Fretless

Mandy, here is an interesting situation: listen to the opening bars of your mix with the bass and compare it to this one. What is different? The answer is that our timing - the rhythm guitar and the bass - is different. Don't worry as this is going to turn out fine and be a great practical lesson in using Melodyne! I did not play the C#m G#m F#m E of the introduction and the the choruses with two quarter notes (two crochets) on each chord, as you did and could reasonably summised from the song structure, but rather, I played C#m and F#m for 1.5 beats and G#m and E for 2.5 beats. Here is a link to a screen shot of the bass audio and also in Melodyne https://app.box.com/s/vjvnr2u1hur291pr6inpyuki53so41q8 Let me start with one extra thing: look at the start of the bars shown in Melodyne and it looks as though the bass starts just before each bar. That is because it sounded odd to me yet when I moved the whole audio passage in my DAW so that the bass starts early, it sits (for me, at least) nicely in the groove. If you look at the audio in the pink bar you can see that the bass notes hit their peak at the start of each bar. Okay, to Melodyne. In bar 26 you can see I have one note selected. I have option-dragged (I'm using a Mac) the start point half a beat to the left, ie. earlier, timewise. That needs to be done to every note that falls on beat 3 in bars where the guitar was strummed - the intro and choruses. Ordinarily we might have said to re-record the bass to match the rhythm of the guitar but as you are relatively new to Melodyne and this is a simple task, I thought you might appreciate a chance to get to know Melodyne better.

Mandy, on box.com I have put 4 files for you to import and see what happens - they are uploading right now. Set your Garageband project to 112bpm and then import all 4 and see which ones play back at 112bpm and which, if any, don't. My DAW, a 2009 version of Logic, copes with different bit rates ok but if the sample rate of the audio I am importing is different to the project's sample rate then there will be a tempo mismatch. Now I know I check before importing; it will help you to know what Garageband is capable of or not.

Mandy, explore importing and exporting 24 bit as that is a significant improvement over 16 bit. I recall that Greg tends to export 24 bit 44.1kHz. By all means use me to test or check your exports or to provide files to import. NB. I have updated the rhythm guitar track, by adding a muted rhythm to the existing one.

Yes, palm muted using the 3rd and 4th strings and two notes from each chord. I am less than happy with the choruses and as sson as I get a chance I may have another go to get something that fits better with the verses and solo. Great! Which DAW are you using and at what bit rate (eg. 24 or 16 bit), frequency (eg. 48 or 44.1kHz) and file format (eg. WAV, AIFF) do we need to use when exporting our tracks?

Here is my rhythm guitar track, MP3 or AAC. The click track I played to runs throughout. It starts with 2 bars (8 clicks) and then into the song's intro. It's a bit different - I could hear a synth pad or something filling in behind the guitar on the verses and solo. Let's see how the other parts go. When we get someone to mix I can upload better quality versions. While we are waiting for a volunteer I can provide mixes for each step.

On the basis that after 3 days we have no volunteers and I have just heard that our band practice tomorrow has been cancelled, if you can write a song structure (ideally before you go to bed tonight), Mandy, then I will do my best to record a guitar track tomorrow.

Can I do no. 5, the lyrics and song title?

Well mixed, Greg. Well managed, Mandy.

This is the version of the song I first heard - a very impressive presentation but quite different in the skills department to Mike Dawes.

Greg, there are two versions of the lead guitar track on box.com: GG2-lead-original.wav is the recorded sound which includes guitar pedals, and GG2-lead-mixed.wav is the mixed version with EQ, delay and more reverb added. Use whichever you prefer. PS. Could you upload a copy of the vocal track, please? I like to mix my own version but I don't have a vocal track on its own? Many thanks.

Play-along CDs - tempos

I don't feel qualified but certainly I will give it a go. Give me a few days to think of and record something.

So Mandy is our in-house computer expert. Brilliant!

In case anyone would like to hear Greg's rough mix which consists of rhythm guitar, drums, bass and vocals, here it is.

We started this collaboration in March and now it is May and no one has yet volunteered. Does someone want to jump in and volunteer today? Please, do, you are welcome, but if not, I will pick this up tomorrow.

I played your rough mix to Mrs. Fretless and her comment was that the vocals and the music don't sound like they were played or recorded in the same place. You could try scaling down that slight pan and bit of delay and reverb further or apply a hint of it to some of the instruments to bring them closer together. As usual, great vocals, Greg. Well done! What's next, Mandy?

Sorry, Greg, but I cannot see your rough mix. Is it in Mandy's GG Collaborations? What is the file called?

That (to me) is an unbelievable price, and to think, Goerge gave it away (donated it). This one sold for a much more realistic price. By all means bump it up by a few hundred as it belonged to George a long time ago. Is the widow greedy or are guitarists really that rich and gullible?

Good work, CapM. I have been listening to you improve over the last handful of years, getting better and better. Well done!

60% - 2 I knew and 4 lucky guesses.

Melodyne is better known for its auto-tuning ability but it can also do time correction. I tried the auto-correction but there were too many notes that sounded worse afterwards that I decided to go through and do each note by hand (and check by ear). With auto-correction you can choose which notes or apply correction to the whole piece at once and you have a pecentage correction slider so, yes, you can leave notes not quite computer-accurate if you prefer. Doing it by hand I drag the start point of each chord to where I want each one to start and then would listen to each bar afterwards to check my work. From memory there are 3 Melodyne packages - Essential, the one I have, is the cheapest - and you can always upgrade from a lesser one to a greater one. Celemony (or something like) that is the company that publishes Melodyne software.

You are too kind, Mandy. Thanks.

It is no secret and I promised Mandy that I would explain my mixing techniques. I used a plug-in called Melodyne Essential (the cheapest of Melodyne's offerings so I don't have all the tools in the video below). The neat thing is that you can drag notes or their start or finish points to where you want them.

I clearly missed some news as I was not aware that Mandy could not play guitar when I suggested it. Sorry. Because of the trouble Mandy had, my reparation was to spend yesterday adjusting the timing of Mandy's Brit Clean guitar track so that it sits tighter to the beat, like this (for gotto if he chooses to use this in the final mix): https://app.box.com/s/wuipare0ljypbbl0tjydhp4ud0id8u6c Using the adjusted guitar track I then did the drum track (which gotto will want for the final mix): https://app.box.com/s/ax4rr2fwl6jojoip5wv13wex26frhfsy Guitar and drum tracks together sound like this: https://app.box.com/s/bt4qz6g9lvdz30u3py9ytn91feclwt5d Mandy, I am guessing that an AAC (.m4a) file will be what you want so that you can import it into GarageBand, in order to do the bass track - if you are up to it. Here you go: https://app.box.com/s/lknk9c6hqdk5dham2w74izq3suxz8is4

Mantonanjin, I think you are so close - as you say, the notes look like D#, G#, C, F#. What if we said that the third note was B# instead of C? Then we would have G#, B#, D#, F# which is G#7/D# or, if you prefer, Ab7/Eb. The other two chords are C7 and Eb7. Edit: I seem to be repeating DianeB!