Great vid. I'm always looking for that certain "pop" from a snare, and a certain "bump"/attack from my kicks, and this tool (if not over-used, as you said) can help. I also like the other Transient shaper that CW comes with, which offers some other tools, such as "Dry/Wet". I can't recall the name at the moment "Transient Channel"?

Danny Danzi


redbarchetta: Nah, unfortunately I've only had one Kramer that I actually liked. Remember the one with the aluminum neck? Heavy as a bear, but man did that thing play and sound sweeet! Neck looked like a tuning fork at the end? I traded it to some guy for a beautiful Les Paul. He really wanted that guitar. Little did I know so few were made. It's probably worth more than the Paul now. LOL! All the other Kramers never felt right to me. I got lil hands and most of them had fatter necks so I stayed away from them.


-Danny 

hey Danny
Yeah I hear you about the bigger necks, which is why I don't care much for les pauls.  Have you tried the new Kramers?  They have smaller, thinner necks. I love the kramers that I have.  Yes, I have smaller hands as well.  I have a couple of the newer Strikers, and a new Pacer.  Love the necks. 

paulo


Merci Danny - vids grands - jamais vraiment utilisé TS autant que je ne comprends pas vraiment. Je pourrais évidemment entendre seulement des préréglages qu'il a un effet, mais je n'ai jamais compris exactement ce qu'il faisait et pourquoi d'autres semblent beaucoup plus impressionné par ce que je n'ai jamais été, est beaucoup plus logique maintenant. Nous les francophones ne sont pas si mauvais que vous le savez, peut-être la juste pensé que tu étais une sorte de ladyboy deviant ce avec les cheveux et tout. ;)

Merci Paulo ! Ok, il regarde comme si j'ai un autre ami français. De sorte que fasse deux qui peuvent me tolérer plus de 5 minutes ! Hahaha ! Beaucoup d'amour à vous mon frère !
 
-Danny

Paul P


Danny Danzi... sharke... you guys are drowning in stereotypes :-)

And this is, I believe, an international forum with all that that implies.

Haha don't mind me Paul, honest I have no problems with anyone. I only go by how I'm treated. You know how some people blame a whole country due to a few bad seeds....I never do that. I just notice most French guys don't like me. LOL! Now French Canadian....totally different. I usually get along with them like soul mates. :) But it's all good...I honestly love all people even if they don't really care for me. :) 

Lol and don't think for a moment Parisiennes are like the rest of France. 
The Paris attitude is world renowned and is as different as a New Yorker is to someone in Iowa.
As far as Yanks go, I once heard they are the world's best hosts and the world's worst guests. 
Other than the airport security jerks who are specifically chosen for their attitude, I have found this to be quite true. (Do all the nice ones stay home?) 

M_Glenn_M


Lol and don't think for a moment Parisiennes are like the rest of France. 
The Paris attitude is world renowned and is as different as a New Yorker is to someone in Iowa.
As far as Yanks go, I once heard they are the world's best hosts and the world's worst guests. 
Other than the airport security jerks who are specifically chosen for their attitude, I have found this to be quite true. (Do all the nice ones stay home?) 

LOL, I hear ya. I dunno where they come from on Xbox, but they REALLY hate me! At first I thought it was because maybe they were lil kids and they were getting owned by an old dude. Then the voices started getting deeper...lol! You know how it goes...stereotypes are everywhere. Heck, look at how many people hate Americans based on what our government does. Trust me...we may have voted these dudes in office, but they didn't chirp the songs they chirp now when they were running....nor do we have a chance to vote on which course of action they decide to take. Rest assured, if WE were given that right....I believe no one would hate the American people. We'd not be in any wars or attempting to be the nations police.
 
Yanks being jerks...that depends where you go. Most of the big cities are where you find the most tudes because you'll die being a nice guy unfortunately. Then there's places like Iowa and Ohio where people wave to you for no reason other than to acknowledge your existence...which is soo cool! Or, they will sit at an intersection and keep telling you to go, and you say no, you go, and they say, no really, you go...and you both start smiling because it's just soo great to be that courteous. :) You also get guys that do your windows in those small town gas stations and greet you like you matter. In the bigger cities and suburbs of the bigger cities...totally different animal for the most part. Airports...the absolute worst place to judge anyone because it's all rush rush and people stressed out. LOL! :)
 
-Danny 

Chef Mike: I got my console set for segmented meters and the track view non-segmented. Preferences/Customization/Audio meters. For the colors, Preferences/customization/colors then select the meters option in the drop down. If you want, I can send you my color scheme and you'll have everything. Let me know. -Danny

Yes please. (I'll PM ya my email)


I prefer the segmented meters too.


Thanks brotha.


Mike

Thanks Danny!

Chef Mike: Email sent with the color thing. :)

redbarchetta: I look at it this way, not everyone is using top grade plugs in Sonar. So I stick to those when showing people things unless I have a reason to show something that isn't. These videos you see, are a lot like the ones I make for my clients that contact me.

