 Welcome to Featured Artists Live, a weekly show to discuss and listen to your music. With help from my other YouTuber buddies, we hope to give you words of encouragement, guidance or simply just enjoy your wonderful creations. I'd like to thank our sponsor DistroKid, all of the wonderful artists and all of you for watching. Now, let's get on with the show. Hi folks, I'm Mike and I hope you all feel so much more professional to have like this sort of intro at the beginning. It feels a bit strange to be honest with you, I'm more used to the sort of amateur beginning to the show where I forget what I'm supposed to say, which I have done now. So let's let me look, refer to my script. Hello to all of you in the live chat first. Well, thank you so much for being here. There's some people who are here every single week and I very much appreciate it. I've seen you here and also don't forget if you are in the live chat, go ahead and hit that like button right away. Because you know, algorithm, YouTube, all that. It needs to be fed. I want to thank my sponsor, of course, DistroKid as always. Haven't they done a great job sponsoring this show now for I think 16 weeks? Good on DistroKid supporting the lowly YouTuber and also providing a great service for you folks as well to release your music to. And I would also like to thank the people who have entered their songs. You can enter a song for this show if you want to. There is a link in the description down below. We are not prejudiced. It could be movie music, it could be pop music, it could be rock music, it could be country, it can be electronic, anything. I mean, as long as it hasn't got too many virtual instruments in it, because some of my guests on the show get a little bit upset when there's too many virtual instruments, not mentioning anyone in particular. But yeah, so one of them is on the show tonight and I will bring them on in a moment. And look, I must say a huge thanks actually to my guests who come on the show. Not week after week, they sort of come in rotation, but there. And also that's reminded me, I've got a different show next week. I'm doing a slightly different format with a different guest who we haven't seen on the show before, but we'll talk about that a little bit later. I'm going to bring in my first guest and he is just an amazing YouTuber. He's got some great videos out this week actually to be honest with you, which we'll talk about in a moment. But without further ado, I'm going to bring onto the screen Dan, the lonely rocker. Here he is. How are you going Dan? Good morning to all you creative saucers. That's an interesting one, isn't it? Sources. I just thought of that one. Yes. I thought about it ages ago. I decided not to use it ever again. It's out there, let's see if it sticks. Well, Dan, you've had a busy week actually, haven't you? You've had some good, look, I'm going to wait till Ricky's here, but there's a question I want to ask you about one of your videos you brought out this week, which, well, yesterday for me, in fact, Fuse Audio, what was that video, what's that plug-in called from Fuse Audio? Fuse Abs, their new VCS1, their virtual strip. It's quite a monster channel strip, or as I called it, the mother of all channel strips. That's right, you did it on your thumbnail and I just want to talk about that in a moment. But before we get into that, I want to bring on the other wonderful guests. We have a good friend of both mine and Danny, a wonderful guy, and as I always say, the leader, the founder of the best home recording studio, Facebook page or group, sorry, that there is the number one hasn't got not number one in terms of members. I think there's one more maybe, but I'm not sure. I don't, we don't talk about that one. We don't talk about that one because we love this one. He is. It's a mob. He is from, what's it called again? Home recording studio. Horror studio zone. From the zone. Let's just say let's call it the zone. I'm going to call it the zone now. I'm going to call it the zone. Ricky is from the zone. He is the number one head honcho of the zoners and he's here with us today. Hi. Hi, everybody. You're too kind, mate. That's complete. Looks like the way things are looking here looks like Ricky has been shrunk in the wash. Sorry, I'm lost. Gosh, I'm having problems today, man. Stuff all over my screen. Yeah, you're too kind, mate. But I would say that, yes, BandLab are rising on my heels, mate. They are coming up fast. You feel the heat there, you feel the heat. Every time I think about my new Facebook group, it brings a smile to my face. It's created a lot more activity for me on Facebook. Now I know I've got a small glimpse of what it's like to be Ricky T Brown on Facebook. Notifications are popping up all over the place and it's wonderful. I love it. God, the people in my group are awesome. Like the best. They're all helping each other. They're helping each other out, they're answering questions. I don't even get a chance to answer questions, to be honest with you, because there's some other person who knows more than me, probably. They're getting there before me. Some of them are in the live chat. For example, we've got Mimo Japan, who is extremely helpful in the group. And I've also noticed, I don't know if my chat's working today. Mimo. We've got some other great group members in there. I'm going to pull up Doug here. Thanks, Doug, for the intro is cool, I thought. Must have been made by a clever YouTuber. Doug has been doing some great stuff, actually, in relation to the group. We'll talk about that later. And also, as I say, Mimo's in there. What's he been saying? I don't even know what that's referring to. I've just pulled that randomly out of the chat there. And Nick Ellis says, well, Nick is great to see you here, Nick, and also who else have we got in here? Just say hello to them. Thomas, what's that surname? What's that surname there, Ricky? How would you pronounce it? Thomas. Thomas. Ahien. Is that how you say that? Is that right, Thomas? Let us know whether Ricky just butchered your name. I probably did. I probably did. Don't worry, I've got some artists' names for you to butcher later on. Olin. That's what it looks like, yeah. Thomas Olin. I'll tell you, anyone who's got anything to do with the British Isles, that's me and Ricky, have no respect for foreign languages or how to pronounce people's names. Oh, that's not true, man. It's a trait. It's an Anglo-Saxon trait. We've got Ed Thorne was on here last week butchering people's names. Anyway, let's talk about something to do with music here because Dan, a couple of things, actually, to ask you about music for you guys. Dan, you made this video. By the way, folks, check the links in the description. You can find the links to Ricky's Facebook page there and Dan's channel. Check out Dan's latest video which is about this new channel strip from Fuse Audio. And let's talk channel strips because we were talking before the show, I think. My memory serves me rightly about whether we use channel strips or not. Sorry to keep talking, but Ricky, you saw Dan's video, didn't you? You bought that channel strip. Yeah, I was really impressed with it, really impressed. But you mentioned that you don't normally use channel strips. Well, no. I must admit, I'm a bit of a waster of ram because my machine can do it. I'll just chuck whatever I want on there without really thinking about okay, then I should really set up groups and that kind of thing. It's just slap it on. But this was probably the first one I've come across where it's made me think, actually, I kind of need to have this on all my channels because it is so comprehensive and the GUI on it is really impressive. So, I know Dan's my mate and all that, but yeah, it was a damn good video and a damn good product. I'm going for it, definitely. Cool. I've got to say I was mentioning I want to go to Dan, but I was mentioning one of the reasons that I don't all have used channel strips. I don't often go for channel strips because I feel a little bit confined in them. I feel like it's literally they're often designed on a piece of hardware, which you can't move things around easily and you've only got knobs to twiddle with