MTF Mix – Production Note
I have decided to remix Afro Celts Sound System - My Secret Bliss.
First of all I imported all of the samples to the region list of my Protools session and set about listening to them and providing myself with a description of the regions such as whether some are variations of others (see analysis). I started to think about what regions would go with others. Afro Celts Sound System now known as Afro Celts has a definite world music flavour to them and I thought it would be fun to do this track keeping an ambient dance feel to it.
I referenced (see research) my track to Machine Translations’ song “Amnesia”.
I liked:
• the level where the vocals sat when they were clean
• the Bassy busyness of some parts particularly the end
• the way the electronic elements created interest and hooks
The drums in particular the hi-hats were very bright and prominent. This is a sound I was not after.
As Greg Rule suggests (see research) I concentrated on the vocal arrangement then found a complementary drum beat to loop. I also liked the idea of an intro drum rhythm with some fills.
I found as Fatboy Slim did (see research) that I could use the backing vocals in place of keyboard or guitar as a pad. So I used the backing vocals swapping with the mono guitar below the main vocal line with the whistle providing a high melody. I added random keyboard sounds to create interest (see research: “The Mixing Engineers Handbook” by Bobby Owsinski)
I used a stretched reverse cymbal to firstly highlight the groove after the first change and then to facilitate the second change. This was also used to accentuate ambient sounds.
Mid song I wished to make sure all elements were represented. Drums and Bass Synth. are the foundation, with keyboards providing the pad. Rhythm is percussion. Leading is vocals and I think stereo guitars are important to uplift this part. A fill is the Kora and abstract keyboards either side provide interest also.
As I was happy with specific combinations I locked the regions in place using click, Apple key + L. (see research)
As I sought to align regions the difference when zoomed right in was phenomenal. Parts that looked aligned when zoomed were all over the place. Snapping to grid or markers helped this.
I used edited stereo guitars and reverse cymbals to accentuate vocals and random sounds. Through out samples were looped as aliases.
ProTools Screen Shots
Analysis
Afro Celts Sound System song, My Secret Bliss interested me as the sounds are very spacious and the drums really cruise along. There is percussion and keyboards, which I really like. The song belongs to an Ambient Dance genre and I will approach it from this point of view. It has good sound quality with lots of effects already added. I documented the samples and gave them descriptions that gave me something to recognise them by.
“Afro Celt Sound System was formed in 1995 as a collaborative effort between traditional African and Celtic musicians and several respected figures from the UK music scene. Much of the recording of the group’s first album, Volume 1: Sound Magic, took place during the 1995 Recording Week at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath.”[6]
Members are: Simon Emmerson, James McNally, Iarla O'Lionaird, Martin Russell (core members) with Johnny Kalsi, N'faly Kouyate, Emer Mayock, Moussa Sissokho, Ian Markin, Francis Hylton (and occasional guests!)
Samples and Descriptions:
Drums
1 Beat with Hiccup Vocal
2 Beat without
3 Beat 1 shorter with Tom Fills
4 Normal 1 with Fills
5 Break Down off beat with Hiccup, Fills, Banging
6 New with Fills
Whistle
1 Complementary with vocal higher build up
2 Up Beat Rhythmic high build up then repeat
Backing Vocals
1
2
Bodran and Pere (Percussion)
