While we were in Quebec last week, we went through our stuff that's over at my in-laws house and I grabbed a bunch of DVDs, back ups, movies and such.

I was going through that stuff last night and found 3 DVDs with a bunch of old Cakewalk projects on them. I thought all that stuff was on stored on HD, but apparently, I had made additional back ups at some point.

The cool thing is, these projects were created at a time when I had to bounce things all the time because of my computer's limitations, so basically, it's all stems, ready to be mixed. Well, as long as I can rebuild the actual song w/ those snippets. There are a lot of one or two bars clips. However, most of them were bounced w/ descriptive names, making it easier to figure out.

Thanks also to the lack of storage space, I had removed all the unused audio, so the back ups aren't cluttered and only contain relevant chunks of data. It's actually pretty funny to see a full song taking only 3-400 mb of space. 

I'm usually not too inclined to nostalgia, but there were 2 or 3 songs which I always wished I could rework because I felt they deserved a better mix, something I didn't have the skills to do back then - not mentioning that I was working in a tiny room w/ poor monitors. I think these were good songs, some of the best I've written.

It's quite funny to import those things track by track, hearing them in solo. And there are things in there which I could never replicate nowadays w/ the better libraries and plug-ins - like a piano line which was created in Fruity Loops using only a couple of samples. The poor quality of the actual samples coupled w/ the pitch shifting gives the line a unique quality which simply works better for that song. 

Same for certain drum parts which had layers of kick drum samples - man, these sounded good. I must have spent a lot of time on that stuff - even more considering that I had to create the drum in FL and then bounce and import it into Sonar where I'd assemble all those 1 or 2 bar loops. I don't think I'd spend a 10th as much time on such things these days because, well, I don't have to. I can get a satisfying drum to work w/ sound in seconds. Back then, by the time it was satisfying, it was also quite unique.

There were also a few tracks done w/ freeware synths available on Windows only, so it's good to have those back.

Anyway, that'll make for some fun projects in my spare time. :)

Somewhere back home I have a bunch of tracks on floppy disks done in the OctaMED sequencer on the Amiga. Mainly gritty sounding Jungle tracks all made with 4 tracks of 8-bit samples, everything sampled using my own CD collection going into an 8-bit sampling cartridge. Loads of sampled drum loops that have been chopped up and mixed around, I seem to remember chopping them up by dividing the number of bytes by 8 and entering start and finish numbers, in bytes, into the sample editor. 

And back then, I didn't have a clue about mixing. In fact I'm not sure how much actual mixing you could do with OctaMED, short of entering numerical volume codes into the sequencer. Compression? EQ? Didn't even know what they were. I just stitched samples together. 

And the amazing thing is, they sounded pretty good! Even played on different systems, everything came through loud and clear with good separation. And of course the 8-bit grittiness added to the effect. I'd love to get those tracks back now. However I don't think there's anything I could possibly do to make them sound better at this point. I've tried going back into old tracks with newer plugs before. Recently I went back to an old track that had a piano bass part made with some crappy piano sound that came with Pro Tools. I replaced it with the Alicia Keys piano. Didn't sound anywhere near as good!

Rain


While we were in Quebec last week, we went through our stuff that's over at my in-laws house and I grabbed a bunch of DVDs, back ups, movies and such.

I was going through that stuff last night and found 3 DVDs with a bunch of old Cakewalk projects on them. I thought all that stuff was on stored on HD, but apparently, I had made additional back ups at some point.

The cool thing is, these projects were created at a time when I had to bounce things all the time because of my computer's limitations, so basically, it's all stems, ready to be mixed. Well, as long as I can rebuild the actual song w/ those snippets. There are a lot of one or two bars clips. However, most of them were bounced w/ descriptive names, making it easier to figure out.

Thanks also to the lack of storage space, I had removed all the unused audio, so the back ups aren't cluttered and only contain relevant chunks of data. It's actually pretty funny to see a full song taking only 3-400 mb of space. 

I'm usually not too inclined to nostalgia, but there were 2 or 3 songs which I always wished I could rework because I felt they deserved a better mix, something I didn't have the skills to do back then - not mentioning that I was working in a tiny room w/ poor monitors. I think these were good songs, some of the best I've written.

