ABOVE: A view of the "Piston" pre-mastering work being done in Sonar

A Second Look (Listen)

Hiya gang...

You don't usually get to hear two versions of the same song (most of the time, a new song is fairly well settled by the time I post a preview). This is kind of a rare exception, an instance where I posted a preview and then, a week later, started hearing things that needed more work. So, I took a day away from working on the next new track and decided to go back into "Piston" and fine tune it a little more.

For those of you who get bored with the technical stuff (hey, sometimes I do too!), just have a listen and see what you think of the revised mix. If you're intrigued by the "nuts and bolts" of how it all comes together, though, read on...

For one thing, I wasn't entirely happy with the vocal mix on this one. The vocals came across as just a bit harsh-sounding in places. I decided it was time to re-think the processing tools I'm using on my vocal tracks; I'd kind of fallen into a routine in that area, and it's good to shake things up every so often. After demoing a handful of software plugins, I found that I really liked what Voxengo Voxformer was doing to my vocal sound. It's a combination of EQ, dual compressor, de-esser, and saturation all in one, and seems to be very good at getting a smoother vocal sound. I also decided that I didn't really like having the higher octave on the vocals doubled in the choruses, so I removed the second takes of those parts from the mix so you just have one vocal on the main part plus a second vocal an octave lower - I think it sounds more focused that way in this case. More isn't always better!

There were also a handful of spots that I thought sounded a little too sparse, so I dropped in some atmospheric fretless bass dubs here and there to fill things out and add some atmosphere.

I also tried out an interesting new compressor on the drum tracks. It helped them thump and snap just a little more than they did in the previous mix. I think it's a great-sounding tool - I'm sold!

So there you go...a number of small improvements that hopefully add up to a more satisfying mix. Granted, part of all this fuss is kind of lost on Myspace (the process of converting a song to Myspace's format doesn't exactly do the sound quality of a piece of audio any favors!), and many listeners may not be attuned enough to the details to notice a major difference between this mix and the first. But it makes a difference to me. You can either call that taking pride in my work or being obsessive...both are probably true!

Time to settle in for a few and get some sleep. Another busy day on tap tomorrow, and a certain bear has a birthday on Wednesday, so I need to get something nice for him to make his day a little more special.

Talk to you soon,
DV