not much feedback in terms of visuals. So, Dan, sell it for me. Why is this one better? What's good about this one and that one? Well, I mean, the developer Ray who programs all his own stuff for Fuse Audio Labs, I mean, he has quite a history in modeling. He's worked for a lot of big brands like Brainworks, Black Wooster a lot of really notable plugins. A lot of people use every day and I realize that he was a modeler on that. So, he has a lot of experience in modeling and the focus of this particular plugin was not to model anything in particular. He just utilized his years and years of knowledge and experience on how audio reacts, right? And he built his plugin based on that knowledge and it just sounds good. It just sounds good. You know, there's a lot of channel strips out there and we can discuss the merits of channel strips. It's something I discussed in the video, but a channel strip definitely a good one is going to sort of give you a baseline for a tone and a sound, right? Because there's a particular way to work and this one I think he nailed it. Like Ricky said, the GUI is great, the mix view like Holy Spokes, you can see your whole mix. I made a comment in my video, Ricky, there was a little chatter about channel strips in your group and that's actually where when someone posted a video of what doesn't like channel strips. But my argument for channel strips is a little bit different because, yes, it kind of defines a way to work and let's face it, we're inundated with choices and we sometimes get lost in choice. So, the channel strip is going to sort of keep you contained and focused and help you get your work done. It's not for everybody, it's not for everybody, but this, yeah. Now another question I want to ask you guys before we sort of get into the show proper and we start listening to the music. We've got three songs as normal. Now they're all very different in one particular way and that is song length. I've got a song up today which is probably the shortest song I've had on the show. I think it's about a minute and a half or so. And I've got one which I've decided I'm going to play the whole of and it's six minutes long. Okay. Now I've had long, I've had longer songs on the show before and I've sort of apologised and said to the artist, look, I'm probably not going to play the whole song. But I've decided to play the whole song tonight partly because I've got one song which is one and a half minutes so, you know, we're good for time. But also because I want to see what the experience is for us and for our live viewers of listening to that full six minutes song. Okay. So because I think song length sort of comes into the equation a little bit at some point. What's your sort of views on that? We'll go to Ricky first. When you're writing do you take this into consideration or does it doesn't it matter? Yes and yes and no. I mean it depends what I'm doing. I mean if it's a jazz piece for example I mean I feel I've got a little bit more flexibility in terms of how long the track is, you know, and I think it would be the same for anything that's going to be that length. You know, you have to maintain interest throughout the track whereas if you're doing something that's more commercially orientated then yeah you don't want it to be too long because the attention span of your typical listener for that particular pop genre is not, they're not going to last it and they'll get bored and you know you just can't keep their interest so it depends on the genre really. I mean classical pieces are a great example they can be really short or they can be really long you know. It's all about how much content you've put in there and I think people will appreciate it if they can feel the song or the music pieces you're being taken somewhere. How about you Dan? I mean because you're a listener of rock music which you know is not sort of designed to be music, the particular brand I should say music you listen to is not designed to be particularly radio friendly for example. So what are your sort of thoughts when you're writing like do you think I want it to be this long but I shouldn't? Does that cross your mind ever? Well it's funny because I mean the brand of rock we're talking about specifically is progressive rock right and a lot of the great prog rock bands in history some of the criticism on them was they were self-absorbed right so but these artists ultimately are some of the most renowned world renowned musicians in rock history and I want them to be a little self-indulgent. So I'm aware of that because I'm not one of those I'm influenced by those and it's like who the hell wants to listen to me for 11 minutes I do have a song that I have never released I finished it probably a year ago it's a seven and a half minute progressive rock instrumental I threw everything ahead into it and I never released it I want to but I'm not really sure how to place it because who wants to listen to just me play all the instruments seven and a half minutes I will release it at some point so for me I write a lot of music for my channel so I'm finding I'm writing shorter because I want to capture someone's interest in 30 seconds because I want to deliver a message and that's the kind of writing that I'm doing now I love long pieces if band is great and there's lots in there to listen to but for artists that are not known it's you're really going out on a limb because keeping my attention for more than three or four minutes is going to be tough listen I found myself wow that's great but you're taking a chance in an arena where people are probably not going to pay attention more than 30 seconds anyways so you're going to have 90% of your track which is not going to get hurt so but you know what make music it makes you feel good to cares right Mimo was saying in the chat here he said yeah his stuff was cutting to less than half do you remember when we had Mimo's song on there and I didn't play the whole for you and he said he was saying in the chat because Dan hates VST so um Dan you get blamed here we go I got blamed for it I'm going to make a t-shirt you're like you're like the way Glenn Fricker is known for hating bass players and VST I would like to say this person's whole YouTube name out loud Robath Melted Cheese Home Studio nice nice name where are the times of 25 minute tracks like Yes or Cloud Shorts oh sorry am I that old Yes it is a bit of an old thing isn't it I guess people are really discouraged I hate I'm not going to mention names but there's some YouTubers I highly admired before I became a YouTuber they're big guys and I've seen a couple of them give advice about releasing songs and they've gone down the road of telling people whatever you do make sure you get to the chorus within 30 seconds and blah blah blah blah and I have to say personally I just hate that kind of attitude towards music because if that's the advice we give people who are going to be listening to us the music industry is doomed to stay that way right I can promise you I've got teenage kids they're continuously continuously underestimated as people their capacity to listen to something more interesting than there being spoon fed is immense but if we keep you know sort of having that what are they called positive feedback or negative feedback loop I guess it is with these things so we say well because that's the way then that's the way you should do it then we're doomed to have that sort of attitude towards music because in my opinion let's face it it's my opinion that counts on the show in my opinion how long something is as a piece of math is completely irrelevant it's how interesting it is for those 10 minutes if it's 10 minutes long you can have a 30 second track which is a boring as hell and doesn't do anything very interesting and it feels long probably a bad example maybe Lord of the Rings they were pretty long movies right but they were great movies so they kept you there the whole way you know if it was three hours of when Harry met Sally I don't know I'd hang in there so that's my you know it's tough in this day and age because everything you just said is so true because you know that short attention span most people have is driven by most