It's quite funny to import those things track by track, hearing them in solo. And there are things in there which I could never replicate nowadays w/ the better libraries and plug-ins - like a piano line which was created in Fruity Loops using only a couple of samples. The poor quality of the actual samples coupled w/ the pitch shifting gives the line a unique quality which simply works better for that song. 

Same for certain drum parts which had layers of kick drum samples - man, these sounded good. I must have spent a lot of time on that stuff - even more considering that I had to create the drum in FL and then bounce and import it into Sonar where I'd assemble all those 1 or 2 bar loops. I don't think I'd spend a 10th as much time on such things these days because, well, I don't have to. I can get a satisfying drum to work w/ sound in seconds. Back then, by the time it was satisfying, it was also quite unique.

There were also a few tracks done w/ freeware synths available on Windows only, so it's good to have those back.

Anyway, that'll make for some fun projects in my spare time. :)

Great Post!! 


This highlights and supports what I have long believed that artists/writers should focus more on the songs; what is 'BEST' for the 'SONG' such as; #1 melodies; performances, levels; 'getting it right at the source' and the way the instruments arrangements (parts) all interact with each other is also important.  


But oh no, uh oh... instead; way too much focus (and money) obtaining the latest plugins; with the greatest, fattest sounding, mega-goliath sound libraries. 50,000+ sounds not enough eh?, how bout some more?, more not enough eh?.    *Yawn*  how long would it take to scrutinize a lot of those sounds?.. something that 'might' work well?... hmmm lets give this one a tweak?, hmmm, let's move on to the next sound and tweak that?, on so on and so forth; 12 hours later and the plot is lost *yawn* too tired; going to bed LOL!! 


All too often it's not the instrument that makes the song; it's the performances and the 'feel', yes it's all still important to apply great musicianship skills. But oh well; we live in a loopy world LOL!! 


That said; I limit my libraries to a much more manageable quantity and keep files on ALL songs for example; each song has an attach file that contains a sound-set listing and is also arranged (organized) with the arrangements. I also have project templates readily available for when I need to get a melody done.  This allows me to focus more effectively and efficiently on the songs (as explained earlier) for when that creative spark hits the air I'm ready to fly like a bird. 


Like you I have listened to really old recordings and back then I was way, way more limited (sound library) and quality was way less compared to nowadays but there's magic; that magic has everything to do with the 'feel', the 'vibe'; the 'melodies', 'performances' and how all those parts 'interact superbly with each other'. 


IMO the genre usually steers the music production (directives) for example; Heavy Metal; if I was producing that sort of music I will definitely want to work with a 'band'; live 'real' drums, bass and guitars.  But my music direction has changed dramatically over the years (I've tamed down a lot lol) and I prefer to work solo; focus on #1 the song and then to either have placement in film or for a young singer because I'm not interested in being lead puppet glistering under a spotlight, never wanted to, never will. 


Another area I also want to focus more on is; 'Musically Dynamic';  creating very clever arrangements of each part interacting well but also having lows (quieter parts), pauses, build-up and peaks; to create a much more interesting sonic landscape. Even a kick-arse heavy metal song (all assault on guitars) or dance number that usually requires straight out assault with the beat can still have clever arrangements of instrument parts to give the song a nice interesting sonic-landscape.... 

A friend (bass player and co-writer) in a Metal Rock band professionally managed and signed to a major label ask my opinion of his album (demo), of course the demo sounded awesome; great sounds, top-notch recordings but the musical dynamics was terrible, I told him that and he agreed 100%. 


Anyway, sorry for the rant! 

Thanks Greg - very valid points.

I was thinking this morning after I posted this that, back in the days I had no real mixing skills - the "mix" was basically sculpted directly via the choice of instruments and the arrangement. 

For example, if the kick didn't cut through or if the snare was weak, I'd go back to Fruity Loops and find a sample that would beef up the part and blend it in, the re-export. It was a lot of back and forth. And in 99% of the cases, I didn't have the luxury of split tracks for drums - it was all one track, and a bit of automation. But in some cases, it worked pretty well. 

