Hi folks,

Firstly thanks to MoreSpaceEcho of the heads up on Unmixing software. I'm in the process of unmixing the tracks to stems. Mostly it's pretty good, but as MSE mentioned it really only works as a halfway, you need to have them all in the DAW and there a lot of weird bleed etc. That said vocal and guitars are pretty great. The drums all separated and the bass are kind of messier but together work fine.

Now I need some advice on "how to improve" these songs.

This is the album in question.



There's some vocals that need to be lowered and some guitar solo overdubs that are too loud, especially on the track Blue Flame at around the 2min mark. That one is a real kicker because I can't separate it out. Any EQing etc tip for that part of the song for that section would be very welcome.

I might rerecord the bass.... not a great bass player.

Please in general let me know any general advice you'd give to improve the tracks. I'll be working in GarageBand which is actually a pretty good DAW....

Yours sincerely,
Grammy

This can be a tricky rabbit hole. I once remixed a few songs (2” tape session, which required real studios and not just Reaper) 2 years after the original session and while I was able to address weaknesses (EP hastily recorded/mixed in 2 days) it ultimately didn’t change the essence of the recordings. Plus, it was 2 years later and my heart wasn’t really into those songs anymore, the time and money would have been better spent on new ideas.

That said, I gave a quick lesson and I heard a couple things I’d try.

1. Fully replacing the snare sound is probably not possible with separated stems and bleed etc, but maybe thicken it up by blending in a sample of a dead low-tuned “fat” snare. Triggering sounds is very simple in Reaper and I’d imagine very doable in Garageband as well.

2. Saturate/warm up the guitar tones a bit. The recent Tweez remixes are a good example of that and the remix engineer even talks a bit about how she did it in a YT video.

3. Yes to lowering vocals, and even out the dynamics a bit.

There are some ‘taste’ things you could play with: buss compression, console EQ channels, and tape saturation simply because these plugins are good and easily available now so why not. Maybe try some tasteful room simulators to add a bit more depth. These things may or may not ultimately change much but are worth playing around with.

That's all good advice. For that one guitar solo, if it's in the middle and you have hard panned rhythm guitars on the side, anything that lets you adjust Mid/Side levels would work to turn down just the solo somewhat.

I just want to reiterate what I said in the other thread: be REALLY CAREFUL with what you're putting on individual tracks. It's the nature of the bleed that's the problem, if it was microphone bleed from instruments in the same room, not such a big deal, but because it's algorithm artifact digital bleed, any non-linear stuff you're doing to one track can have a drastic effect on other tracks. It's all to do with the phase relationships and while I've always found the plugin delay compensation in Reaper to work perfectly, in this case it doesn't.

So, for example, I tried putting a tape sim on one track and immediately heard the whole stereo image go crazy. I tried putting a dynamic eq on the guitars and immediately heard the hihats get a little brighter and move further to the right. I thought I was tripping but I a/b'd a few times and sure enough.

Basically my advice would be if you're doing anything besides simple level changes and eq, put those same plugins on every track, even if they're just set flat. This seemed to keep the phase together for me. Further, and this is totally counter to what I'd normally say, but if there's stuff you can do "in mastering", i.e. on the whole mix, do it there instead of on individual tracks.

Hi both, really great advice.

MSE, the mid/side levels module did the trick. The solo was mostly on the Side.

Is there any reason to use Reaper over GB? Both are free right? Triggering is a whole new world and potential rabbit hole... As would be rerecording the bass (my idea).

Mastering is a whole layer I hadn't considered. GB has a Mastering layer you can add any plug-in to. There are some EQ settings for mastering.

I've never really used GB but I'm sure there's tons of stuff you can do in Reaper that you can't do in GB. And by that I mean I don't think there's anything you CAN'T do in Reaper. But honestly if you're comfy in GB and it's doing what you want? Fuck it, just stay there.

"Mastering" in this context I really just mean treating the whole mix as one rather than the stems. So like, instead of adding saturation to individual stems, do it on the whole mix, that sorta thing.

Gramsci wrote: Mon Apr 28, 2025 2:40 pm Is there any reason to use Reaper over GB? Both are free right? ... As would be rerecording the bass (my idea).

I haven’t used Garageband in a very long time but I can’t imagine it has more flexibility than Reaper. That said, if you like the mastering tools in Garageband you could use it just for that.

