Indie Soul = Freedom

Indie is a shortform of "independence" or "independent", it may refer to independent media. But what I'm about to talk here is indie music. It shows how musicians express their idealism for creating and playing music, out from pop culture mainstream, i.e. rock, heavy metal, punk, grunge, etc.

So here we have Human Radio, some indie rock band from Memphis, TN with their tune called "You And Me And The Radio".

Human Radio - You And Me And The Radio


You can feel freedom, isn't it?

This track, once again, was provided by hi specs microphone manufacture Telefunken, recorded through a D&R Cinemix console in Pro Tools HD at 24/44.1 through Black Lion modified 192 converters. No EQ or compression was used. 

Microphones featured in this session include the AR-70 Stereo on drum overheads, M80 Dynamics on snare and toms, and the new M82 Kick Dynamic on the kick drum. The M81 Universal Dynamic and AK-47mkII were employed on guitar rig, with the M80 Dynamic and CU-29 Copperhead positioned on the electric bass amp. Organ was tracked with a stereo pair of ELA M 260s and a stereo pair of CU-29s were stationed on the grand piano. The male lead vocals were cut using multiple microphones including the ELA M 251E, U47, CU-29, AR-51 and AK-47mkII. 

I mix this song totally in the box with various plugins from Avid/Digidesign, Waves, and a bunch of free plugins.

So, can you feel freedom?

You'd Like To Headbang?

Here we have a metal band from UK, Karybdis, with their song's called "Constellations". Produced and engineer by Nolly (Red Seas Fire, Periphery) and John Walker. This song is amazingly headbangable.

Let's take a listen:

Karybdis - Constellations:

This is information note from producers itself:

DRUMS: Produced and engineered by Adam "Nolly" Getgood and John Walker. 

Tracked at Moles Studio, Bath, UK. Tama Superstar kick, Taye custom toms, Gretsch Bell Brass snare. Mics listed in track files. 

-Kick In tracked through DBX 160VU compressor 

-Snare Top routed through Vintech X73i (Neve clone) pushed into overdrive for aggressive crunch 

-Overheads and room stereo files panned from drummer perspective 

-Overhead mono mic is omni and therefore quite ambient 

-Over Shoulder mic placed behind drummer 

-Stereo Room tracks compressed by Tube-Tech LCA-2B 

-Mono Room mic aimed at reflective surface on floor and heavily compressed through 1176 

GUITARS/BASS: Produced and engineered by Harsha Dasari. 

Bass DI compressed through Distressor, B7K track reamped through Darkglass B7K distortion pedal. 

VOCALS: Produced and engineered by John Walker. Recorded with handheld SM58 through 1176. Handheld technique results in inconsistent tonal qualities, very tricky to mix! 

STRINGS: Produced and engineered by Jon Walker and Adam "Nolly" Getgood. Tracked at Moles Studio, Bath, UK.

So, what you think guys?

Nashville Vibe

Nashville, the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee, center for healthcare, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home to a large number of colleges and universities, and off course music industries. This city best know called Music City. Everything from pop, rock, to heavy metal has been produced there, but country music was probably most shine.

Here we have a band called Uncle Dad with their song called "Who I Am" was recorded flawlessly by high spec microphone Telefunken. Let's take a listen:

Uncle Dad - Who I Am

It was a good song, isn't it?

This song was produced and engineered by Dan Frizsell at Legends Studio, Nashville. I'm not done much editing and processing while mixing because the tracks is already great. I only accentuate the Nashville vibe on it.

So here some comments from engineer's friend:

So, how about yours?

Admit It: Girl In A Rock Band Are Hot As Hell!

Yes, we love to see them rockin in stage, and perhaps we also love to hear their tunes played in your favorite radio. Fronted-female band has been popular since 80's. Let's say Marie Frederiksson of Roxette, Dolores O'Riordan of Cranberries, their singles are still enjoyable to hear these day. Also there's Gwen Stefani of No Doubt, and Hayley Williams of Paramore, hundreds of list, and they are all smoking hot.