content that they're being fed right the reason you don't see a lot of artists who can keep someone's attention for a 20 minute song is because there are very few artists that have skills to do that these days I hate to say it it's like bands like Guess in the 70's you know I talk about Rush all the time I mean you put on a song that lasts the whole side of an LP you know dating myself listen to an album but you're drawn in by the stories and it's like I was talking about this with my wife she likes music that makes her dance so music is kind of background it's great it makes her feel good for me I like quick heavy rock song or something with groove but sometimes putting on your headphones and listening to a well produced album with every word every lyric thought through you know movements intertwining and just the thought that goes into that no I can't listen to that all day every day but that experience is second to none in my opinion there's very few artists that have the skills to pull that off to keep your interest for that long and if you don't if you can't do it then you know it's you got to be cautious and try it so I mean a 30 minute dubstep piece I don't know I was going to keep people's attention for that long unless they're high in the warehouse somewhere right and what do you reckon you know does it depend on the fact that people have already bought into you because I'm sort of reminded always of the fact that because when we think about long songs you know we tend to think of I mean what springs to my mind is say Bohemia Rhapsody which sort of broke the mold even at the time I think there was a couple of songs by Radiohead which I really liked I can't I think maybe OK Computer was a pretty long song at the time I remember that release I thought are they going to get away with that but I bet you don't think about for example Hey Jude by The Beatles do you know how long Hey Jude is I think I was on for days right but it's about seven minutes long and I swear about the last four minutes of nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah you know if they brought the song on the show they all say hey maybe you should cut the outro a little bit because it repeats too many times were they able to get away with that because they were The Beatles or was there just a sense of they just married because I don't think it feels seven minutes long to me I mean if you hate it I guess it does but well I mean they got away with it because they were The Beatles but they were The Beatles right I think it's more than that actually Hey Jude I mean it's an anthem and it's got that thing about it that it's easy to learn to sing along with it and you know generation after generation have brought into that you know it still is one of those songs that you can't help but join in with it when you hear it you know so I think it was a moment of genius for them rather than it being somehow you know offered as under done in any way because don't sing it I'll get a copyright strike now listen I'd love to talk about this I'd love to talk more about this but but Mimo has just reminded us in the chat that this must be the longest intro before hearing the first song on the show and he's quite right about that so let's get on with the first song I am going to allow for I mean Lucky Dan to introduce this Dan I'll put you over here I'll pop the artist's name and song title up on the screen for you here Dan go for it Caterino beer bear berry beer Caterino bear okay this is this morning for me you guys have just had dinner Caterino bear fiar how good good now I have tried to find out unfortunately I didn't get a reply from the from the artist about what language they speak because they did mention oh you know this song is in our language and I did write back earlier today and said what is your language and Google Translate wasn't helping me or anything like that so I'd love to find out what the language is so look we'll get on with this it's a quick intro I haven't got too much to say about it but the the artist would like some feedback on the mix because they're not performing on this okay they're not the performer they've got a little studio the performer came in who is a singer they had some sort of backing track they added some harmony blah blah blah and he just kind of wants to know what do you reckon about the mix and the mast on this so let's go ahead and play this right away this is from Caterino bear and it's called fiar how okay yeah sorry oh my god yeah oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah there we go we've got the artist actually the chat so thanks it seems as though they're from East Timor okay I'd love to know what that means fair how I forgot to say before we play I'll get to you gentlemen in a moment but just quickly it was recorded in Kate what we could see that on the screen just using they're using a digital mixer to record through a random condenser microphone he doesn't know the brand or model just thought it sounded good which is interesting and just wants some opinions on that mix and master there Dan will start off with you well I have to say I really enjoyed that I love the use of the stereo spectrum I mean I close my eyes for a little bit there and I was just picking out some whispers and you know different placements of voice fanned out nicely I mean it's predominantly a vocal track I mean the music is subtle that was a warmth in the bottom end that I felt really nice sat really nicely the drum track was just just present you know and that's all it needed to be this early the focus of the song was on the vocals and it was a very sincere warm and really that the stereo panning was just really nice because I found myself sort of submerged into the into the vocal so that clearly was the focus of this track and I'd say well done awesome good stuff Ricky how are you yeah I think I'd agree with much of what Dan has said yeah I think it was really you know it was really nice hearing the mandolin stroke ukulele type sound in the beginning that was just it just lightens the whole atmosphere of what you're gonna hear after that kind of thing so it was really well done you know and I suppose this might come under world music you know if you're gonna put it into a genre but yeah there's there was something that really unpretentious about it and it's just left me with nothing to to to say in terms of could it have been better or anything I mean it is what it is and it was done really well so I'm well done to the artist because I'm not gonna butcher the name again the only thing I wished is that while I was listening to it I had some cucumber in my water it was just so fresh well I think when we get these situations on the show which we do from time to time where there's not much in terms of criticism to say about a song and I guess I want to kind of touch on about a little bit more specifically about why it kind of works is for me I mean there's only been a half long so they didn't give themselves a chance to go too wrong that's why you've got to make your song short it just cuts down the possibility of doing anything wrong but I'd sort of like to say to the artist I'm gonna try and say his name Catarino if I've got that right I hope so whatever whatever microphone that is keep hold of it because there's something about vocals where you can get this perfect balance between what's in the low end what's in the mid and what's in the high you know so that low end for warmth that middle for what's the word for when we can hear something well Dan you're good at these sorts of words I've lost my words articulation yes articulation intellect intelligibility a word diction yes so the mid is very good for that and you know don't get tempted to scoop your mids out of your vocals just because they sound nice and solo and that smiley face on your EQ looks pleasant it can kill a vocal to do that so and then you know that that high end for sort of that airiness that breathiness and to some degree still for the diction as well and I just want to encourage the artist there that you had it for me you just had it perfectly there with that voice clarity thank you Michael Warren in the chat for giving me another word I need a