Hi Roy, Phil and everybody,
Guys, please do not mind but towards the end of this E-mail I am going to
share a somewhat personal matter with the list.
Roy wrote:
what version of Sonar are you using?
8.0.2.319
do you also master your mixes afterwards?
Yes, but I do it all on-the-fly by enabling bus or track EQs, or inserting
Sonitus FX Compressor or reverb Etc, as needed into the project directly in
Sonar.
Phil, I am aware of the sonic results of using subtractive EQ often and
carefullhy (thanks though for this advice you have shared), and I also try
to be very selective whenever I do choose to shape the sound of anything in
my mixes, because I feel that shaping should be done very selectively,
with well determined reasoning first, and in relation to everything else in
the mix.
BTW I am using a motu 896 HD firewire sound card which carries my Project C3
Condenser microphone feed to Sonar via an analog input, and to which my
master bus outputs into. So I guess this sound card's built-in pre-amps
may play a part in the sound of the vocals which are produced in my
projects.
Usually I end up with very little mastering, because of my conservative
approach, and then taking into consideration the fact that soft synths are
usually created with some tendency to shape the sounds they produce as well,
makes it more compelling to leave things as they are in lots of cases in a
project where mostly one soft synth is used to get at instruments,
except messing with volume of those instruments in the mixe. I
don't know how you guys feel about what I've just said. No doubt we're going
to get a varying response but that's what I'm after! <smile> That's
how we learn.
I am very interested in your practical examples of work done completely in
Sonar, using soft synths and effects as plugins, and using the best
microphones for vocals, but everything strictly through Sonar: mastering,
plugins, audio and midi tracks Etc, only through Sonar.
In other words, no hardware synths, and no synths recorded outside of Sonar
and then imported into Sonar later Etc. I'm looking at Sonar's audio
engine's reproduction of synths and effects sounds.
If there is anyone out here who has some work they have produced under these
conditions, which they can swear by stands up to productions
created under similar conditions in other production environments, then I
would be very very interested in hearing your work for my own
comparison. Please see at the end of this mail how you can log into
my FTP server and send me the files by uploading them there.
So now for that personal matter I mentioned earlier:
I am too close to my own work, so I feel that I am perhaps not being a fair
judge of Sonar because of that. Not only this, but a very good musician and
a very dear friend of mine usually complains of my work sounding too much
like it comes from Sonar, and having the "Sonar poor definition" effect. I
know he is only giving me his honest friendly feedback and I appreciate it
for what it is. However, it has worried me a lot; it has even influenced me
to think poorly of my productions, and has made me feel hesitant to tell
potential clients that I am producing in Sonar or even to show them my work,
for fear that they would not like to produce their work here at
Gaura Records! As a result, the few people who would previously
come to record here and would pay me for the work done, has now
stopped completely, and it is solely due to my lack of confidence in
my own productions. There was also another guy who used to record
here who always complained that the sound is just not quite where it
should be, but he could not say exactly why. Eventually I told him
to rather take his work to another studio where he would perhaps be
happier with the outcome.
So may be if someone can send me content that they themselves have produced
solely in the Sonar platform, which they think has a great sound, then
perhaps by listening to fresh work myself, I can start to feel better about
Sonar. The psychological impact on me has been severe, I guess, and perhaps
I am just looking for comfort from those of you, such as Phil Mure, who
believes that it is not true that Sonar has a poorer audio definition
inherent than in other environments like pro tools! At least then,
if I can be convinced that I just need to buck up on my own
mastering skills and nothing else, then I can work on doing that.
Good people, if you have anything at all to share in this connection, you
can log into my server and post the files there. I have set up a special
place for JSonar users only. In this server folder , you will also
find examples of files
which I have produced in Sonar using JSonar, using the exact studio
configuration I described in this E-mail.
You will find two songs on the server, as follows:
"Siya On Line" was a theme song which I produced for the Siya On
Line magazine song writing competition. The loaded synths were
Session Drummer 2 and Hypersonic 2, and the effects were all
standard Sonitus EQ, sonitus compressor and Sonitus reverb. I am
the vocalist as well on the lead and backing vocal tracks.
"Viresh 03" was the untitled song produced for the artist "Viresh"
whom I just mentioned earlier, who was complaining that the sound is
"just not where it should be", but couldn't say exactly why. He is
doing the vocals there, and during production, he described more or
less the tune and how he wanted the song to sound. I dutifully
composed and produced the sound as he asked me to do.
After listening to my work, your thoughts, suggestions and ideas
would be most welcome.
If anyone wants me to upload a copy of the actual project file of any of
these files, I am ready to do so, provided that we only keep the trade
secrets that we discover therein between us JSonar members. Some of you may
benefit from seeing the type of mastering tools I use, the type of settings
in my EQs, compressors Etc on specific tracks and busses. The more
experienced guys may have suggestions to help me improve on all of the
above.
It is my firm belief that us blind musicians are one team and that we need
to share between us in order to become as efficient if not better, than our
sighted studio producers. So I am ready to do this in every way possible as
well.
Here is the direct link that will take you to my FTP server:
ftp://jsonar:[email protected]
If you want to view that folder in Windows Explorer or in a My Computer
style window, you can go to Windows explorer or My Computer, and put the
above address into the address bar and press enter. You will then be able
to copy and paste into that folder just as you do on your local computer's
folders. You can also create sub folders there. You can copy files there,
append to broken files, Etc, but you cannot delete files from there. If you
need to delete please send me a mail and I can do it for you
immediately. Please feel free to send me your material to listen to.
If you are logging into the FTP folder using a nice external FTP client such
as FTP Voyager or FileZilla client, (both of which allows you to resume
broken files), then you can log in by using the following details:
FTP host address: gaurarecords.homeftp.org
Username: jsonar
Password: jsonarmembers
Or you could just send me a link to your files if you already have them
uploaded somewhere else, that's fine as well, guys.
Sorry for this rather long E-mail, and my warmest regards to all the good
people on this list!
Yamuna
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