So here we have ACTIONS!, an UK based fronted-female band. Let's hear their songs:

ACTIONS! - One Minute Smile

ACTIONS! - South Of The Water

Pretty good isn't it?

The first song is called One Minute Smile, a medium-fast rock tunes with strong overdriven guitars and punchy drums. The Second one is called South Of The Water, a bit slower and more intense, but still have that rock energy.

For drums, I replace the snare, kick, and toms with Slate samples combined with my own custom samples. I did this because the drum tone on closed mic was kinda weak and bleeding was a bit of uncontrollable. The vocals has a star quality but sibilance is out of control, even when I'm using multiple deesser in series. So here I did my best to mixing their songs. Am I did it?

Tricks or Threats: WTF Is Music Production?

There's only few people that really understand what music production is. So I wanna share a thing or two about it. But before we go further, I want to explain a lil bit about people at music production and their job. The first one is the artist/musician him/herself. It could be a pop singer or in a band. There also songwriter. Most of songwriter are musician it self, but there's also a songwriter who wrote a song for another artist. The next is sound engineer or recording engineer. They do their job to capture the performance of artist. Recording engineer should have to know how to threat every kind of specific sound source and record it as best as possible performance. For example while recording vocals, recording engineers should know what kind mic, preamps, positioning, etc, that suit best for singer and record it. Same example on different situation such as mic'ing drum overhead or guitar cabinet's speaker.

While every instruments and aspect has been recorded flawlessly, now its time for mixing. A person who did this kind of job is called mixing engineer or simply just a mixer. In mixing, everything that has been recorded will be mixed (hence the name!) so every aspect of sound will be heard in balance proportion. A mixer should be aware of frequencies spectrum of each instruments or voices, so they will not be fight each other in frequency wise.

After you get well balanced mixes, now you'll get into final process called mastering. Person who did this kinda job is called mastering engineer. Most people think that mastering is about loudness. Sure you need your song loud enough to be heard in radio and club, but mastering is not just about that. Mastering engineer's job is to make every song loudness same, think best for pause timing between songs, and also make it to be standard CD convertion.

There's other one person that responsible for every process, and it's called music producer. Sometimes producer double they job as a mixer, or as artist him/herself. They act as quality control. They also have a vision for every best thing on each songs and every process.

Further, I will show you an image of music production.

As you can see, the pyramid image of music production will show you every processes from very basic (song writing) to final (mastering). You may see this kinda concept was influenced by Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So you should fulfill very basic process first before you step up to next process. 

In my experience, I often seeing people didn't do their best while recording for the reason "it can be fixed in mixing." Well, we couldn't fix bad recording! Also for another case, people think that mixing process is key to make great sounding record. It's not wrong, indeed, but also not completely right. In my humble oppinion, the most important process of music production is the most basic one, THE SONG!

Lately, thousand of great quality mixing out there but with mediocre song, and some of them has great song but with mediocre mixing qualities. And guess what, I enjoy much more for the mediocre mixing one, especially if the song has great melodies and deep lyrics. So I will suggest you guys for focusing make greatest song, honest with the lyrics, and make the sweetest melodies. 'Cause at the end of time it's all about the song. And if you feel that your song is good enough to be nominated in Grammy Awards, then you should entrusted the rest for me. I will glad to help you guys making great sounding records. :)

How About Metalcore?

So this is some Metalcore Mix.




Drums are Superior Drummer The Metal Foundry SDX blended with Slate on snare and kick

Guitars are POD Farm

Bass are IK Multimedia Ampeg

I mixed this song totally in the box using stock plugins, Waves plugins, and bunch of free plugins.

Lemme know what you think?