thesaurus so so just like very well done on that now we you would have to submit some more music to us for us to really judge your mixing abilities because that was a kind of a sparse track so I'm all for people sending in more songs so send us something you've done which has you know maybe some more instruments on but honestly like the other thing I want to compliment that you're on is capturing a vocal performance the people who were seeing on this sounded joyful just they were having fun and I was a bit at the beginning where they were kind of laughing but it was actually contained within their singing the the kind of the place they were in sounded joyful and that's marvelous to be able to do that especially with vocalists and of course Lee guitarist to capture that moment you only have seven minutes to capture someone's attention in a guitar so I better get it right so thank you so much for submitting that song it was a great listen I think it just puts everyone a good frame of mind at the beginning of this show now I do want to mention my sponsor our sponsor distro kid now you've got a choice Dan thank you sorry Ricky yeah thank you Ricky for doing that yeah holding up the sponsor I'm gonna let you get you Ricky I'm gonna let you choose which little clip about distro kid I'm gonna play is it gonna be about their pricing just general distro kid spot the spotlight feature or the wheel of playlist go which one's gonna be pricing pricing let's hear about pricing from distro kid now if you do follow the link in the description down below it's gonna take you to a special page on distro kid with this yellow banner at the top that banner is letting you know that you're gonna get a further seven percent discount of your first year if you sign up here and let's face it it's already very cheap if we scroll down we can see that year's membership is $19.99 per year for an unlimited number of albums and songs and so long as it's your own music there are no extra charges and you get to keep all of the royalties from the various platforms platforms like Spotify Apple Music TikTok Pandora Amazon Instagram title I hut radio and Deezer and more wonderful I've noticed on these little bits I made if anyone's listening really carefully I had a little bit of reverb on my voice which I hadn't forgotten to switch off on my audio interface it's so annoying when you make silly mistakes like that we're all capable of them I wanted to ask you dad because the video I'm releasing tomorrow which I poured my heart and soul into I probably shouldn't say this I've jinxed it but I've noticed that my guitars are a little bit out of tune in some of my demos and just a little bit annoying so annoying have you ever done that? Yeah I did one recently for an audience I did well it was more of a guitar I had to record electric guitars and I had all kinds of schematics and I had a big plan they loved the video which was great but I was listening when I was mixing the you mix the song but then you mix the show right I was mixing the show and then I noticed oh my god the guitars are a little bit out of tune a little bit yeah and I you know what do you do you know it's like you're doing videos about audio demos and you want it to be perfect and sometimes you just don't have the time to make it as good as you want and mistakes like that you can't go backwards you can't go backwards because the videos won't do that. I did consider using Melodyne for it because actually Melodyne people not many people know this not everyone knows this I should probably make a video about it Melodyne can be used on polyphonic sources and I have used it on guitars before and tuned just one string or you know or a note of a chord or something like that can be done in Melodyne with remarkably good results actually at times not always though once in a while it just won't it won't play with you and you know your stuff but yeah slightly annoying so if you see my video come out tomorrow folks which I'll now shamelessly promote now which is about a couple of pedals I won't hold both of them up they're heavy from iK Multimedia there's this is the X space pedal which I've gotten the name of it wrong in the video as well but you know that's another story yeah so if you watch that video tomorrow I do apologize there is one particular part where I played and what had happened was I was playing on my Strat which has got like a Floyd Rose type of tremolo on it and I had to detune and it doesn't really like to be detuned on a on a Floyd Rose you know that gets it just throws the whole thing out of balance and yeah I just did and I thought that sounds all right I'll go for that and then yeah next day oh no that's a little bit how about anyway you have to live with your mistakes and just move forward don't you talking about moving forward I'm going to go straight on to this piece of music Mimo in the comments and whoever else in the comments who likes to use virtual instruments we can talk about this with this track because this track I was actually a little bit surprised to find it entirely has a virtual instrument sign this is from I'll read out the name on this occasion Ricky you can get the one after this okay this is from a carry t-ball and this is called tango ballet recorded in Cubase and it's using entirely completely virtual instruments and I think they're all contact libraries now maybe people who are contact users in the chat can tell me about this because I did ask them which ones and I didn't recognize any of the names of the libraries that they told me about which I was like normally I know at least a few of the contact libraries so I'm a big contact user but most of them seem to come from a company I'm going to sort of tout them I just looked them up early called the experimenter project does anyone in the chat know about them some of the plug some of the libraries are things like preparato preparato classical double bass duo pianos la vista monica I'm pronouncing all of these Spanish sounding names really badly but there you go that's the Anglo-Saxon in me so that's the first thing to know this is it's all entirely virtual instruments and the comment from the artist Carrie is this he said I'm not very good at mixing in mastering that's my problem so I'm guessing he's looking for some feedback on on the mix here um this is one of the most unusual things I've had on the show I would say um and let's pull it up right away and have a look I'm going to head straight over to Ricky this time um now Ricky give us some analysis on this what were your feelings I saw you sort of head down a bit I don't know if you're watching your phone or falling asleep but no no I was making notes sir I was making professional now okay yeah it was a really nice um it was a really nice piece of music I mean um this kind of um cinematic um you know cinematic genre kind of thing you know that's something that I'm in very much into um so I could hear straight away you know that I thought the video actually really worked well with it um it's both mentioning um it was all fine for me except for um it was a way that the the piano part that was was um eq'd um it was just a little bit too um present I mean I'm not sure whether it was like a uh a case of volume or the eq'ing but it it could have been it could have sat back forever in the mix because there wasn't actually a lot else going on while it was doing what it was doing other than the strings um so if if if I were going to mix that um that that would probably be something that I would look at so okay let's pull that piano back um a little bit because it was just it was just a bit too in your face playing was beautiful though um yeah yeah he's got some chops whoever's done that um they're they're you know they're they're right out there so um yeah I enjoyed it as as a piece and as as I said before um I thought the the video footage worked really well with it so um well done to him I was almost a bit it was almost one of those I'm sorry I will get to you Dan but just as we're talking about the video sometimes I also feel like one of when people put together a video when we're listening whether that's influencing us like because that was a very well put shot video