Hey guys, back again with a new one (well, sort of - I'll explain in a bit) that I just did a clip for:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fx1qowWvNs
 
Just a quick bit of history with this: my band, LORD, was once known as Dungeon and in 2004 we released an album called One Step Beyond which contained this song. We eventually changed names and to mark our 25th anniversary (oh man, am I really that old?  ) we re-recorded everything so we'd have better control over the rights and have the production match the last lot of albums we've done, this time with no time or budget restraints like the original versions did.
 
So this song was done, of course, in SONAR, and unlike the last two that I posted up, this has real drums rather than a drum machine. Guitars and bass are once again Pod Farm 2.5, drums are more or less natural with sound replaced kicks and sample reinforced snares (mostly real sound, but samples to add crack and depth, and to tame a little of the hat bleed that invariably ends up in the snare mic from heavy hitting drummers).
 
A great bulk of the processing was done using stock SONAR effects. Vocals were through VX-64, most EQ was Sonitus, as were the delays and reverbs, and compression/gating on the drums. About the only 3rd party stuff I used was Pod Farm, Drumagog (I'd love to use the Drum Replacer plugin but it's not quite there yet), Waves Doubler 2 for some slapback+chorus spread, S1 Stereo Imager and L2 Maximizer on the master buss. Except for the L2, I've managed to get some pretty comparable results out of SONAR's bundled plugins, but I just prefer the way these work.
 
It was a lot of fun doing the clip. The original idea was to put us in a large (virtual) hall with a storm outside, which I rendered and it looked great. But when the time came to composite us into it, the room we were using for the live action shots filled up with fog a lot faster than we anticipated and it made cutting us out to put into the scene next to impossible. So plan B turned into making us cardboard cut-outs in a box, which I think actually came up better and was a lot more creative. Hooray for thinking on our feet! HAHA! Lots of rendering hours in After Effects, and I blew a power supply in the middle of it because it was being belted non-stop for 2 weeks. Argh! HAHA!
 
Anyway, hope you guys like it, and I'd be happy to chat about how I pulled certain sounds or processed anything if you're interested! 

Top quality stuff there all the way.
 
Nicely done.

One of the youtube commenters nailed it with this one. "Epic chorus." And it is! Awesome song with great playing all around and I can't think of a thing I'd change in the near-perfect mix. Great video work, I think the cardboard cutout approach works great, and I especially liked the wind blowing against them, and I was totally sold with the shadows, great attention to the little stuff that makes the big stuff work. I am just not worthy. :)

Wow....just Wow!! Absolutely Pro stuff here from the performances to mixing/production!! Excellent stuff here LT. This is fantastic to see that most of it was done within Sonar (IMO, Sonitus is a totally underrated plugin).
 
I also have Pod Farm 2.5 and would love to know what your setup is for this song? The tones are fantastic (like the playing).....you guys should do a world tour!!  

excellent stuff Lord Tim (feel like I should be calling you your highness )
You've obviously put some time and expertise into this project - really very very good. 

Haha! I answer to most swear words also, so I'm not too hung up on titles!

I'll reply to everyone properly a bit later but I just wanted to say thanks for listening and the nice comments, guys :)

This was a pretty huge project that this song was from. It was 4 albums re-recorded, 4 albums remixed from the original multitracks, 1 EP remastered, and a 200+ page bio, all presented over 4 CDs and a custom shaped USB with MP3 and FLAC rips of everything. It took about 11 months of serious work, but it was worth the effort in the end. Remind me never to do anything like this again! Haha!

Mesh
Wow....just Wow!! Absolutely Pro stuff here from the performances to mixing/production!! Excellent stuff here LT. This is fantastic to see that most of it was done within Sonar (IMO, Sonitus is a totally underrated plugin).

 
It truly is. I think a few other guys on here have remarked that if you put a fresh GUI on it and marketed it as a boutique plugin, people would be raving about it.
 
I really love the Pro Channel stuff but I find it really clumsy for copying stuff between tracks or saving presets, as opposed to plugins in the effects bin. The stuff you can do in there, barring things like the tape sim and console emulator can be easily replicated with the Sonitus suite. And what you can't do with Sonitus, you can do with the Blue Tubes suite or Perfect Space. Quite amazing the stuff we get for free bundled with SONAR - it's really world class quality.
 
 

Mesh
I also have Pod Farm 2.5 and would love to know what your setup is for this song? The tones are fantastic (like the playing).....

 
I can do better than that - here you go, have our rhythm, lead, clean and bass tones: https://www.dropbox.com/s...0Farm%20Tones.zip?dl=0
 
There's a couple of tricks with Pod Farm.
 
The first thing is to realise that its emulation of most amps completely sucks. If you've played through a JCM800, don't expect its model to sound anything like it - it won't. But that's OK, if you like the sound you get from Pod Farm; it doesn't have to sound like a real world amp. The end result, in context of the mix, is all that matters, full stop.
 
The second thing is that out of the box, all of the presets in nearly every Pod device or plugin are terrible. Fizzy, plastic, overly processed rubbish. You need to keep it really simple, and think abut how a speaker would react to things. In my dirty patches, I've gone basic - Tube Screamer into a JCM 800 + quad cab, SM57 off axis mic, EQ and a bit of compression to even it out. That's it. The key with this, though, is the EQ. I've done some serious high end roll off to get rid of that fizzy mess you get with amp sims, and boosted the upper mids to give it presence.
 
I'll typically double (or sometimes triple) the rhythm parts, wide pan them, and run them into a guitar buss which is further EQ'd to give it more cut in the mix (usually upper mids), sometimes some lows dropped to clean up the sound, and almost always high passed to give space in the mix to the bass and kicks. I'll run some slapback spread over that to bring in a bit of HAAS effect, which makes everything seem a bit wider and thicker, and a bit of reverb for gel.
 
Sounds like a lot of stuff going on but at the core of it, it's a really stripped back, basic sound. Hope you can get some use out of the tones! 
 

Mesh
you guys should do a world tour!!   

HAHA! Well, we're already locked in for ProgPower USA next year, so we'll see how we go!

Thanks Tim for going above and beyond in providing these detailed info and dropbox link.....it's greatly appreciated. 
 
I agree, most of these presets are generally crap (as with most amp sims), but I've always liked using PF2 over the others.....although I do like some of the tones in Rammfire (GR5). 
 
You've done a fantastic job on re-recording/mixing this and I also enjoyed listening to a lot of your other tunes on Youtube.
Please do keep us posted on your touring dates.....would love to see you guys playing live.
Cheers mate and best of luck!!  

Wow... for a minute or two (or three) I thought I was listening to a lost Queensryche recording.    Full stop.  
 

I know I should be concentrating on the mix and gathering tips .... as I'm a complete Sonar noob .... but I'm too busy rocking out here! 
 
I thought that .... and your other tracks I checked out on youtube .... were, what can I say ... let's go with FANTASTIC! 
Yeah, that oughta cover it.
I wanted to put some exaggerated expletives before the "fantastic" in a sort of 18 rated Jack Black kinda way but thought I might get banned so refrained 
 
Honestly I think you guys are great and I'm off to look into buying your material.
I hear, as has been mentioned, Queensryche, Maiden, Helloween and Heir Apparent....all rolled into one great package of modernised up to date goodness and called LORD! 
 
I feel 18 again.....and I'm loving it haha so thank you for that. 
 
Oh and great mixing and mastering too by the way .... 
 
Peace.