Since I did't have the ability to make it work, I had to try until I found the sound that would work pretty much as is.

Obviously, I also used to rely on offline processing quite a bit. So once an audio file was imported in the project, it was pretty much just a matter of adjusting the levels. Though I must say that those early songs lacked dynamics - the balance was usually quite static throughout the song, and dynamically, well, the quieter parts were the parts where there were less instruments, or softer played parts.

Which is one of the reasons I wish to polish a few of them. The basic balance is there, they need to be mixed.

I lived this with my old 8-track analog stuff. Same story basically. True about stuff working for the song the way it did back then. Some earlier songs are probably the best creativity wise. Funny how I thought my old cheapy guitar knock-off wasn't up to grade back then. But the sound was perfect for the song and I can't replicate it now that I have a "real" guitar. I sold the old one to a friend 20+ years ago. He still has it and he aint willin' to sell. So even though my rereated song may not sound as good, at least the production will be better.

Man, I've been trying to duplicate those drum tracks for one of those songs - I got the timing under control, extracted from the audio and all, but the actual sound cannot be matched. For all they lack, I can't just wipe them. I need to blend that stuff in.

If I'm not mistaken, the hats were blue jay drums leftovers soundfonts. They sound so relaxed I just can't match the feeling. I still have the samples somewhere back home in Quebec... I went through all the EZ Drummer/SD/BFD libraries, but nothing matches it.

Same for the piano line - I think I've located the original free sample collection online, but it'll still be a challenge to match the original.

The guitars - these were recorded over at a friend's studio, using my old black strat, through a pod. If I'm not mistaken, they were processed w/ acoustic mirror and a studer impulse. That's the easy part. 

The melodic parts were processed w/ a PSP Lexicon 84. I can't replicate that, I'll have to buy PSP 85 and hope I can find the preset I based that sound upon - and manage to tweak it to get that sound.

But that song is worth it.

Rain


Man, I've been trying to duplicate those drum tracks for one of those songs - I got the timing under control, extracted from the audio and all, but the actual sound cannot be matched. For all they lack, I can't just wipe them. I need to blend that stuff in.

If I'm not mistaken, the hats were blue jay drums leftovers soundfonts. They sound so relaxed I just can't match the feeling. I still have the samples somewhere back home in Quebec... I went through all the EZ Drummer/SD/BFD libraries, but nothing matches it.

Same for the piano line - I think I've located the original free sample collection online, but it'll still be a challenge to match the original.

The guitars - these were recorded over at a friend's studio, using my old black strat, through a pod. If I'm not mistaken, they were processed w/ acoustic mirror and a studer impulse. That's the easy part. 

The melodic parts were processed w/ a PSP Lexicon 84. I can't replicate that, I'll have to buy PSP 85 and hope I can find the preset I based that sound upon - and manage to tweak it to get that sound.

But that song is worth it.

You know it's not enough to just save a preset because by the next album (year or so later) a poor guy could end up with 2,000 of the buggers and all the same category (Kick) and not remember which one {DOH}. That's why I keep sound-sets (see my previous post) and try to keep my libraries more manageable.  


In your situation; for example; the drums, I would 'sample it' (a snippet) and copy/paste is your friend; after all SONAR is one big mother of a sampler LOL!! But then again; there are plugins such as Geist (I have not tried it) but I'm sure with something like that you can very easily take that drum hit (sample it) and assign it to a pad. 

I think the limitations back then probably pushed creativity to the fore. I can't bring myself to throw away a box of Zip discs with songs I recorded on my Boss BR-8 about 10 years ago. I have them saved on the PC as stereo WAV's and they always seem so warm and clear if I ever listen back to them, even though they were bounced to the max.

"Back then"..... we... or rather I.... had to use lots of work arounds...

cool find. Have fun with the clips.

OctaMED sequencer on the Amiga

Oh wow! Flashback time. My Amiga was a true amigo back then. Fun stuff.
 
Anyway, its great you kept that 'old' stuff Rain. Hope you get to those 'new' projects.