in actual fact so I don't know Dan would your experience of the song been the same um if the video hadn't been there at all what was your feeling on all of it um well I mean the video absolutely in France is how we feel about the song but I think in this age of YouTube a lot of times we discover songs visually first anyways you know back in guys of our vintage you know there's days of cracking open an LP and putting on headphones and creating your own imagery that was a certain kind of thing so this is just how it is I I don't knock a song certainly because I've discovered artists because of live videos I've seen first so yeah it absolutely has an influence but that's all part of the experience so I have a problem so but the song itself I mean I mean I know we razz me a lot about my feelings on BST it's more about the performance of this artist is performing all of that using BSTs I mean it's a marvelous piece of music uh lots of music other dynamics definitely it's a cinematic piece I think you know music that's written for film exists to coexist with music right and um how often do we listen to uh cinematic music without visually almost never sure so in that sense it worked well together from a production standpoint what I found some issues now there was a lot of movements in the piece this the song itself had a lot of dynamics but I found when the song started getting really intense I was losing dynamic it's like that low low end that lower mid-range it was just everything with service took a traffic jam well all of a sudden it all came together also suddenly and then the piece just naturally the dynamics dissipated and it was breath but the one thing I would look at is as those intense moments start to increase really important to find space for all of those things as opposed to just having like if you look at that it would be fine yeah with sections of square square waves like throughout that mix it just got so intense for me and I was like I want to hear it but everything was sort of right in the middle you know just fine and carved space there's lots of room for all of those instruments breathy track so that's something I would look at is just especially those really intense moments it's just the fine placements for a lot of those instruments that we're really occupying the same space in space other than that I mean as long as that artist was playing all that it was a marvelous piece of music and I think worked well visually and other yeah I sort of I'm gonna slightly disagree that I don't care whether they were playing it or not because it sounds to me as if they were playing it does that make sense like it felt yeah so I hope so I think so yeah but but I think it's worth mentioning some people are very very clever at programming and can do it to such a great degree that they can fool you into think they're playing it yeah so but you know I guess I've got to say first of all that I'm gonna have to look at some of those libraries that we use there because the cello was to die for it was just absolutely gorgeous and I'm going to be checking out all of the instruments through in there and I agree with you guys that the only thing it's sorry I think overall the mix was was good just to give carry some feedback you you're obviously competent in mixing you know like all of us there's always learning to do and there's refinement to do but but the the the piano was both too loud and probably a EQed a little bit a a little bit aggressively in in some of the mid-range of it which is kind of where you want a piano to be particularly with the with the octave that it was in but it just felt like it was a little bit in your face like a little bit jarring so it's most likely given that I can tell from the from the piece of music that you're obviously a a musician who is very much into the feel of things that you haven't noticed it because you just too close to the project so you need some distance or you need other people listen to it like us or because because I feel it was kind of obvious that the piano was just too too in your face and I think that was for me playing into what Dan was saying about it feeling a little over crowded I just think that piano was playing a large part of that was almost like masking you should hear there's a lot of stuff there but that piano was then right on top of all of that as I felt a bit a little bit heavy but really I enjoyed it very much I just as a piece of music I felt it was it almost is there to defy the the cynics about virtual instruments in a way Dan I'm not having to go at you of course yes you won but but but no I think that it made me think because I I do sort of I actually agree with Dan a lot more than people think I do on this subject but I think that's because there's a lot of people who have used virtual instruments really really badly that's kind of what the issue is is that if you use them well it'll actually take you as long to use to learn how to use them well as it would to learn to play some of the instruments to be honest with you it's a it's an absolute specialization in itself people like Mimo Japan who do it very very well you know it just doesn't come easy you've got invest in it you've got to understand what you're doing you gotta understand how real instruments actually work and the other thing I liked about this track though and and I it's something I'm sort of search I'm searching for a bit more in my own music was there was some hint of electronic music of electronic sounds in there so blended with those very acoustic and traditional classic sounds of things like cellos and pianos and I love that when people are doing that I'm like yes this is what we should be doing with music these days we should be taking these two worlds where we've come from where we're going to and blend them together and I thought that there could have been a little bit more of that in there I could I could have heard a bit of a drop kick in there I know jade a little bit disagrees with me jade hello jade jade's in there and she felt that the percussion was superfluous to the track um and and she may may or may not be right but I sort of felt uh that I actually wouldn't have minded something a little bit more electronic coming in there there was just a hint of it there anyway that's my thoughts what does an old fella like me know I don't know um I feel sorry I think maybe maybe a couple of things a couple of things not about children I don't know anything about children we were discussing that weren't we Dan about reading manuals oh every time we think you know we realize you know nothing one day we should just have a show where we just talk about parenting as a musician uh that was great um thanks so much again uh for Carrie for sending that in and also just a reminder to folks watching both in the live chat and in uh on the replay um that uh that you can submit your songs and I'm working through them going sort of back through some songs that you know I I didn't have on the show and was submitted many many months ago um and uh you jade's there in the chat and and some of the other guests and us have been talking a little bit about you know I should have some more songs on the show which are more in need of attention because it's true that it's nice it's nice to highlight some some great pieces of work but also you know it's great also for us to talk about what can go wrong and how to correct things so this isn't really one of those shows because I think the quality of the music is is actually above par a little bit today but um that wasn't my choice it just happened that way but if if you did submit some music months ago um don't worry about it I'm still going through some of the old ones doesn't mean that you're not going to be picked um Dan you're going to pick for me which distro kid role I'm going to play now you've got a choice of just general information about distro kid the spotlight feature or the wheel of playlist I like that wheel of playlist you know that wheel of playlist that's cool I really like it one of the ways to actually get your music heard on Spotify is to get onto a playlist now distro kid offers a really fun way to get onto one of their playlists with their