I’ve reached a point in the Restraint remix project where I’m actually rather sick of hearing these songs. So I’ve moved onto some other tracks.
I have an EP, titled 「風の歌を聴け」, that doesn’t have nearly the same instrumentation as Restraint (except for the title track — that remix is going to take time), but I find I’m taking as much time on those songs as the more complex ones.
What really bogged things down was listening to my tracks on my iPod. I realized I didn’t really account for depth in any of my remixes. So how do you create the perception of depth in the stereo field? You can put instruments on the left or on the right, but there’s no knob for front to back.
Pretty much, it’s sleight of hand — making the effects processors create the illusion of depth. (I won’t bore you with the details.) It’s quite a pain, especially since it’s the first time I’ve tried it, and I don’t get the sense what I’m doing is working.
I like to think I’m improving with all this studio stuff, though. In the past, I would just use whatever preset sounded good. Today, I actually bypassed the preset on a plug-in that improves the sound quality of vocal tracks. I used my own EQ, and I figured out an esoteric feature not common in other such processors.
Cover your mouth when you yawn, thank you.
All that to say I’m still learning. My stuff still doesn’t really sound professional, but it sounds far better than five years ago, when I made first steps into this consuming realm. I do hope I get to the point where I can make something amazing.