Moar New Honey Hunters - Funny How (plus - choose which guitar solo I should use)

[Armistice]

I'm really liking the last mix. I still think the lead vocal has a little too much midrange bite. But that's it. It sounds really good.

Cheers. I've carved a little more out in v5 and done a bit more tinkering around the edges, but I won't bore everyone with ANOTHER mix...

Pretty much over it now.

[JD01]

Armi, I'm finally back and able to listen to stuff again today.
Think Mix 4 is really good, no really comments on this.

That chord - m7b5. That's what I'd call a half diminished chord - a "Locrian" chord - resolves really nicely up to the major.
One quick thing that's not worth worrying about too much, but your snare gets a bit type-writery at the end. Over this end section, just highlight all your snare beats in the MIDI strip, press H, then let the velocity and timing vary by about 7%

[Armistice]

Armi, I'm finally back and able to listen to stuff again today.
Think Mix 4 is really good, no really comments on this.

That chord - m7b5. That's what I'd call a half diminished chord - a "Locrian" chord - resolves really nicely up to the major.
One quick thing that's not worth worrying about too much, but your snare gets a bit type-writery at the end. Over this end section, just highlight all your snare beats in the MIDI strip, press H, then let the velocity and timing vary by about 7%

Yeah, I actually called that chord, in conversations with others, a diminished chord - I think I picked it up from the original chord book I bought when I was 16 and which I probably have somewhere still. It probably wasn't called a dim, but who knows - I got it from somewhere. When I was trying to get the other Jongleur to remember how to play it I was calling it diminished, without actually attaching a key to it, so I figured I'd better work out what it actually was - hence D#m7b5. Anyway, whatever it is, I've always liked it and use it regularly. Especially playing it and then shifting the shape up 3 frets, which I didn't do here. That and the "mu major" or added second are littered constantly throughout my stuff. There was G mu major in Reason or Rhyme. G / A / D mu major are all easy enough in root position - C as well but it doesn't sound so good given the second is the open D string - too low in pitch for it to "work" well.

I'll try the humanise thing - I tried a few years back and ran screaming from it, probably because I tweaked too hard or something, and have kept it in the box ever since. I'll give it another go - I'm always trying to get more humanity into fills and faster passages via volume and small timing changes - usually bringing every second hit a smidge forward, but certainly worth trying the actual function. Didn't know there was a shortcut though - thanks for that.

[JD01]

Armi, I'm finally back and able to listen to stuff again today.
Think Mix 4 is really good, no really comments on this.

That chord - m7b5. That's what I'd call a half diminished chord - a "Locrian" chord - resolves really nicely up to the major.
One quick thing that's not worth worrying about too much, but your snare gets a bit type-writery at the end. Over this end section, just highlight all your snare beats in the MIDI strip, press H, then let the velocity and timing vary by about 7%

Yeah, I actually called that chord, in conversations with others, a diminished chord - I think I picked it up from the original chord book I bought when I was 16 and which I probably have somewhere still. It probably wasn't called a dim, but who knows - I got it from somewhere. When I was trying to get the other Jongleur to remember how to play it I was calling it diminished, without actually attaching a key to it, so I figured I'd better work out what it actually was - hence D#m7b5. Anyway, whatever it is, I've always liked it and use it regularly. Especially playing it and then shifting the shape up 3 frets, which I didn't do here. That and the "mu major" or added second are littered constantly throughout my stuff. There was G mu major in Reason or Rhyme. G / A / D mu major are all easy enough in root position - C as well but it doesn't sound so good given the second is the open D string - too low in pitch for it to "work" well.

I'll try the humanise thing - I tried a few years back and ran screaming from it, probably because I tweaked too hard or something, and have kept it in the box ever since. I'll give it another go - I'm always trying to get more humanity into fills and faster passages via volume and small timing changes - usually bringing every second hit a smidge forward, but certainly worth trying the actual function. Didn't know there was a shortcut though - thanks for that.

I actually worked that chord out for myself which I was quite pleased with. I had a bassline that was ascending up the major scale to the root and wanted to play big ringing chords over the top (G). C, G, Em... what the fuck to do on F# ? So I worked that thing out. It's half diminished apparently, full diminished doesn't have the 7th and, to my ear at least doesn't sound like tension that needs resolution. It just sounds minging.