They have a mix they want done and want to see me mix the entire thing. So we go over what plugs they have (most times I have the majority) or we keep things strictly Sonar/Cakewalk. I think this is important on all fronts because not only do they see me mix THEIR song in full instrument at a time, they see it being done on the software they use with the plugs they use. So this makes the lesson plan hit 100 times harder.

I think that's the problem with a lot of books and audio examples. Though we can sort of borrow the techniques of one DAW and implement them into another, isn't it better when you see it all happening in the daw you use with the plugs you use? This is one of the reasons I hate books. When you read an audio book, the dude doesn't say "and for you Sonar and Reaper users". It's always "well, I use this SSL and I have all this pricey hardware that you will never own anyway kid...so here's how I do this that and this" IF you are even lucky enough to have them share an actual step by step procedure!!! I just think they suck....and I don't care who writes them.

I'll put one of my lesson videos up against any book or class anyone can take for way less than you'd pay for an entire semester of classes. You can't fail when you learn how YOUR song was mixed using plugs you use everyday and Sonar. It shows you how to mix and control YOUR instruments. Not someone else's that were printed in a million dollar facility on gear you may never own. To me, that whole process is just ludicrous which is why I offer this stuff.

Each vid is done custom for each client, so it's pretty fool-proof and you'll learn more in one full mix lesson than stuff in those books...that's a promise. I had a guy just come to me from Full Sail. He knew lots of stuff and I felt a little intimidated to be honest. I mean we're talking Full Sail here....that's a pretty killer school. But in all honesty....if he had an SSL or a NEVE in his house, he'd be able to dance on it. But what happens when you don't? He doesn't even have Pro Tools...strike two. He told me he learned more in one of my videos about mixes and techniques than all the stuff he learned about mixing and sound at FS. And the dude spent like 50k and was unhappy. Granted, yeah, he learned killer mic techniques and other aesthetics, science and loads of other things that are priceless....but when it came to mixing and being taught what to listen for...I really felt bad for the guy that he got ripped off in some aspects.

I mixed one of his songs in full while running video, and he had a better grasp on everything because we used what HE uses. He learned when and why he should have reprinted a sound....what was wrong with the sound. What I did to fix it....when to replace a sound with a sample, when to do surgery and when to just reprint and what to look for when you track. All that stuff is important and if we're not told how to listen or what to listen for, what good is a book or even a class? Most guys are bedroom hobby guys that just want to get the best out of their gear. Their gear isn't the best and neither are their tracking methods. So how does a book or class help? It doesn't other than little bits of information that are common practice. When you learn on what you have as well as the music YOU have recorded, you are 1000 steps ahead in my opinion. So this is why I keep it simple or cater to someone and do something custom. It's fool-proof that way. :)

I know this may sound like a plug for what I do here, but honest it's not. I just wanted to explain the method to my madness. I love giving these things out if they can help someone...I have no other motives really. I also love talking about this stuff and getting into people's heads because with the right mentor/teacher, you can really make a difference in the way you deal with the audio field. :)

-Danny

tbosco


Danny.... sorry I didn't read every word above, but have you found the Transient Shaper to be a bit of a CPU hog?  I love that thing, but it often locks up my anemic system.  The Transient Shaper is really cool, and I have found it to be invaluable in making a snare drum just pop out of the monitors.

That's quite alright Tony. I'll just sit here and tap my foot waiting until you read all that stuff above. *tap tap tap tap* LOL!! Just kidding. Was just explaining the method to my madness to red up there. :)
 
Actually no, I haven't noticed any resource issues but the help file does claim ther ecan be some latency. Usually when that's the case, it's grabbing some cpu cycles. Hold on...let me check something real quick.
 
Ok, that project I did the video on. I just enabled all instances of TS 64 and let them all play at once. Now keep in mind, when I'm mixing, my ASIO buffers are set to 2048. When I record, I go down to 64 or 128 depending how far along I am into the project. But right now in that project you saw in the vid with all instances on at once at 2048, I can barely see one line out of my 4 cpu's moving. The other 3 are not even visible and the one that is...is like barely showing itself.
 
Just so you can see it...check it out here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/4Tony.JPG
 
So from what I can tell, it doesn't seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary here and I just did that test with my email open, IE, Drop box and some other stuff happening.
 
-Danny

redbarchetta


Maybe you should be the next person to create a Sonar video for Groove3... I'm watching a mastering video now where he has plugins from all different manufactures... Kind of off putting.  Makes you think you NEED to go get that plugin.  His toys are not cheap either. 

Same here though brother. Unfortunately, when I master something, I don't use any Cake plugs other than that 64 eq...forget the name of it. LOL! All my other stuff is Waves and UAD stuff.
 
For example, this is one of my main mastering chains. It's not pretty, but it works incredibly well for me.
 
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/Mastering%20Chain.JPG
 
Quite a few dollars in those plugs you see. But each has a reason and a purpose. Honest, they aren't just random things I threw all over the screen. I can explain the use for each one and why they are there if needed. :)
 
-Danny

For mastering, I find the Sonar plugs don't get me where I need to be. It can be done and I've done it before, but the ones you see that I use, do what I need to be done better in my opinion.

