[ music] Whale - Desert

new remixed and mastered version.
https://soundcloud.com/peter-van-de-woestijne/whale

Hello
I’ve been a fan of your music and this one is very good indeed . Reminds me of my own piece Humpback of Waterdame which like your piece was about whales ,so yeah I liked your piece very much. the synth in the second part was a little on the harsh side taking the chill away a little bit. was that intentional? anyhow even with that, it was great. :wink:
here’s a link to my song, I had added a little BBC footage to accompany it as well (I hope it’s within copyright usage laws).

Thanks Masoomi for listening and your reply.
I am experimenting with a different workflow . I prepare and mix an ableton project realtime mixing and exporting it into cubase and add tracks there.
I try not to use any quantisation . Currently i am studying on improving my mastering. Use Wavelab 10 for that. I don’t want my music becoming loud and try not to join the loudness hype. Mastering tutorials are great on the sound on sound channel on you tube so there’s a lot to learn.

regards Peter

Hi Peter, beautiful, once again. It all flows in an ambient way, which is what you’re after. One thing I noticed is that starting at 2:32, there is a crackle introduced, which I hear up until about 4 minutes. From the standpoint of mastering, I am no expert. But I would say that your overall piece is lower in volume than others. No problem for me. I use Izotope, not Wavelab. I would agree with Masoomi that the introduction of the synth was a little harsh. Second time through with the synth was milder. I’m not against quantizing per se, but I don’t hear anything that bothers me in that respect, so it’s good. Thanks for posting. I hope there’s a day where you, Masoomi, and I can meet at the Leidseplein for a beer to have a deeper discussion.

thanx for the excellent ears ! you’re right there is a digital crackle I think from the spdf connection between my Motu mk4 and my older motu A/I 20 with an in the mean time obsolete motu 308 device. So I wil change my workflow and wil give it another try importing the files in a different way.
I think my loss of hi frequent sounds due to age I fear😔 is worse than I thought .
So i will remove the track and come up with a better version later.

My high frequency hearing may not be any better than yours; it was very faint. I have found in some of the live recordings of my band that there are hums and crackles, and they’re usually masked by other stuff, but I thought it might help to mention one other mastering tool that I use: Izotope RX6. There’s a newer version, but I have version 6. I originally got it for some of my classical concert recordings, and found it to be really really good at eliminating hums from heating, a/c systems, and in one venue, the LED lighting system. I even used it to remove coughs from a 20 minute piece, but that was a painstaking effort! Then when working on some band recordings, I noticed hums in certain instruments, and it’s like an eraser. Just takes the hum out with almost no impact to the original sound. There’s a de-crackle plug in; I’ll bet it would eliminate it completely.

changed the workflow exporting Ableton as stem files into cubase and remixed it.
Mastering it with wavelab, experimenting with the gain strukture, EQ and loudness.
A complex but interesting process, still a lot to learn.!
new uploaded file in soundcloud

https://soundcloud.com/peter-van-de-woestijne/whale

Music to chill by, this sent me off way above the clouds, very relaxing and don’t we all just love wales…

Peter, great job on the whole thing. I’ve been watching the SoS Mastering Essentials YouTubes as well. Kinda makes you want to get the latest WaveLab. I have an old WaveLab Elements version from a long time ago, but I am using Izotope now. Anyway, the composition is exactly what you want it to be, and the the recording is pristine. Just love it.

Very Nice Peter, great use of sounds and build ups etc. Sorta of like waves moving in and out…bottom end was very warm too!
Kenny