2 Tabla – Brush on Snare
3 Tabla – Brush on Snare
4 Tabla – Brush on Snare
5 Cymbal, Bells, Shaker
6 5 with Tabla then Cymbal
7 Reverse Cymbal and Percussion
8 Tabla and Reverse Cymbal
9 Shaker, Reverse Cymbal and Tabla
10 All
Guitar
1 Picking Low Rhythm
2 High Melodies – Off Beat
3 Rhythm Verse
4 Single Picking then Strumming clean ongoing
5 Picking with strumming comes in hard
Bass
1 Bass riff as reg Keys
2 1 with variation
3 Travelling with slide change
4 Build up to 2nd riff
5 Mellow Funk Bass
6 5 with slides
7 1 alternating
8 1 key change
10 Picking with slide
11 Low Rumble
Regular Keyboard
1 Funk Bass Synth.
2 Slightly shorter, same bass, louder Synth.
3 Breakdown Synth. Ambient
4 Similar to 3
5 Breakdown w/bass, little Synth.
6 Repeating Bass sound, changing Synth. chords
7 Slightly changing Bass and Synth.
Abstract Keyboard
1 Bum Bum
2 Til Bum Bum
3 Rhythmic mouth harp sound, panning Synth.
4 Bum Bum Bum Til Bum.( hehehe Yes True)
5 One Short Burst
6 Background static noise cycling
7 Cycling with harp bouncy
8 Build up
9 Like 8 but different cycling speeds
Kora
1 2nd Bass Riff
2 1 with shorter bursts
3 High picking
4 Bassy fast picking
5 4 with variation
6 Short burst ring out x 2
7 3 with variation
8 3 with variation
9 3 with variation
Main Vocals and extras
Larla 1 Whoo-foreign language. Then- Return, Like Children, we stumble, into the sun
Larla 2 Return, like children, we stumble, recall the reason, together, we stare into the sun
Sevara 1 Short high wailing – rhythmic end
Sevara 2 High wailing then silence, dreamy whispered wail then rough rap sounding.
Rev. Cym. Reverse Cymbal
Lots to work with here.
Research for my mix includes the 5 references below.
At www.globaldance.com Greg Rule explains how he builds a track “So once you get your (tempo) from there I generally start building (the remix) up from the bottom with my drums and my percussion tracks. I'll just have the vocal playing by itself and then I'll start layering in the beats.”[1]
This is how I started by listening and getting a feel for the vocals then looped up a cool beat with a variation for the intro. With my readings for this research I have found heaps of other producers remixing or creating a track talking about arranging around the vocals.
I then set about gathering the elements I found most appealing and layering complementary samples. With these samples being very produced and quite layered in by themselves I found no need for extra effects.
In the book “The Mixing Engineers Handbook” by Bobby Owsinski, he says that “great mixers think in three dimensions – Tall, Deep and Wide.” “Tall” being the frequency range, “Deep” is adding ambient elements to the mix and “Wide” is achieved by panning.
He also mentions six elements of a great mix:
Balance – the volume level relationship between musical elements.
Frequency Range – having all frequencies properly represented.
Panorama – placing a musical element in the sound field.
Dimension – adding ambience to a musical element.
Dynamics – controlling the volume envelopes of track or instrument
Interest – making the mix special
Whilst mixing the Fatboy Slim 2004 release Palookaville, Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) noticed that the guest Blur singer Damon Albarn's vocals could be the pad (long sustaining note or chord) in the mix for two of his songs.
“The backing vocals fulfill what normally you would have a guitar or keyboard doing rhythmically.” Cook says.
I use this in my track: the backing vocals are in at the start, as they come to the end of the 1st section the mono guitar comes in. The mono guitar then leads to the second section of backing vocals.
In the Book “Editing Digital Audio in ProTools” by David Franz a shortcut I picked up and used after highlighting a region is Apple key +L. This locked the region in position and would give a warning window if you were adjusting it. This gave me a lot of piece of mind that the parts I had exactly lined up would stay that way.
I found a couple of tips on referencing the sound of your mix to an existing CD. One was to import directly into the ProTools session using a wave file so that the output is through the signal path to create a level playing field [5]. Two other things to be careful of are:
1 - Don't try to match your mix the volume of the reference CD. It's already been mastered. The mix that THEY used for mastering was not as loud as their final CD, and neither should yours. [5]
2- Don't try to match their compression. Additional compression was likely added in mastering. If you squash your mix, you will be stuck with whatever you did.. Mastering is usually a better time and place for that. [5]
References:
[1] -http://www.globaldance.com/InterviewGregRule2.htm
Keyboard Magazine's GREG RULE! - Part 2
[2] -“The Mixing Engineers Handbook” by Bobby Owsinski
[3] -Remix Mag article DEVIL MAY CARE on the recording of Fatboy Slims’ Palookaville. Oct 1, 2004 by Ken Micallef
[4] -“Editing Digital Audio in ProTools” by David Franz
[5] - Mark Dann Recording MIXING TIPS FROM THE TRENCHES
http://www.markdannrecording.com/Mixing_Tips.html
[6]http://www.myspace.com/afrocelts
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