Finally, I am pleased to report that the mixing of Architect of Light is now complete. From tomorrow, I will be spending as long as it takes on the production master before I am happy with its readiness.
To that end, I am pencilling in Mon 3rd November as the release date.
The mixing process went better than I had anticipated, which was a relief: those long tracks are terribly tricky to get right! As well as the music, I am revamping the artwork and creating an exclusive downloadable package to go with it, too.
Look out, shortly, for more extracts on Soundcloud.
2 responses to “Architect of Light – Mixing Complete”
Hi Allen, thanks for taking the time to comment! I, too, have gone CD free: I find it strangely liberating and empowering to know that I can play what I want when I want on whatever I want wherever I am! No longer restricted to the few CDs I can cram into the car. As for the drums, the story here is that they were recorded on Cubase by Chris then exported to Roland VS-2480. This was before I became totally immersed in PC based recording. Anyway, I mixed the drums into a stereo pair using a pre-set compression thing (don’t laugh!) which I thought at the time made them sound great. In reality, it squashed the living daylights out of them with all performance nuance lost in the process. We live and learn, though. The new version is the same drums tracks, but mixed on the PC (with REAPER!) and properly given the time and care they should have had back then instead of relying on a pre-set to do the work for me. I use Addictive Drums for pre-production, by the way. This is a great piece of software and is pretty good for getting the basic sketch of a piece into place before passing to Chris or, latterly, Joe. Got another clip clip coming later tonight . . . . !
Hi Stephen! First, I REALLY appreciate your lovely comment on my song “When Morning Comes.” That means a lot to me, especially coming from an experienced pro such as yourself. Much of the music I’ve released is just solo Native American flute, but I’ve done a fair number of tunes that feature full accompaniment as well. Finding the right arrangement is always the most challenging aspect of the whole process, I find. That said, I enjoy every single second that I spend creating music, and it would seem that you are much the same in that regard.
I’m thoroughly enjoying the Soundcloud clips you’ve posted from the remastered “Architect of Light” release. The improvement in the drum department is particularly stunning. I’m guessing the original drum tracks were either converted to midi files, or they were triggered from an electronic kit to start with and you did the “side chain” thing to replace them … or something else? Are you using Toontrack’s EZDrummer or Superior Drummer? I have that program and like it a lot. I’ll be first in line to get the remastered version of this when it’s ready to be (re)unleashed on the musically-minded public. I go for 320 kbps digital downloads these days as I’ve found I listen to music more in that format. I don’t have any kind of hi-fi system & got rid of my 2000 + CD collection some time ago as it took up too much space, collected too much dust, and was a royal pain whenever I had to move house!
May you continue to follow your Muse (is that phrase now too cliche?) in recording and releasing the music that moves and inspires you.
All the best,
Allen Bruce Ray
Chuncheon, South Korea