Modern vs Retro

It's hard to believe these kind of music is still exist. This song was live performance provided and captured very well by hi-end microphone manufacture Telefunken. Support this amazing band at: http://www.theabletones.com/Dan_Gabel_and_The_Abletones/Welcome.html

This time I'll show you an example how mastering process could really affect your entire mix. 

Here first example of modern "clean" version of mastering:  

Next example is more retro sounding. I just simply added tape saturation plugin (massey Tapehead) and push it until some harmonic distortion warmth is heard. So, which one you would like best?

Maroon 5 with steroid

Some raw tracks that provided by hi-end microphone manufacture Telefunken, very VERY well recorded performance. I'm not doing editing, or sample replacement on drums, or retracking, whatsoever. Just pure raw live performance that has captured flawlessly by great mics, great engineer, great gear.

I mix this song totally in the box with various plugins from Avid/Digidesign, Waves, and a bunch of free plugins.

 Support the band by clicking here: www.thebrew.biz/ Let see what people say about this mix:

Got Djent?

Here I'm after Periphery's big monstrous sound. Thanks for dude at Daybreak Studio (www.facebook.com/DaybreakStudioSwe) who has been recorded pretty well performance and high quality DI gutar tracks and also great drum programming.

I'm using Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0 Avatar kits for drums with kick from The Metal Foundry SDX.

Guitars: combined POD Farm 2 and Eleven Free that comes with Pro Tools

Bass: SansAmp PSA plugins from Pro Tools

I mix this song totally in the box with various plugins from Avid/Digidesign, Waves, and a bunch of free plugins.

Lemme know what you think!

My Ultimate Sense!

Hi, I'm Myst

I'm simply a guy who dedicated my life for music. The sound of music is always appealing me, the melodies, the rhythm, the beat, simply the most beautiful thing ever had. I always grateful for God that giving me a couple of hearing sense called ears. Almost all of my activities is about music. I'm a musician by itself, guitarist, songwriter, music producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, ect.

I love to share and help people everything about sound and music. Then I found a moment that my musician buddies has started to making a song. They asked me to produce their band's first song, from making song structure and arrangement, find their signature tone, to record and mixing their song. At the moment, I felt wonderful experience when working with other people to find their ideal of sound and seeing people happy from what I've done. So I have an idea, to helping more people out there and spread out my music networking.

I have a project studio at home in Semarang City, Indonesia. I don't have big desk with hundred faders and thousand knobs, or state of the art outboard equipment or expensive instruments. Just a lil pair of decent studio monitor speaker, a tiny audio interface, a decent condenser mic, couple of old guitars, and electric drum kit, and a laptop. So that's the benefit. Services that I offer is freakin low rates, but with quality as best as possible. And also since the studio is on my house (my bedroom for more accurate), people will not getting stressed out that easily while recording. Great gear will affect the sound, indeed, but it's not only about the gear. It's all about how you understand every piece equipment that you already have well enough. It's said, I know exactly how using tools, my own tools.

So what about people outside town (or country perhaps) that want to using my services? Well, you can't do recording online cause there's no such a technology ever existed yet. But, you can record your song in your nearest studio, send me your recording files and I will mix your song as best as I could.

How about rate and guarantee? I offer mixing and mastering service for 30 US$ flat per song. Pretty cheap right? If you guys just wanted to mix but want to mastering in somebody else, it's only 20 US$ flat per song. I also could help people for drum programming, editing, vocal tuning, etc. And off course, discounted price if you do EP or album.

Speaking about quality and guarantee of satisfied, it's a subjective thing, really. So I guarantee nothing but unlimited revision for every song that I mixed. And if you still didn't get what you wanted, I will return you money back 100%. Just delete my mixes and don't use or publish it.

It's my pleasure to helping people getting great sounding records. I'm simply a guy who love music, and would love to share and help to gain their ideal sounds. Pleas don't hesitate to contact me, and feel free to ask me anything about music productions.

I love everything about sound, listening every object, excite my hearing sense..owhh it's my ultimate sense!