Stereo mixing

[Gps]

While listening to Atomic by Blondie, I noticed something interesting.
( one of my favorite tracks, you can sue me for bad taste all you want, I love it. )

Not sure if is because I bought a Scarlett solo, or me just paying a lot of attention last months to the stereo image of professional mixed tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0 ... XI&index=9

What I am noticing is that the stereo of her voice is not constant.
In some places it gets wider and wider.

1m18 it starts

oooh aaah louder and wider.

Interesting.

[Gps]

I am starting to wonder if I can get stereo this wide in LMMS.

[Michael Willis]

It sounds to me like there are at least five vocal recordings. One panned center, two panned hard left, two panned hard right. The narrower sounding vocal lines are just the first one, then a left and right are added, and then one more each left and right.

If you try to do this in your own production, it will require multiple recordings. You can't just copy/paste one audio track and then pan the copies hard left and right, because identical copies panned to the left and right will just sound like a louder center.

[Gps]

Thank you, I was already wondering if this is called over dubbing.

Although I might have the name wrong, I noticed hearing at least 2 blondies.

[j_e_f_f_g]

This technique is referred to as "double-tracking". It involves first recording a "finished" vocal track. Then, the same singer records one or more additional takes of the exact same vocal part, taking care to reproduce it as faithfully to the first take as possible. Being human, there will be some (hopefully) minor pitch and timing discrepancies between the takes. But not different enough that the human ear is going to distinguish them as unique. So when you blend the tracks together it sounds like a more "robust, full-bodied, warmer" single singer, rather than one singer doubling/tripling himself. Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull) uses double-tracking a lot. For example, here he is using double-tracking on his vocal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZbpdPtpgAA

Of course, this technique isn't limited to vocals. Any instrumental part can be double-tracked.

As an aside, Heavy Horses has some the most poetic lyrics ever. The title track is one of my favs.

[erlkönig]

Doubling is a great technique, it brings a full, rich sound - and it shows you, where you are as a singer/instrumentalist. Playing or singing two times the same thing is absolutely challenging.
Doubling guitars and panning them out of center is a great thing. On vocal, most singers fail with consonants. I know (even professional) singers, who underaccentuate them or leave them out when doubling, concentrating on vocals (very often done in german schlager).
I never had good results in doubling a bass.

[ufug]

( one of my favorite tracks, you can sue me for bad taste all you want, I love it. )

Nothing to add to all the helpful replies, but as a lad I bought the 12" when it first came out. On the B side it had a cover of Bowie's "Heroes" with Robert Fripp on guitar. I think that album (Eat to the Beat) is their best sounding, a great thing to listen to for classic rock mixing ideas.

You don't have bad taste at all though! Blondie was/is a fantastic band who explored a ton of styles. They were a pivotal band in the East Coast punk scene who had a novelty disco track as their break-out hit, were heavily involved in the NY art scene, brought rap to millions of white kids. All excellent musicians and are still out there touring and making new music in their 70s. But you probably know all that already. You have excellent taste.

[Gps]

This technique is referred to as "double-tracking". It involves first recording a "finished" vocal track. Then, the same singer records one or more additional takes of the exact same vocal part, taking care to reproduce it as faithfully to the first take as possible. Being human, there will be some (hopefully) minor pitch and timing discrepancies between the takes. But not different enough that the human ear is going to distinguish them as unique. So when you blend the tracks together it sounds like a more "robust, full-bodied, warmer" single singer, rather than one singer doubling/tripling himself. Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull) uses double-tracking a lot. For example, here he is using double-tracking on his vocal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZbpdPtpgAA

Of course, this technique isn't limited to vocals. Any instrumental part can be double-tracked.

As an aside, Heavy Horses has some the most poetic lyrics ever. The title track is one of my favs.

I know I still have a lot to learn. But something did open my eyes.
Somebody made in LMMS the intro of shine on you crazy diamond.

(Shine On Your Crazy Diamond - Part I - Pink Floyd (neilbgr cover)

First time I heard this, I was wtf ? How the hell does he get that pink floyd synth sound out of LMMS.
When I studied the file I saw three instances of ZASFX, playing the same notes. (main intro swelling sound)
Solina, Hammond and Ambient.
Then his bass line, made out of two tracks. The normal base and then a sub-base.

How to get a massive sound out of LMMS.

His guitars are very good considering he did this in a DAW, but not as spot on as the synths.
I don't have to explain to most people here though, that its nearly impossible to get a good guitar sound, unless you record a real guitar.
(Thinking Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath)

I like the heavy horses track, and once you heard it, you can't unhear it.
I hear his vocals "twice" Great sound.

[Gps]

( one of my favorite tracks, you can sue me for bad taste all you want, I love it. )

Nothing to add to all the helpful replies, but as a lad I bought the 12" when it first came out. On the B side it had a cover of Bowie's "Heroes" with Robert Fripp on guitar. I think that album (Eat to the Beat) is their best sounding, a great thing to listen to for classic rock mixing ideas.

