Thanks Matt and Bill for the additional thoughts.

Logic's mp3 encoding feature downsamples the audio to 48 Khz first, and there is some EQ added to the mix above 5 Khz, so I'm not convinced yet that the sound has a lot to do with the sampling rate.

The mic preamps on the Apogee seem nice, and instead of running the Stick into the 1/4" high impedance inputs (1 MOhm) I use a couple quiet active DI boxes with 10 MOhm input impedance (same as my Fishman SoloAmp), then into the XLR inputs of the Apogee. I'm not sure if the 1/4" inputs use the same preamp, or it has more to do with the higher input impedance, but the DI/XLR combo sounded noticeably brighter/airy than direct into the instrument inputs.

The mic pre is actually very good on the Apogee Duet but what´s really Apogee´s biggest advantage is that they make the best ad/da converters on the market. I used Alesis AI-3´s initially in the studio that I run but got MOTU 2408mk3 and 24I/O´s later on. The MOTU interfaces was far better than the Alesis AI-3´s. Threw the MOTU interfaces out about a year ago and installed Apogee AD-16X and DA-16X interfaces and the difference in sound quality was huge. I´m very impressed by Apogee. MOTU´s stuff are also very, very good but when it comes to ad/da converters I´d say that Apogee beats pretty much all other manufacturers on the market. And the funny thing is that a much cheaper product as the Duet has the same converters as the much more expensive AD-16X and DA-16X interfaces that I´m using. Impressive stuff. You can´t find a better audio interface than a Duet in that price range. Apogee and Apple are working very tight together so Apogees stuff integrates beautiful with Logic too. Big advantage....

*EDIT* Whopsidaisy..... Forgot.... Really (!!) nice playing indeed. Sounds great. Well done. I would personally take off some reverb. Personal preference really but I often get a feeling that too much reverb takes away the "intimicy" in a recording. I often also use low pass filters with reverb to take away some hi end on the reverb fx itself. If playing in a concert hall or other bigger locations, one can notice that the natural reverb in the hall itself has less hi end than most, if not all, reverb plug-in´s or reverb units "out of the box". And that top end isn´t necessarily a good thing....

My two cents....

Sincerely//Jan

Hi Rob,
Got it.
To my ear, it seems that the transients of your example are exaggerated a bit. I wonder if this is due to your mp3 encoder inaccurately compressing the transients to create a pre-delay.
If so, one option is to mix the original file down to 48/44.1 prior to mp3 conversion. If during the mixdown stage the transients (hi-end) are a bit too much you can manually compress with a multi-band.
In the end, the clarity and airiness of the recording are exceptional.
Bill

Hi Rob,

First of all: man You are great.

and about Your "Sound" it's not bright. I check it in my studio and it seems like there is a bit to much of hi mids for me (something like 1-2,5 kHz) but that's just my opinion.

I would make the bass side just slightly more darker. And maybe add some brightness to melody side just to make the Stick sound wider.

The most important thing is that what You want to achieve. If You like it just the way it is, it fine, it's Your sound.

If You need any help with mastering or mixing fell free to ask. That's my job. I'm a a sound engineer. I will be honour to help You brothers and sisters Stickist.

Wojtek

They both sound fine to me. I understand about the difference in the process when recording with effects vs. adding effects in post. But I don't see any difference in the finished product between fiddling with effects before vs. fiddling with effects after.

Presuming the effects used are of equal quality, no listener will ever be able to tell.

Your playing is great, the composition is cool, the effects used (pre or post) are an enhancement.

It sounds really good, actually. One thing I would do is to play it a little slower and use a metronome; especially in the trill and legato sections, you tend to 'sprint' into the next section. Not only playing slower will make sure that this doesn't happen, I think the song will sound better in a slightly lower tempo. It will make things much easier; especially those legatos and trills will sound much better with sufficient 'ring'.

Great job in general, as always

Hi Rob,

Sounds as a great recording to me. Maybe I could agree to some degree with akinu that you play the piece a bit fast. But that may only be an issue with this version, if you mix the recording differently it might be just awesome in that speed. After all, a pretty fast tempo is kind of your trademark so maybe you should keep the tempo up and work out a sound mixing that supports it?

What stroke me first when listening to the recording is that it isn't very "fat" and "heavy". Yet you can hear fat and heavy notes being plucked. If listening to the old demo you notice that the old Boss stuff adds a warm and musical vibe. But at the same time the overall fidelity is not as high in that demo. I think you could try to tweak the new recording in Logic a bit towards the sound vibe of the old demo!

Technically I think EQ and compression are the tools. If you recorded the bass and melody side as two stereo tracks the process would be easier. Generally the lower frequencies should be slightly compressed so they will stay "in the basement" creating warmth and also making room upstairs for the higher notes and more crispy attacks.