wheel of playlist feature simply head over to your distro kid account go to the top right where it says goodies then go down to wheel of playlist and then you start off simply by selecting a song something you've already released and then click on connect with Spotify now obviously the further up a playlist you get the more likely people are to actually hear your music and enjoy it so what distro kid do here with this feature is they give you three chances to spin a wheel a kind of a wheel of fortune type of thing going on here now the best result of those three spins determines your number in the playlist and as I say the higher up you are the better so on this occasion I achieved 1088 you can try every every day if you like so maybe that's something you'd like to do to actually get your music in a playlist on Spotify whoa I like I like having these little sort of adverts playing in the middle of it it gives me a little break but I'm going to get a long break in a moment because we are moving on to that song that I mentioned which is six minutes long it's a bit of a theme of the show today the length of the song is length everything I should ask my guest but I'm sure I would get inappropriate answers do you really as long as it's not wider than the screen we're okay I'm told it's really good that counts but anyway we move on I'm going to give a quite a lot of background here and I'm sort of pointing some of this at Dan a little bit Dan because I think you may have some insights that I don't know here um we're going to go through this this next song actually who didn't read out the name last Ricky did you know Dan I heard the first one yeah Ricky it's you all right all right all right it's you Ricky I've saved the best one for you mate I'll get it right it's time there you go here we go okay the next song is by Robert Gregory and Guiletta Zardetto uh life defies gravity okay do you reckon it's Guiletta I don't know I'm not sure it's really bad at this that's why I leave it to you guys um yeah don't cross the other way before before we before we do listen to this track and and it's got a little bit of a backstory and we're going to go through some of the equipment as well there's a bit of equipment involved here so recorded in cakewalk um interestingly um using the Audient ID 4 Mark II audio interface now if you wanted to see a review about this audio interface or for example how to record guitars with it then I definitely recommend you head over to a certainly lonely rockers channel because he recently uh did you did the Audient ID 4 Mark II didn't you Dan what was the focus of your video I did more than just a review was that yeah I mean one thing I'm trying to do on my channel more and more is I mean is utilizing products in the context of a tutorial so we're learning something and then the products are more you know part of the experience and if you don't have that particular product you can use whatever you have so that was a collaboration with Audient for sure but the focus was on three different ways of recording electric guitars in the home studio awesome oh I haven't actually watched the full video I must watch that actually to get see if there's any get that retention up buddy get that retention so um the guitar use we'll just focus a little bit of the guitar on track so it's an ibanez rgdix guitar tuned to a dropped listen for the wait for this tune to a dropped a sharp I've I hadn't heard of that am I being ignorant here Dan all right well that's uh it's funny Joe Bonamasa has a little interview where he talks about detuning that low because as we get that low you might as well just call it a base I mean I mean it's genre specific obviously and and some of the really I mean I don't want to assume what kind of music this is but generally guitar in tune that low you're into the real aggressive dark heavy modern metal kind of stuff okay that's very interesting you should say that not that it makes any difference to the sound but mixing abilities got some adam audio t7 v's now I've got t8 v's I still love them I must have had them over a year and a half now and I absolutely one of my favorite pieces of equipment in my studio the t7 v's I've tried them but I'm sure they're awesome and some amp sims Dan I wasn't familiar with these ones some by a company called audio assault have you heard of them absolutely they're actually based in Mexico I feature them great guys that really love those guys over there they make some really nice stuff you'd like amp sims yeah very affordable to very very affordable so he's used two on here one called sigma and the other one is an a h m 5 50 50 amp sim from those guys interestingly again this is I don't know if you guys recall but this kind of so many times in the show as a katewalk user the strings on this track are the built-in strings katewalk s i strings okay studio instrument strings which I never use because I've got all of these really expensive strings libraries but these keep coming up and I always think people's strings sound so good so it's reminded to me I must go back to using the built-in ones in katewalk some an upright piano vst I'm not sure which one surge a surge synth vst and now the story behind this is this guy is not really a vocalist or or a lyricist okay so he writes instrumental pieces this is Robert I'm talking about so he wrote this some years ago and then during lockdown he kind of revisited never really I think he may have put it out there and people were saying it needs some vocals or whatever so then he started using band lab I think this is a kind of interesting story because this is where this came to life because on band lab you can kind of share projects with other people and work on projects with other people and he got it out there and it was picked up by the lady Ricky butchered her name uh Geolettia Zardetto I hope these people are watching and and I'm sorry no I didn't put her are they you did a much better job than me and but uh yeah so um she really liked it and she wrote all the lyrics and then wrote the melody and then recorded the vocal part for it so the two quotes from the composer my main problem is I hope the writing was composing and then the recomposing of the song and defining each section in its own right and transitioning between sections of the next part the other main problem was getting the guitar tones to sit right in the feel of the track once the writing stage was complete so as I say it's going to be six minutes I'm going to play all six minutes of it um if you find and I'm not preempting here but if you know on the live either you know you guys or people in the live chat find that you it doesn't hold your attention for six minutes then we'll discuss that if it does hold your attention awesome that's that's very good indeed I think I've made the mistake of not queuing the song up I need to waffle I'm just going to waffle here I am waffling and here is the song there's quite a lot to unpack there actually with that oh there we go we're back um so I'm going to start off with Ricky actually let's go over to Ricky yeah sorry Dan oh bloody oh this one um gosh um love the track love the track however however um I think there were a few issues with it you know um the the the composition itself I mean is is great you know I've got no um criticisms with that at all um it's it's it kept me for the six minutes however I think there's more um to to be got from this track um the I felt the the bvs um got too much of a showcase on this one they were just too loud and in places um it was um covering up the lead vocal and you know it's a great lead vocal that was put down there but um it was being swallowed by the bvs every time the chorus came in it was like you know saturation and with there's a real imbalance um but they really this really reminded me of um the approach to evanescence use the stuff they did in the um the noughties um yeah I'm totally down with that stuff is is brilliant mixing the you know the rock and then having orchestral elements and electronic elements they're really good at doing that and I heard a lot of it back in this um man what happened to the drums yeah um I'm sorry it that's a frustrating thing for me about