Just a quick example of why those are there and what I find wrong in Cake plugs that do the same thing.

I love that LP 64 eq for high passing and low passing. That's all it does. Nothing in my opinion handles things the way it seems to. And it sounds great and now that the Bakers have fixed the glitches in it, it's a breath of fresh air to use.

There are 3 Roger Nichols eq's that you see there. The reason there are 3 is because you can customize them to have as many bands as you want as well as pick the bands and settings you want. It's one of the most powerful eq's I've ever used for both sound and flexibility. Nothing else I've tried tops them. I use three because I have one dedicated eq for lows to low mids, one for medium mids to mid-mids, and one for high mids to high-highs. This allows me to instanlty control a frequency that needs to be controlled without having to constantly scroll through or create new bands. Each eq has like 14 different band settings and if I need to scroll through some bands, chances are I'm close to a band that needs to be controlled.

Next is my API compressor. I use this because it's simply one of the best mastering compressors I've ever used in plugin format. It's so versatile, transparent and loaded with options, you can't wreck a mix with it. Though I like the Sonitus compressor and all the other Cake compressors we're given, something about this particular compressor just speaks to me in how it deal with audio. In the mastering realm, I just want it to control all the little peaks and valleys I may have created with the eq's. This also keeps the mix a little tighter without artifacts.

From there, I like to run my UAD Multiband. This thing is so incredible, I've never used anything else that comes close. It's the perfect "policeman" for mastering as it will just gently push the crowd back off the line if they try to push forward. It is also transparent and near impossible for it to ruin a mix. The Sonar multiband is also good...but it works a bit differently than this does and starts to get artifacts where this never does.

Once all that is where I want it, I like to increase the level of the mix yet still keep it tight. This is where the Waves LL3 comes in. I just use it subtely without going over -2dB at this point. The audio I'm mastering was already pre-leveled manually and cured of all rogue peaks in my pre-mastering session, so using a little bit of the LL3 here just keeps things tight as we raise the volume just a bit. I could probably use the Concrete Limiter to do what the LL 3 is doing here. However, I find the CL is not quite what I like to use in a real mastering situation. Waves to me just has a handle on this a little better for me...which is just a personal preference.

From there, there's a Waves S-1. The S-1 only gets used if I seem to get a little stereo field smearing from the processing I've done. It's rare for me to use this as I never over-process to where the stereo field has been narrowed up. Sometimes though, a client may mix a bit too tight...so a gentle bump in the width here by like 110-120 may be the fix and allow things to spread just a bit. I could use the Sonitus Phase plug in place of this. But I prefer the graphic look of the S-1. They both do about the same thing really.

From there, the Waves L2 goes on and I kick the mix in the butt. I don't actually use it here though because I will use it in Wave Lab to finalize everything. But I will kick it on to see what I'm getting at this point. I use the L-2 or a PSP Xenon which is really nice. The Xenon can be a bit too clean for hard rock or metal though, so the L-2 is the better choice for me. Boost 11 and the Concrete Limiter choke when used passed -6.0 threshold. They just don't hold up and distort where the Waves maximizers give you much more output before they start to crap out on you in my opinion. The L-2 is great for 24 bit stuff...the L-1 and L-3 seem to do better with 16 bit.

After that is the Waves PAZ analyzer so I see what things look like. I don't rely on what I see as much as what I hear, but it's also nice to keep a nice eq curve in mind. I'll use this or the Blue Cat analyzer. To me, they give me what I need to see in a seconds glance as well as no mistake in the frequencies I'm looking at. And they are big enough to see at all times. So though we can definitely use alternative plugs, these are the reasons I use what I use on this end. :) Hope that explains it brother.

-Danny

Oh yeah, and there's no hoping about it. What you got will work quite well. The thing is, when you do this stuff for 100 years like me, you get to learn how these things work in different applications which is why you too will start to add some of the other tools in your box. You find that as you grow, you start to hear things differently that you might not have heard before.

You'll see posts from dudes like me that claim "you may get some distortion if you use this plug like this" and when you try it, you may hear it too and then you know what I mean. Or...it may not happen to you at all and you can chalk it up as me being out of my tree. LOL!! But you should be fine. At the end of the day bro, all this stuff is a matter of personal preference really and what works for you. If it works and you are happy with the outcome, you're right where you need to be.

But as you grow and decide to try a few more things that may hold a higher price tag, you'll see how they make differences for the better in some situations...and they may very well fail in others. That's just the nature of the beast though and why it's good to collect a few of these tools and throw them in your box over time. :) On that note...I'll check back in with you guys later. I gotta start my next job. I love these long render jobs...they give me a chance to hang out a bit. LOL! :)

-Danny

Always funny to hear people from home. I have totally lost my Jersey... but I am sure if I came up for a couple of weeks, I'd get some of it back!

Thanks for posting these, I(we) always appreciate your contributions here.

Danny, thank you for taking the time to make these videos!