Triggering is a whole new world and potential rabbit hole

I know the process in Reaper well. For supplementing the snare sound like I suggested, here’s what you’d do:

1. Go ahead and duplicate the snare track since you wouldn’t be fully replacing the original, and go ahead and create an additional blank track as well.

2. Solo the duplicated snare track and add a gate (ReaGate). Set the threshold to pick up snare and hopefully only snare (if there’s some rack tom bleed or whatever you may need to just delete those portions of the track)

3. Check the “convert to MIDI” box. ReaGate should default to a 100% Wet signal but just make sure that’s the case.

4. Create a new Send for that track to the blank track. It should default to Master, uncheck that box.

5. On the blank track, add a sample plugin (the one in Reaper is called ReaSamplomatic5000 or something). Open it up and physically drag a sample file into the graph-looking window. Here's a “fat” snare sample from the Electrical Audio pack you can use if you want. From here the new snare sound should be triggering.

That’s it. Triggering can get a little trickier around fills, flams, and more dynamic parts (which I didn’t hear much of here), but I find only the loudest bits benefit from the sample blend (like, the first hit in a flam and not both doubled up hits).

penningtron wrote: Tue Apr 29, 2025 10:11 am

Gramsci wrote: Mon Apr 28, 2025 2:40 pm Is there any reason to use Reaper over GB? Both are free right? ... As would be rerecording the bass (my idea).

I haven’t used Garageband in a very long time but I can’t imagine it has more flexibility than Reaper. That said, if you like the mastering tools in Garageband you could use it just for that.

Triggering is a whole new world and potential rabbit hole

I know the process in Reaper well. For supplementing the snare sound like I suggested, here’s what you’d do:

1. Go ahead and duplicate the snare track since you wouldn’t be fully replacing the original, and go ahead and create an additional blank track as well.

2. Solo the duplicated snare track and add a gate (ReaGate). Set the threshold to pick up snare and hopefully only snare (if there’s some rack tom bleed or whatever you may need to just delete those portions of the track)

3. Check the “convert to MIDI” box. ReaGate should default to a 100% Wet signal but just make sure that’s the case.

4. Create a new Send for that track to the blank track. It should default to Master, uncheck that box.

5. On the blank track, add a sample plugin (the one in Reaper is called ReaSamplomatic5000 or something). Open it up and physically drag a sample file into the graph-looking window. Here's a “fat” snare sample from the Electrical Audio pack you can use if you want. From here the new snare sound should be triggering.

That’s it. Triggering can get a little trickier around fills, flams, and more dynamic parts (which I didn’t hear much of here), but I find only the loudest bits benefit from the sample blend (like, the first hit in a flam and not both doubled up hits).

Reaper seems way better than GB after playing around with it for a while. A lot more flexible. I have now triggered my first snare, which is some arcane magic.

I'm still struggling with that loud solo...

Would I be taking the mickey to ask for a kick sample? The heaviest you've got. I'd like to see how that sounds.

Gramsci wrote: Tue Apr 29, 2025 3:24 pm Would I be taking the mickey to ask for a kick sample? The heaviest you've got. I'd like to see how that sounds.

Sure! Here are a couple of flavors to try..

https://easyupload.io/pj1jc0

This is a 24" DW kick recorded at EA, with both a mic and a 'subkick' feed (though I suspect that's just the low end from a Beyerdynamic M380). I could never personally jive with this one but Albiz liked it..

https://easyupload.io/iyhomp

Here's a 26" Gretsch USA kick recorded in Mark Knopfler's studio I believe. About as modern rock as it gets without getting cartoonish.

I thought the kick on the recording sounded pretty decent already, or nothing that couldn't be spiced up with a little EQ at least. If you're just looking to supplement a certain quality (maybe you just need more 'clickiness', or conversely want a bit of subwoofer energy to blend in) I could provide samples for just that too.

So done?. It's lost some fidelity in the process and I'm no mixer but I think it sounds better?

Yeah, you were able to address the way too loud vocal and it's fun hearing the kick sample I gave you, it's certainly more defined now (though possibly a few missed hits towards the end?). There does seem to be some artifacts from the process, especially during the verses when the whole mix ducks a bit when the vocals come in. But I've never deconstructed a record this way and it's amazing it can even be done at all.