this track because everything that it needs is there um but in in the wrong amounts because you know if you're talking about you know the the rhythm what's driving the track you need your drums to be present and um they were just mixed far too low in the mix and which is a real shame because I think a lot of energy was was um lost because of where they were placed um love the guitar the guitar sound on that yeah um yeah love that heavy yeah that's that that was definitely working um and one other thing yeah the solo when we got to the place where the solo was supposed to say right I'm here I'm taking over yeah you go and sit down um it was almost like the the solo sat down um when he should have been like right out there yeah right out there so I've got to say I love the track I love the track mix it again honestly mix it again if if look I know it's just my opinion um but if you can take any of that on board you are going to get something that um works better than where it is right now everything you need is right there you just revisit that that mix and and and you're right where it needs to be and I wonder if it's because the artist has kind of worked with it for a long time as an instrumental piece for years in fact I think I seem to remember him saying in the email that the song may have been even three or four years old or piece of music was three or four years old it's kind of been existing there so um it may be that that's thrown them off a little bit mentally because they kind of mixed it all as an instrument and then kind of I'm not sure Robert if you if you watch I'm not sure if that's what you've done is just kind of then just put the vocal on top of what you already had I'm not not sure sorry I can't say that for certain but uh but maybe that's what happened down um what are you all my thoughts so I I mean a lot of what Ricky said I think that obvious I mean yet first of all the evanescent sound that was it was mentioned in the comments as well so but if you're going to tackle a sound like that it's almost like their music ability far superseded their their ability to mix the song because love the music the playing everything was there but the mix is a hot mess it's you know it's not conveying the energy that a song like that needs and I know and I'm saying this constructively because this is what hopefully these artists are looking for is they're trying to attain that sound that's a very very difficult genre to nil because those bands like evanescence and I actually I know I have a evanescent-ish story it was kind of in the show I dealt with some of them uh music videos but um those bands they had production budgets they recorded the studios it's a hard sound to emulate because it's got a sound huge as you guys said the drums were non-existent it's like they they bust a little bit of reverb and they turned off the main track or something just they were and it's probably programmed drums so maybe they weren't inspired but you got to have big drums you got to have a big bottom end there was none to be had the guitars I mean we know they're using sims the problem with amp sims if you don't EQ them right they sound like amp sims and there's not a lot of I was listening for it because guitars in a track like this have to be mixed really wide and you can't duplicate the tracks you got to perform them at least twice you got to use different sims different pick up something to create a real wit because while they were big in distortion they just had no definition no shape to them it was just a wall of saturation and the performance was there the writing was there everything was there it just they were sort of mashed together they didn't create any wit with the guitars I don't know if it was a bass in the song because I couldn't hear it like I mean it just wasn't there so I would love to see and remix this song because all the pieces are absolutely there should we put a little challenge and I've done this on the show before but I'm going to say to Robert who's mainly written this Robert how about you have a go at remixing this and send it in again and I'll play it again on the show when Ricky and Dan are on here on here yes please and we'll really visit this song because I think we've I don't really want to reiterate what you guys have said I mean in agreement with you and I feel like the composer the writer is here in the chat and he's taking it very well so good on you for that and so I do have to say that the drums were too quiet but they were also in my opinion overly compressed as a whole there wasn't one particular drum the kit was over compressed I know in this type of music that's something which is done but there's not much point in compressing a whole drum kit and then turning it down the point is to make the whole thing punchier is to give you that headroom to be able to go upwards once you've kind of flattened everything out with compression right so you want it to be it needs to be there to add the power so that's that's sort of in my opinion what's sort of gone on there vocals were great it sounded sonically good and everything and and I am not quite in agreement with Ricky sort of slightly I think the backing vocals here and there were present for sure I liked the way they were panned there was some great panning going on with them which was really nice and but I have to say I'm sorry to have to sort of reiterate this but I think it's worth saying again so there was a point where the vocals were there it's all happening we're kind of wishing that the instruments were a little bit louder or more powerful and then that solo came and when you listen to the whole dynamic of the track it sunk it just went like that during the solo and so you know often what I do want to say is I've been working on a couple of tracks myself recently where exactly the same thing has happened it's we all have been there at times I do want to say that we're not some sort of geniuses who can always overcome these things ourselves I've got a couple at the moment which I'm just pulling my hair out because whenever I make a test mix I go the song should be lifting here and it's just not and despite all of the videos I've made about it and taking my own advice it's just not quite happening there so we've all been there and and it is a bit of a puzzle sometimes so when you've got a especially when you've got a lot in a song all right because your common sense is I've got lots in there if I just push it all forward it should take off like a rocket like this doesn't really happen like that so I think it's about dynamics a little bit and but definitely that you need to focus on that when I can see in the chat there that Robert's taken on the challenge and I look forward to actually having it on the show again and hearing a remix of it I would start from scratch Robert forget try and get this song out of your mind go through all the basics I know everyone not everyone's in favour of it but I'm going to say that since years ago I started gain staging that improved my mixes and I know there's lots of really logical reasons as to why you don't really need to and all that but I just think as an exercise get right back to that gain stage turn all of your effects off everything off get everything plain obviously your guitars can have their their amp sims on but start from scratch like that and I think you may get somewhere if you do that and if you do want to try this and I've said it many many times I know most people start with the bass and the drums drums in the bass and they get that and they work from the bottom up I favour starting off with the vocal getting it in its pocket it's usually a unity gain and then bringing things up underneath the vocal that's my favourite approach it works for me if you haven't tried that you may try that out yourself Robert like I say I can't promise it but yeah start from scratch and and go through all the good stuff but basic disciplines gain staging static mix then moving on to automation of course is hugely important on this track massively important you won't get anywhere with this track without automation on instruments and also automation on the mastering as well on this one is you're gonna need