Is there enough bass ? A new episode of my series "Inspire Galaxy"

[BRADEL Christophe]

Hello everyone !

I hope you're doing well.
Here is my last piece of music : "Inspire Galaxy Part. V: Singing"

I integrated voice, and it had been a long time since I had put my voice in one of my tracks; these are monastic style voices (Tibetan or Gregorian...); it's quite discreet, but listen carefully and you'll hear me! I used the TC Helicon Voicelive Touch2, which is a pretty amazing vocal multi-effect.

I bought a Sequential Take5 last fall, it's a very good quality analog synthesizer that produces wonderful bass. I'm thinking of you, Arjan, who advised me to work on my bass, I tried to make them deeper and more present. You tell me what you think.

For once, I didn't use a compressor at all on this track during the mastering.
I really wanted the dynamics to breathe!

I had quite a bit of difficulty when recording, because the high frequencies of the Hydrasynth sometimes made it complicated. Finally, the mixing allowed me to correct a lot of things. I still have a lot to learn, but that's what's interesting.

As always, the track was fully recorded, mixed and normalized on the Tascam DP32sd.

I wish you a very good listening.

Christophe

Youtube

Soundcloud :
https://soundcloud.com/user-578840561/inspire-galaxy-part-v-singing

 

[shredd]

Well!
I'm utterly unqualified to make a critique of the specifics - mixing, yada - I'll leave that to the ones here who actually know what they're doing. I spend the first 10 minutes of every studio session figuring out which way the pointy end of the guitar goes.
BUT: I thought this was a beautiful piece, full of lovely sounds and textures and movement. Very atmospheric. The voice really added to it.
FWIW: I have a TCH VoiceLive myself. It's an awesome piece o' gear.
Anyway - thanks for sharing!!! Looking forward to commentary/critique by the ones who actually know something about producing music...

 

[Mark Richards]

Another well done artistic and audio production; and a welcome addition to the series, Christophe.

I listened on my reference system using only audiophile quality headphones (Audeze Sine planer magnetic & Sennheiser HD 660). I also played the piece several times with breaks in between to rest my ears before commenting on the audio aspect of the production.

Overall, I think the mix/master is well balanced, with a nice wide sound stage and excellent imaging.

The question of "bass, and how much" in works like yours, IMO, is an artistic expression/decision more than anything else. At no time did I find the bass out of sync or balance. In the swells I heard it as full, deep, and clear; somewhat dominant, but not unpleasantly so.

IMO, your decision not to compress the master was a good choice. I'm not sure I would have normalized the master, though. IMO, for a number of reasons having to do mostly with playback amplifier performance in an audio system and translation across systems and formats, mastering louder isn't always better for audio productions having a wide dynamic range. Often a quieter mix will translate better. The listener can always use the amplifier's volume control to raise the audio. But that's a different conversation for a different time and place.

So as I started out saying, another work well done.

 

[BRADEL Christophe]

Many thanks to you Shredd and Mark,

Shredd, I'm glad you think the vocals added something to the track, because it was hard to pull off, and I wanted it to be really clean... I really don't have a great voice, and the technology really helped! I'm glad you liked the sounds and the movements... thank you very much for these compliments, which encourage me in my musical creativity.

Mark, I am touched by the care you bring to my music and that you really take the time to listen to it on such high quality equipment; it's true that the bass is a question of musical orientation, and in this piece I really wanted it... I'm happy that you found the bass balanced and sufficiently present.
I am reassured by your opinion on the compression. We are invaded by over-compressed music, so it is important that the music can sometimes breathe a little.
Regarding normalization, your opinion is very interesting. I will study this subject for the next piece. The world is always putting pressure on having to produce "powerful" (thus compressed) music to be professional, and your opinion corrects that pressure. This confirms the direction I am taking.
Thank you very much for all the good advice and compliments.

I wish you both great success in your projects !

 

[Remi Lacroix]

I love this very inspiring peace of art. What to say about the sound ! Well it mostly depends on what gear of equipment we listen to with. I have a monitor Tanglewood 60 Watts, a Marantz amp. 45 Watts RMS with 4 speakers (2 JVC + 2 Kenwood) and a (cheap) computer speaker system Logitech surround with sub woofer. I listened to your peace of art only on my (cheap speakers) and the sound is GREAT. ( It's too early in the morning for me to turn on the other amps.) But I will turn all that on this afternoon to use has an inspiration for my painting. Thanks for your sharing and I also learned a bit more about mixing / mastering / normalizing ... by reading all the comments, so thank you all for your comments.

