The Wagtunes Corner (Featuring My Best Yet)

[Mushy Mushy]

Wags, I forgot what DAW you use but most (all?) have some kind of humaniser MIDI functionality. Perhaps worthwhile investigating if you’d like to “fix” the timing.

Yeah, the problem is, I don't know how to do it so it sounds good. Yes, Cubase has it but when I try to use it, it sounds horrible. There is an art to it. I need somebody to actually teach me how to do it properly. It's not something I'm going to figure out on my own.

Yeah, same. I can never get it to sound realistic but I know it's very commonly used so I guess I need to learn it more.

That said, the genres I like it's not important for. For rock/pop like you do it could be worth learning.

YouTube perhaps? The Cubase YouTube channel is excellent.

[wagtunes]

Wags, I forgot what DAW you use but most (all?) have some kind of humaniser MIDI functionality. Perhaps worthwhile investigating if you’d like to “fix” the timing.

Yeah, the problem is, I don't know how to do it so it sounds good. Yes, Cubase has it but when I try to use it, it sounds horrible. There is an art to it. I need somebody to actually teach me how to do it properly. It's not something I'm going to figure out on my own.

Yeah, same. I can never get it to sound realistic but I know it's very commonly used so I guess I need to learn it more.

That said, the genres I like it's not important for. For rock/pop like you do it could be worth learning.

YouTube perhaps? The Cubase YouTube channel is excellent.

I already looked the first time this was brought up. Didn't find anything that was any help to me.

[jancivil]

Ok, you aren't engaging with what I wrote here so forget it.
ignore begets ignore so buhbye, best of luck to ya

[aaron aardvark]

wagtunes,
Thank you for the review, I appreciate it! I'm listening to "High on the Hog". This song probably has the best vocals I've heard you do, overall: rather good I'd say! Instrumentally, it sounds very good too! I hear elements of the 60's, 70's, and 80's in this song. Nothing to gripe about; this might be my favorite song & recording I've heard you do. BTW, regarding quantizing and humanizing: sometimes I'll program something (manually) where I might quantize it first, though sometimes I might change drum notes or synth notes a tiny fraction of a beat to make it sound less robotic, though I don't think "Hog" is too robotic. It can take time-consuming experimentation.

[wagtunes]

wagtunes,
Thank you for the review, I appreciate it! I'm listening to "High on the Hog". This song probably has the best vocals I've heard you do, overall: rather good I'd say! Instrumentally, it sounds very good too! I hear elements of the 60's, 70's, and 80's in this song. Nothing to gripe about; this might be my favorite song & recording I've heard you do. BTW, regarding quantizing and humanizing: sometimes I'll program something (manually) where I might quantize it first, though sometimes I might change drum notes or synth notes a tiny fraction of a beat to make it sound less robotic, though I don't think "Hog" is too robotic. It can take time-consuming experimentation.

Thanks for the listen and the feedback Aaron. Yeah, this whole quantizing and humanizing thing is extremely difficult for me. I don't even know where to begin to make it sound good. This is where a good teacher would really come in handy.

[Frantz]

I listened to "It Don't Ring a Bell." This is quite a catchy and addictive country tune. Who knew Wags did country?

I think this tune will be stuck in my head tonight.

I think a good twist ending would be -- as you get friendlier and friendlier with this mysterious but strangely familiar lady, it slowly dawns on you. It is your old buddy Phil from the army. He has had a sex change.

[crimsonwarlock]

I appreciate the comments on the timing. I understand. The problem is, my timing is so bad that if I don't quantize it sounds like garbage. I could play you one of my older tracks before I started quantizing (people ripped it to shreds) so you could hear just how bad it is.

So it comes down to which is worse, listening to my horrible performances or listening to a more robotic performance? Personally, I get fewer criticisms with the latter so I'll go with quantizing over not.

I get where you come from. For me it's rather easy from playing live gigs for decades in several bands (and several genres), I basically don't use any quantization. As I said about my own track, I do like that 'live' feel that is the hallmark of so many rock records.

There are some things you can try though. A performance can be 'early' or 'late' (we are talking milliseconds here) which can give more energy (early) or a more lay'd back sound (late). So you can experiment with making some instruments early or late (after quantize). Just don't do that with the drums . After that you can edit your midi by moving certain individual notes back on grid. Another option is to select all notes that are NOT on the bar and humanize only those. Just experiment with this and see where that gets you.

A note on humanizing: you want to humanize only a very slight amount, so that you don't actually hear it, but can perceive when you take it out.

[wagtunes]

I appreciate the comments on the timing. I understand. The problem is, my timing is so bad that if I don't quantize it sounds like garbage. I could play you one of my older tracks before I started quantizing (people ripped it to shreds) so you could hear just how bad it is.

So it comes down to which is worse, listening to my horrible performances or listening to a more robotic performance? Personally, I get fewer criticisms with the latter so I'll go with quantizing over not.

I get where you come from. For me it's rather easy from playing live gigs for decades in several bands (and several genres), I basically don't use any quantization. As I said about my own track, I do like that 'live' feel that is the hallmark of so many rock records.

There are some things you can try though. A performance can be 'early' or 'late' (we are talking milliseconds here) which can give more energy (early) or a more lay'd back sound (late). So you can experiment with making some instruments early or late (after quantize). Just don't do that with the drums . After that you can edit your midi by moving certain individual notes back on grid. Another option is to select all notes that are NOT on the bar and humanize only those. Just experiment with this and see where that gets you.

