) or mix bus compression or anything.

1. I don't know how to put EQ on a reverb, so I'd have to learn.

2. Even after I learn the technical steps on putting an EQ on a reverb, then what? What exactly am I EQing? The lows, the mids, the highs? Am I boosting or cutting?

3. These are not human vocals. They're Vocaloid vocals. So most people, in general, hate them to begin with. So why would I waste time working on something that people are going to hate anyway? Doesn't make any sense.

4. Personally, I like the way the vocals sound. In fact, I'm not even sure what it is about them that you don't like. It may not have anything to do with the reverb at all but simply the volume level, especially since most tracks have a simple plate set at about 25% and about 2.5 seconds of reverb time. That really isn't much. And as you said, you're not even sure that it would fix the problem.

5. Believe it or not, I do use mix buss compression and a lot of other things. I'm not quite THAT lazy.

[wagtunes]

2. Quantization. Doing it your way is too much work. As I said, I didn't quantize because I was lazy. So the last thing I'm going to do is quantize and then undo my work. That requires more work than I'm willing to put into a track.

Many sequencers (and some plug-ins, such as Kontakt) will have 'humanize' functions where you can add a small amount of timing randomization. If you're going for anything which is meant to be realistic, if you're not going to manually edit, I'd at least be adding a little bit of timing inconsistency - 2 minutes of a job!

I have not seen anything in my DAW called timing randomization. I wouldn't even know where to look for it. Besides, my ears are now so tuned to perfect quantization that IF I did find it and IF I did use it, I'd probably hate it anyway because I'd hear where it was off.

[sleepcircle]

it might reduce some of the conflict that's bugging me. i'm not sure, though, cause I can't see the histographs or hear any of the tracks seperately. if you're "too lazy" want to adjust your quantization, though, i'm fairly sure you won't want to bother adjusting the eq of your reverb or messing around with stuff like nearly-dry reverb (on the instruments) or mix bus compression or anything.

1. I don't know how to put EQ on a reverb, so I'd have to learn.

2. Even after I learn the technical steps on putting an EQ on a reverb, then what? What exactly am I EQing? The lows, the mids, the highs? Am I boosting or cutting?

3. These are not human vocals. They're Vocaloid vocals. So most people, in general, hate them to begin with. So why would I waste time working on something that people are going to hate anyway? Doesn't make any sense.

4. Personally, I like the way the vocals sound. In fact, I'm not even sure what it is about them that you don't like. It may not have anything to do with the reverb at all but simply the volume level, especially since most tracks have a simple plate set at about 25% and about 2.5 seconds of reverb time. That really isn't much. And as you said, you're not even sure that it would fix the problem.

5. Believe it or not, I do use mix buss compression and a lot of other things. I'm not quite THAT lazy.

i don't dislike the vocals; i have no problem with how vocaloids sound.
in this case, what's bugging me is that it sounds almost like the vocals and the instrumentals are two different tracks which just happen to be playing simultaneously. a sort of lack of congruity, or something. maybe i'm wrong.

maybe it is a volume issue? idk.

as for EQing reverb, you send a 100% wet signal to another bus, and then use EQ to attenuate frequencies which are currently being dominated by other instruments, so that the reverb doesn't fight them as much. then mix the eqed reverb channel back in with the dry signal on a bus of some kind.

but idk, it's your decision. i apologize if i caused any trouble. consider the point dropped, on my end.

[donkey tugger]

2. Quantization. Doing it your way is too much work. As I said, I didn't quantize because I was lazy. So the last thing I'm going to do is quantize and then undo my work. That requires more work than I'm willing to put into a track.

Many sequencers (and some plug-ins, such as Kontakt) will have 'humanize' functions where you can add a small amount of timing randomization. If you're going for anything which is meant to be realistic, if you're not going to manually edit, I'd at least be adding a little bit of timing inconsistency - 2 minutes of a job!

I have not seen anything in my DAW called timing randomization. I wouldn't even know where to look for it. Besides, my ears are now so tuned to perfect quantization that IF I did find it and IF I did use it, I'd probably hate it anyway because I'd hear where it was off.

The point is to use it sparingly - a few percent at most. No drummer/guitarist/keyboard player is ever going to play exactly on the beat every note - there'll always be small (and it doesn't need to be much) deviations, and this is what makes things sound more natural.

[wagtunes]

2. Quantization. Doing it your way is too much work. As I said, I didn't quantize because I was lazy. So the last thing I'm going to do is quantize and then undo my work. That requires more work than I'm willing to put into a track.

Many sequencers (and some plug-ins, such as Kontakt) will have 'humanize' functions where you can add a small amount of timing randomization. If you're going for anything which is meant to be realistic, if you're not going to manually edit, I'd at least be adding a little bit of timing inconsistency - 2 minutes of a job!

I have not seen anything in my DAW called timing randomization. I wouldn't even know where to look for it. Besides, my ears are now so tuned to perfect quantization that IF I did find it and IF I did use it, I'd probably hate it anyway because I'd hear where it was off.

The point is to use it sparingly - a few percent at most. No drummer/guitarist/keyboard player is ever going to play exactly on the beat every note - there'll always be small (and it doesn't need to be much) deviations, and this is what makes things sound more natural.

But you want to know what the irony is? In the 100 plus tracks that I've posted here, if you read through all the complaints, you will read...

Hate Vocaloid
Orchestral arrangements don't sound real
Mix is uneven

Not ONE person ever said to me, out of 100 plus tracks...

"Damn man! How come your tracks sound so robotic? What do you do? Quantize everything to death?"

And the reason nobody has said that is because they DON'T sound quantized to death. The only reason this has even become an issue is because I opened my big mouth. Had I not done that, this issue NEVER comes up.

That's what I find laughable about all of this. This is typical KVR.

"Ooo, ooo, ooo. He just said something that we can jump all over him for. He quantizes everything. Let's hammer him for it."

Even though NOBODY could even tell.

LMAO. Gotta love this place.