 

[BRADEL Christophe]

Thank you very much Remi for your compliments ! I'm also a painter (even if I've not painted for 3 years) so it's great for me to read that you're going to listen to my music to be inspired ! It's for this kind of thing that I create music.

 

[Arjan P]

Geez, I totally forgot about commenting on this track: listened to it on the laptop and then later on the studio system, but just never commented..

It sounds great again, and indeed to me it's now a more balanced sound stage with the bass - though Mark is right that the amount of bass is an artistic choice, to me it makes for a more complete sound spectrum when there is bass present. It is still not my type of music, but as a production I think it's almost perfect!

 

[BRADEL Christophe]

Hi Arjan!
I agree with Mark and you, bass is as much about choice as it is about balance; in fact, I wanted to put more bass on this track because you had told me before that the previous one lacked it; I love the bass sounds! They are like the basement of music. Since my music is very calm, it can also be very deep.
I bought the Sequential Take 5 for this purpose.
I'm touched that you say the sound is great, ... and almost perfect! Especially since it's not your style of music. Usually, when people don't like a style of music, they can't be positively critical. But you are, thank you very much !

And, one more time, congratulations for your last "Beatles" piece.
In our respective styles of music, we are always looking for the best possible sound!

 

[Arjan P]

That Sequential Take 5 looks (and sounds!) very interesting, just checked it out on Youtube. But I've forbid myself to buy more synths.. but maybe if I sell the Alesis Micron..

 

[BRADEL Christophe]

I understand Arjan ! If I had more space and money, I would probably have more synths...
I did not know the Alesis Micron, it seems incredible to me, especially for the price.
Those two synths are very different, it's not the same world, clearly.
Interesting synth anyway ! Thank you for letting me discover it.

 

[shredd]

@BRADEL Christophe said: If I had more space and money, I would probably have more synths...

I hadda jump in to this 'cuz even though I'm primarily a string-thing player (git'rs, etc) I absolutely LOVE synths and if I had lots of space and money, I'd be one of these guys.
Synths are amazing 'cuz they can do just about anything, you can play more than one at a time, and you NEVER have to change their strings!!!

EDIT: and daym doesn't that Take 5 look yummy?!? Boo-yah, Dave Smith!!!

 

[BRADEL Christophe]

Yes, I totally agree with you !!
As you can see I don't have so much equipment :
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=5863767863707330&set=a.109082662509241
Fortunately it is not necessary to have a lot of equipment to create beautiful music.
And limitations also contribute to the development of a particular style.

But the picture you posted makes me dream !
I too have often dreamed of having one of those large rooms full of synths!

 

[shredd]

That is a TERRIFIC creative space @BRADEL Christophe!!! Full of butterfly wings I'm sure!

PS: lemme know if those Yammy HS5's are in your way; I'll take 'em off your hands. Been wanting a pair of those for a while...just haven't jumped 'cuz I don't wanna bother w a subwoofer, and I need FR/FR sound...

 

[BRADEL Christophe]

Eh eh ! These are HS7, not HS5; I confirm that their sound is great ... for me (I'm not an expert in studio monitoring, but I love this sound)
I often say that the good monitoring sound is the one you are used to, the one you listen to your favorite music on, as a reference.
But that's probably not the case for professional engineers who need to be more expert and have more trained ears.

 

[shredd]

These are HS7, not HS5; I confirm that their sound is great ... for me (I'm not an expert in studio monitoring, but I love this sound)
I often say that the good monitoring sound is the one you are used to, the one you listen to your favorite music on, as a reference.

MOD's: sorry to hijack the thread...

@BRADEL Christophe: I'm SURE the 7's (or even the 8's) would do decent bass response without the sub-woof...but also cost TONS more...
And...realllly, the only reason I wanted to get the Yammy 5's was to have SMALLER monitors (mine are huge and weigh a ton!), but still have great sound. So going to the Yammy 8's wasn't really much of a solution.
AND I've been using my Behringer 2031a's for going on 20 years, and - like you said - am very used to them; they're perfectly tuned to my room, and they've been paid for since iPhone's were a figment of Steve Job's imagination!
They're powerful, versatile, and are a good monitor solution for my "level" of studio evolution...

That said - if your HS7's are in the way and you want them out of your hair - lemme know!

 

[BRADEL Christophe]

Ahah @shredd
I think I'll keep them for several more years,
...but I note that they might interest you one day!