A note on humanizing: you want to humanize only a very slight amount, so that you don't actually hear it, but can perceive when you take it out.

Fair enough. I'll give it a shot on an upcoming song. Another problem, and it's my problem, is that now that I've been quantizing so long, any deviation off the beat (even a 32nd note) and I can tell and it bothers my ears really bad whereas when I used to just play normal, I really couldn't hear the "problems" unless they were really awful.

I'll see what I come up with in a future tune, but you have to be honest with me. If the timing sounds bad, you have to tell me.

[wagtunes]

I listened to "It Don't Ring a Bell." This is quite a catchy and addictive country tune. Who knew Wags did country?

I think this tune will be stuck in my head tonight.

I think a good twist ending would be -- as you get friendlier and friendlier with this mysterious but strangely familiar lady, it slowly dawns on you. It is your old buddy Phil from the army. He has had a sex change.

Yeah, I do country. In fact, I did a whole CD "A Whole Lotta Country" which was all country songs. The songs are in this thread somewhere. Pretty much the only genres I don't do are rap and reggae. Just don't have the feel for them. Anything else is fair game.

[wagtunes]

Here's the song with the really bad timing issues that I was talking about. Of course it doesn't help that it's a Vocaloid tune but the vocals aside, the timing is really bad. That it was a very difficult song to play to begin with didn't help. And the sad thing about all of this is that this is really one of my better songs. Someday I'm gonna redo this so that it sounds better.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... va-on-lead

[crimsonwarlock]

Here's the song with the really bad timing issues that I was talking about.

OK, that one is pretty bad indeed

However, the problem (as obvious from this track) is not just bad timing, but also the fact that the arrangement is pretty simple; basically everything is (or should be) on the beat. There are almost no notes/chords that lend themselves to create anything from 'loose timing' to actual swing. So I guess you have to start with looking at your arrangements first and, and this is going to take a lot of time, listen to a LOT of rock music and trying to hear what is going on there, and learn from that. My earlier suggestion to look at some videos of Warren Huart is still a good one, as he explains what is going on especially with the interaction between arrangements and production.

[wagtunes]

Here's the song with the really bad timing issues that I was talking about.

OK, that one is pretty bad indeed

However, the problem (as obvious from this track) is not just bad timing, but also the fact that the arrangement is pretty simple; basically everything is (or should be) on the beat. There are almost no notes/chords that lend themselves to create anything from 'loose timing' to actual swing. So I guess you have to start with looking at your arrangements first and, and this is going to take a lot of time, listen to a LOT of rock music and trying to hear what is going on there, and learn from that. My earlier suggestion to look at some videos of Warren Huart is still a good one, as he explains what is going on especially with the interaction between arrangements and production.

I actually subscribed to Warren Huart's channel a while ago. It's where I learned mixing from. It's the reason my mixes have improved so much. I know how to arrange songs. This was the arrangement I wanted for this song. And yeah, I get that it's almost like a dance track played to a pop beat. There are no off beat embellishments or things to create the sense of "lots going on" outside of the main core of the arrangement. It isn't what I was going for here. I would never do this song any other way. The only thing I would change is to make it flow better and the only way to do that at this point is quantize the whole thing.

Ultimately, with few exceptions, I like to keep my arrangements simple. For me, extraneous stuff that isn't "necessary" gets in the way and distracts from the song. Sure, you could do subtle little things like I did on "It Don't Ring A Bell" with the violin part, but most of those subtle things aren't noticeable anyway and could easily be left out.

Having said all that, in a future track I'm going to try to, with the exception of the drums, keep everything loose. Will also try to put in those little arrangement things to give the illusion of variety. It's not that I can't do it. It's just that I choose not to unless a song really screams for it. You should hear all the songs I've done with just me and a piano. If a song sounds like crap with just a piano and vocal then the song is crap to begin with and no amount of arrangement is going to save it. Not really. Yeah, you can dress it up but it's still a turd in a tux.

[wagtunes]

One thing I want to add and I'm sure you know this. The average human being can only listen to 3 parts of a song at one time. Because of this limitation, it doesn't make sense to make arrangements anymore complex than one can assimilate. I used to try to cram a million things into a song at one time (this was many years ago) and it always ended up sounding like mass confusion. I have since learned, and disciplined myself, to keep things simple.

But I'm not against trying new things. One thing I've learned this past year is a closed mind is a stagnant mind. You don't evolve as a musician just doing the same things over and over. So I'm going to experiment with "different" arrangements and, aside from the drums, playing without quantizing the performance. If I make a mistake, I'll redo the part, like in the old days when I recorded to tape and there was no quantizing.

[crimsonwarlock]

If a song sounds like crap with just a piano and vocal then the song is crap to begin with and no amount of arrangement is going to save it. Not really.

True that

Well, I just tried to give you some pointers as to where to look for some improvement to the 'feel' of your music, especially your 'rock' oriented stuff. Take it anyway you want, I'll leave it at that.

[wagtunes]

If a song sounds like crap with just a piano and vocal then the song is crap to begin with and no amount of arrangement is going to save it. Not really.

True that

Well, I just tried to give you some pointers as to where to look for some improvement to the 'feel' of your music, especially your 'rock' oriented stuff. Take it anyway you want, I'll leave it at that.

Understood and appreciated and just to show you that I'm not against trying things, my next post under this one will have the results.