it but I know I've waffled on but I do want to say one thing though it held me for the six minutes and considering it was not a great mix it did hold me and that's what I want to say to you Robert that's really that's why you should put the effort into this this song is worth putting the effort into yes some other songs you could go you know what let's move on this one's worth remixing and getting the best out of it that's my two cents worth that was a lot wasn't it yeah I don't know I don't I mean we don't know where in the learning curve he is in terms of mixing because this is a complicated song it's not easy and you know you're gonna get the evidence evidence guarantee I mean it's an evidence esque song right so there's going to be a certain expectation quality now from a perspective of learning it's a great track to tackle but it's also complicated because you know he'll go at it again and some of the reasons why he reached this kind of mix in the first place he has to sort of address that and figure out well what don't I get and you you touch on like gain staging but there's a lot of technical things that could just be gibberish if he doesn't understand what they are so you know I would be patient I would use this track as a good learning vehicle and take the time to sort of build up your knowledge on how certain sonic quality and textures that maybe you just aren't able to because you don't know how because you may end up in a similar place the second time around definitely start from scratch with my best advice you could have given for when I started mixing is a song that I based my learning on and I must have tweaked it for two years and I realized the problem was is I was tweaking a bad mix and then it's funny I got a real drummer to play on it and I'm actually mixing it now three years later again and fresh approach and real drums on it so and now with three years more experience I think the track will be better just because of the learning that I've done in the last three years so don't discount the time it takes to use the song as a sort of your material because there's a great material in there to mix yeah that's what the other thing and Dan's kind of reminded me of this Robert a subject I haven't touched on much on the channel I mentioned it in my last video a little bit but look into Robert masking and the whole area of masking and the issues that it causes because this is one of those songs where there is a lot of instruments in this which will occupy a somewhat similar frequency space and look you can have the effect of adding everything in there and losing an awful lot because you haven't taken care of carving out spaces in those frequency ranges for particular instruments to shine in it's not an easy thing it's not an easy it's probably why I haven't made many videos about it because just tackling it as a subject is is is not straightforward but definitely look into that Robert and yeah you'll learn through this process as we all do with every mix I think that was really good I'm really happy that you know I actually put this song on the show because I thought it was good my first listen to it was oh this is good this that's I go on that sort of gut instinct sometimes you know obviously I'm listening to many many many songs that have been submitted one after the other and some just kind of poke their head up and go hey I'm interesting and that's why this one was on the show but I'm kind of glad that we've been able to look at it in the way we have and find some things it's really helpful to all of us in a way subject matters and thoughts which are helpful to all of us and we're all still learning you know in this process and as Dan reminds me I'm going to do that show one day where I'll get the guests music and we listen to some of that and we might we might we may hang our own heads in shame here now talking about other shows I just want to say quickly for those of you thank you so much who've been in the live chat always great to see all of you here you contribute so much as well in the live chat there's some insights in there there's some camaraderie great to see you there and it's been a pleasure to have you if you're watching on the replay there's a lot of people watch on the replay actually most people watch this show on the replay I want to say to you your comments would be most welcome any comments you want to make on the replay about the particular songs I know you're probably skipping forward and and what have you and skipping over the fascinating chat and just going straight to the songs but um but yeah let's know what your thoughts are about especially I'm going to say especially that last song I'd like to hear some more comments about how people think that mix could be improved and what Robert could do you know so that would be that would be great but I do want to thank everyone who submitted their songs to date yes so about next week's show that's what I was going to talk about I'll waffle it on and so I've got a different guest I've not had on the show at all before and that's because next week is a cakewalk show so I'm we usually have a lot of cakewalk stuff on there but I'm specifically only having cakewalk songs on next show and that's because I have another music youtuber on who is a cakewalk man and some of you will know him he's in the facebook group and everything and his name is is xel oh I hope I've pronounced it correctly xel oh um he's got a channel which I don't know how long his channel has been around for I sort of noticed it for the first time about a year ago um he has got some wonderful knowledge comes from a sort of more of a hip hop and rap background um so that should be interesting because we don't really have any guests on the show come from that kind of background so I'll be interested to see his perspective when he's listening to some music which may or may not be from from that genre but yeah he's a great guy and he's got a great channel and it's good I don't really know him well I'll be meeting him for the first time next week as well on the show so I'm really looking forward to that and for people who live in parts of the world a long way away from me who live in the Americas especially the show is going to be at quite a different time um because it's going to be during your evening time which is going to be a Friday morning for me strangely enough but uh but yes it'll be for people like Dan in fact it will be during the evening time so um it's a quite different show time um and we if you if you can join me I'd love to see if you're in the live chat now if you're watching the replay love to see you there gentlemen it is always a pleasure to have you on the show I'm going to say it again folks check out the link to Dan's channel he's got some go check out that uh the one about that we mentioned about the the um fuse audio channel strip awesome I'm gonna be checking that one again I watched half of it yesterday also check out Dan's channel Dan's video about recording guitars using that um audio interface the id four mark two so he's got a couple of great videos there for you to check out and also make sure you follow the link in the description for Ricky T Brown's what's the name of your Facebook home recording studio zone home recording studio zone my brain always goes home studio zone recording I don't know why yeah I know dyslexic man stupid I'm so dumb anyway there you go I'll never get it I'll never get it just it'll just be the zone I know I know I totally agree it's just it's too much man we're gonna have to look at that Ricky Ricky Ricky there's things I'd like to tell people about you but I can't tell them about I can't I'm so excited about it there's something I'm really excited about and I can't tell people about it no no you just keep it under wraps all I'm gonna say is people stay tuned stay tuned okay stay tuned until at least 2022 I know you can't tell somewhere between anywhere in December great to have you thanks so much for everyone who's been there we are going to say goodbye and the final word today goes to Ricky another great show this week and yeah for that last track I just wanted one more for that last track beautiful song let's mix it