You don't have bad taste at all though! Blondie was/is a fantastic band who explored a ton of styles. They were a pivotal band in the East Coast punk scene who had a novelty disco track as their break-out hit, were heavily involved in the NY art scene, brought rap to millions of white kids. All excellent musicians and are still out there touring and making new music in their 70s. But you probably know all that already. You have excellent taste.

Well to be serious I don't really care about what other people think of my music taste.

I do like to joke about the part, I love some old school hard rock (paranoid anyone ? ) but also certain house/disco and Hip Hop tracks.

From a technical music point of view though, probably all house and hip hop tracks can't even stand in the shadow of tracks like shine on you crazy diamond. That is a totally different skill level.

For me to like a track though, the skill level needed is totally irrelevant.

Disco warning:
Babe, We're Gonna Love Tonight - Lime ( Italo disco )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCvBbRs ... MM&index=1

It depends on my mood, but child in time - deep purple does make as happy as Babe were gonna love tonight.
Compared to child in time, (John lord), the synth arpeggios are beyond simple though.
Its also why most disco and house tracks are easy to mix. They all have Boom Clap Boom Clap.

I am impressed by John Lord, I am not impressed by Lime, even though I love some of their tracks.

[onefang]

Pink Floyd covers? Now I have to jump in here. B-)

Pink Floyd is my favourite band, so the first thing I'm trying in my new music producing hobby that started first thing this year is a cover of Set the controls for the heart of the sun. Mostly inspired by the live versions. Mine will be a drum and bass / reggae dub version, with climate change protest lyrics.

Yes I am using several instruments playing the same thing as was mentioned before.

The bass is Yoshimi -> The William Godfrey Collection -> Fretless Bass & Sub Delay + Calf Fluidsynth -> Star Theme + a sub bass sound I made with Surge.

The drum toms are hard, Nick Mason is using at least six toms (depending on version) and playing them with timpani mallets. Couldn't find a drum sound like that that I could play as tuned toms. So that's Surge -> Chip Bass Hit & Dark Bass + Yoshimi -> Olivers-100 -> Drum Kit (includes an octave and a half of toms). Nick Mason is crazy good and I've only got the basic rhythm he does some of the time, he's just all over the place and I've only been learning MIDI keyboard and drum pad since the beginning of the year.

Not got to the keyboards and weird guitar sounds yet, but in some versions there's bird type noises, which inspired me. Since I'm mostly following the live versions, where Roger Waters (usually, Nick Mason got to do it once) spends some time going ape shit on a gong, I'm doing something similar combining them. So it's layered Aussie bird song, beach waves, and gong. For good measure I throw in the main bass line as sung by "Bird Tweet" and "Bird 2" from the FluidR3_GM and FluidR3_GS sound fonts. Though the Bird 2 one seems to have the tones backwards, so I call it "2 drib".

I'll probably add a vibraphone to, since I think that gets played in some versions.

The singing is hard, since I last sang in the early 70's, so my singing voice is far too rusty. As you might have seen in another topic I started, having trouble finding open source synth singing that doesn't require using Windows backends through WINE. So at the moment all I got is crappy Festival singing mode.

[j_e_f_f_g]

Set the controls for the heart of the sun.

Atom Heart Mother is their best.

drum and bass / reggae dub version

Oh dear. I suppose it could be worse. You could be doing a disco version.

toms playing with timpani mallets.

try these:

https://freesound.org/people/uiop/sounds/44572/

[Gps]

I found the cover on soundcloud.

https://soundcloud.com/neilbgr/shine-on ... zy-diamond

He is asking for somebody to play the guitar parts......

[sunrat]

... a cover of Set the controls for the heart of the sun. Mostly inspired by the live versions. Mine will be a drum and bass / reggae dub version

Inspired by Easy Star All-Stars - Dub Side of The Moon? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdTb9K6EWOI

I love Pink Floyd and that's one of my favourite PF albums even though it's not played by PF.
I don't have any non-favourite PF albums actually, well not from before "The Wall" at least.

[onefang]

toms playing with timpani mallets.

try these:

https://freesound.org/people/uiop/sounds/44572/

But then I'd have to turn them into actual instruments, coz that's just a single tone. I'll probably figure that out later, but for now several instruments overlayed is working for me.

[onefang]

... a cover of Set the controls for the heart of the sun. Mostly inspired by the live versions. Mine will be a drum and bass / reggae dub version

Inspired by Easy Star All-Stars - Dub Side of The Moon? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdTb9K6EWOI

I love Pink Floyd and that's one of my favourite PF albums even though it's not played by PF.
I don't have any non-favourite PF albums actually, well not from before "The Wall" at least.

Well it's mostly drums and bass to start with. I had to actually look up what drum'n'bass songs where like and listen to several, then the same with sub bass. I did love listening to reggae dub back in the late '70s on the local radio show Dogs of Babylon, so I was eager to recreate that sort of thing.

I'll listen to Dub Side of The Moon, though I may have listened to it before. I do have other PF songs on my TODO list. "Another Bug in The Code" is likely next, though playing David Gilmours awesome guitars on a two octave MIDI keyboard that I've only learned to play two months ago might be beyond me. lol