You could try using the Multipressor, Logic's multi band compressor. But do not start with a preset. Start by setting all four bands to not affect the audio at all (this is done by setting Compr Thrsh to 0 dB and Ratio to 1.0). Then you turn off band 2, 3 and 4 to listen only to the bass band. Now turn on band 2 to listen to 1+2 and adjust the "crossover" point between the two bands. While doing this, listen to your piece of music (or the track you are applying the effect to) and find the a crossover point that makes musical sense; i.e. each band should cover different musical sound components. Proceed with a third band with the attitude that you are about to explore your music to see if significant musical events is living inside certain frequency bands. Maybe you will find that it only makes sens to use two bands (that's how I hear your piece in this version - but I may be wrong).

Ok, now when you have gotten to learn new sides of your recording it is time to start playing around with compression and level adjustment (the Multipressor isn't just a compressor - it can also be used to increase or lower the level of defined frequency bands). For starters lower the "Compr Thrsh" to somewhere around -20dB and set "Ratio" to 3.0. Do this to band 1 and listen to what happens musically, how it affects band 2 (that is not treated so far, actually I'm talking about how tweaking band 1 affects your musical experience of band 2). Work out a settings that best bring out the musical intentions.

Then move on to playing around with "Gain Make-up" for the two bands. This is where you simply trim the level. The theory of all this is to work the dynamics on the bass side in order to raise its general level without its attack peaks disturbing the trebly melody stuff (as happens a bit in the recent recording mix - but again, this is truly a matters of taste).

You may also try using the limiter plug-in on the bass side.

I often find the Autofilter useful as an alternative to EQ for creating a warmer sound, especially for lower frequencies. Just beware of any preset and simply put the Autofilter into Lo Pass Filter Mode and try out a good sounding setting of the Cutoff parameter. A useful trick is to automate slow changes of the Cutoff over time. This can help to bring out slow or fast "intensity movements" in the music.

A final trick that might be useful in a recording like this is to "roll your own" multi band splitter. The aim for that might be to apply Autofilter Cutoff sweeps in a more subtle way, only affecting an isolated frequency band. Or to apply any effect to just a certain band.

The way to set up such a routing in Logic goes like this:

1. Set the Audio Track's Output to a Bus (let's say Bus 1)
2. Set this Bus 1's Output to "No Output".
3. In the mixer, create a couple of Aux Channels.
4. As Inputs for those Aux Channels chose Bus 1.
5. On each Aux Chanel, use the Lo Cut and High Cut (or other equally functioning) plug-ins to isolate the frequency band to be treated on that track.

Isolating frequency bands like this opens up for a lot of fun mixing tweaks using side-chain of Compressor, Noise Gate and Autofilter plug-ins. Such side chaining can be used to make the sound "breathe" with the music. Maybe overkill for this song? Anyway, this post was just a little "theory tool box" to play around with.

Rob, I really enjoy your playing,it's emotionally intricate and never feels forced. I like how the recording sounds,it's present, bright. If the entire CD had the same sound quality then that might be an issue but 1or 2 songs I think would be fine. I don't know what if any time pressures you may have with finishing your CD. But I really believe that time away will always give a fresh perspective on things. Whats meant to stay ,will and whats not will fall away. Continued success to you, and I look forward to hearing your New CD when it's finished.

Thanks for the additional feedback guys. Cool advice about the multiband comp Per- actually I helped develop MultiDynamics (Wave Arts) but haven't used it much in my own music! Your post gives some good ideas of things to try from a more musical perspective.

This newer version is definitely brighter - during mixing I was comparing to recordings of other solo instruments to get a better balance (my old recordings all seem boomy and somewhat muddy), but in retrospect I think I took too much bass out this time around (there was actually a shelf in there to filter out the subwoofer rattling frequencies). Something to keep in mind for the next pass...

Great playing Rob. At this point we have all come to expect that, so the bar has been raised so to speak. That means you'll have more to live up to!

I have to be blatantly honest and say that I prefer the sound of the 2006 reference track. It's not quite as "hi-fi", but I think we're splitting hairs in this day and age.

On my speakers, the new version has a very pronounced high midrange (as mentioned by Wojtek) which becomes fatiguing fairly quickly. I'll qualify that by saying my speakers are not anywhere near flat response.

On the issue of metronomes vs. feel I'm very divided. Once again, I think the feel on your orignal demo take is slightly better. This is normal unfortunately; it seems irrespective of how much we grow and develop technically that the "early takes" often feel better. This phenomenon has been described by many people, from Vangelis to Miles Davis, but basically it appears that different parts of our brains kick in once we start thinking too much about what we're doing, as opposed to just reacting naturally.

As someone who used to play with bands, I was raised with drummers and metronomes. But as a recent 3rd year convert to playing solo Stick, I've discovered that using clicks isn't the be all and end all when it comes to recording. I think you need to do takes with & without and see what works for each individual piece. I'm hitting the same hurdle at the moment with a piece I've been performing for about 6 months, and it's a massive struggle over a very simple part.

Good luck, I'm sure that album will be HUGE.

Cheers,
Andy