krist wrote:Incidentally, I just bought Nomad Factory's Magnetic, which does an amazing job at recreating all those cool analog tape characteristics - it was like instantly being taken back 15 years ago when I first tried it.
Magnetic looks intriguing, as do the various BBE devices and the Analog Echo Box, and I will do some experiments with them . . .
At present, I am having a lot of FUN with Timeless 2 (FabFilter Software Instruments), which is a stellar advanced echo unit and definitely is an upcoming purchase, since the instrumental stuff is coming along nicely and I am shifting my focus to vocal processing, which in many respects is completely different from instrument processing . . .
As part of my focus on music notation, arranging, producing, mixing, and mastering, I am creating a "system" or "formula", where the overall goal is to develop an unique sound and set of well-defined and verified techniques for doing everything, which has been an ongoing project for the past few years . . .
Currently, it takes somewhere in the range of three months to do a song, but once the vocal processing aspect is defined, it will take less time, and the overall goal is to be able to do a song in a few days or a week, which should be possible . . .
Calibrating the loudspeaker monitors here in the sound isolation studio has made a huge difference, and it makes it possible to get the bass and drumkit stuff fine-tuned, especially since I discovered how to use CSR Classik Studio Reverb on snare drum rimshots . . .
I use approximately 10 stereo tracks for bass instruments and perhaps 20 stereo tracks for drumkits and Latin percussion instruments, and now that I can hear everything clearly it is becoming easier to identify the "system" or "formula" for these key instruments, and it also makes it easier to discover how to position specific instruments in definite locations in what I call the "Spherical Sonic Landscape™", where for example in "Feel Me" (The Surf Whammys) one of the kick drums appears at top-right during the verses, while one of the three snare drums is doing rimshots at far mid-left and there is a growling bowed contrabass section at far lower-left, which is easiest to hear when you listen with studio quality headphones like the SONY MDR-7506 (
a personal favorite), which is fabulous . . .
[
NOTE: I need to add the backup harmony vocals and real lead guitar solos, but otherwise the song is complete . . . ]
"Feel Me" (The Surf Whammys) -- July 28, 2011 -- MP3 (8MB, 300-kbps [VBR], approximately 3 minutes and 38 seconds)Fabulous! It took me approximately nine month to discover how to do what I call "sparkles", which primarily are synthesizers that have notes which move rapidly across what I call the "rainbow panning arc" and activate the frontal eye fields (FEF) region of the brain, as well as the auditory cortex, of course . . .
Lots of FUN! 
P. S. Being a popular artist might be interesting for a while, but considering that I am old enough to be Justin Bieber's grandfather, being a songwriter works just as well for me and probably is more practical in the grand scheme of everything . . .
Composing songs is no more difficult for me than writing prose, hence the focus on making sense of all the music notation, arranging, producing, mixing, and mastering stuff, which essentially is like formatting and typesetting a song and makes it easier for folks to hear everything, really . . .
Really! 