The humanise can be pretty good if you don't go mental with it. I often highlight a whole drum track, press H and just add 7% of velocity variation and 5% of timing drift into it.

[Armistice]

Yeah, I actually called that chord, in conversations with others, a diminished chord - I think I picked it up from the original chord book I bought when I was 16 and which I probably have somewhere still. It probably wasn't called a dim, but who knows - I got it from somewhere. When I was trying to get the other Jongleur to remember how to play it I was calling it diminished, without actually attaching a key to it, so I figured I'd better work out what it actually was - hence D#m7b5. Anyway, whatever it is, I've always liked it and use it regularly. Especially playing it and then shifting the shape up 3 frets, which I didn't do here. That and the "mu major" or added second are littered constantly throughout my stuff. There was G mu major in Reason or Rhyme. G / A / D mu major are all easy enough in root position - C as well but it doesn't sound so good given the second is the open D string - too low in pitch for it to "work" well.

I'll try the humanise thing - I tried a few years back and ran screaming from it, probably because I tweaked too hard or something, and have kept it in the box ever since. I'll give it another go - I'm always trying to get more humanity into fills and faster passages via volume and small timing changes - usually bringing every second hit a smidge forward, but certainly worth trying the actual function. Didn't know there was a shortcut though - thanks for that.

I actually worked that chord out for myself which I was quite pleased with. I had a bassline that was ascending up the major scale to the root and wanted to play big ringing chords over the top (G). C, G, Em... what the fuck to do on F# ? So I worked that thing out. It's half diminished apparently, full diminished doesn't have the 7th and, to my ear at least doesn't sound like tension that needs resolution. It just sounds minging.

The humanise can be pretty good if you don't go mental with it. I often highlight a whole drum track, press H and just add 7% of velocity variation and 5% of timing drift into it.

I tried the humanise thing but very quickly walked away from it - I put it on the whole track just to see and was really annoyed at it at 6% on timing - it was just too much and the fact that it's just a dumb algorithm means it doesn't know specifically that I'm using it on a snare drum - so it would move on hit forward and the next hit back and when they're close together it just makes it sound like sloppy drumming.

In the end I put all the on-beat hits back on the beat and the volumes back where they were approximately and left the variation for the off-beat hits. So, what to do with the typewriter? - in the end I manually varied the velocity, particularly when there were two hits close together as part of a phrase, which I though was the main issue. So I'll have all the big hits at say 103 - 106 and then had the secondary "one of a pair" hits in the mid 90s - that differential wasn't enough to deal with typewriter drummer, so I put those secondary hits - which could be either side of the main hit - down to low 80s, took a bit more off anything else that's around it, and it sounds a lot more alive now.

There's a velocity curve in Slate that I used to play with that would apply a curve to what I'll call the linear relationship that's the default - so you could make the difference between 80 and 100 lesser or greater depending upon how you set it - problem was, like there aren't 127 different volume hits in the samples are there - I don't know how many there are but it's probably 10 or 12 with the intra-hits just being a straight volume adjustment of another hit (I assume) - and without knowing exactly where the hit changes you can get unintended consequences - so these days I put it flat and just work with the individual hit volumes.

Anyway, I think I'm done now... I don't think I'll put the final final final final final version up again as even I'm bored with the song now. Can't believe so much work can go into a single 4 minute tune.

It is making me want to revisit the previous tunes and check a few things, but best to move one. I can do a grand tidy up when I'm at album stage. Now I'm into the already recorded backing tracks so hopefully I can punch through a few more quickly if the recording conditions stay good.

See you all here next week I hope, with the next one...

[JD01]

Cool, can you put the "correct" guitar solo back in while you're at it.

[Armistice]

Cool, can you put the "correct" guitar solo back in while you're at it.

I'll do a special JD mix for you and have it as a hidden track ...

The most important change in v5 is that I replaced the vocal line containing "to the moon" with another take. In retrospect, I decided that the vibrato I applied to the extended "the" word made me sound like a bleating goat, and found another take with a short "the" and still the same melody - and it was the only one, luckily.

Studio pic...

Capture.PNG

And because I just love to complete things, I've stuck v5 up in the original post.