Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

The xx7 effects sound really thin to me. Perhaps there is something being 
lost in the conversion to mp3, but mine sounds the same way straight out 
of the headphone jack. Everything is crisp and bright and dynamic but 
thin. 

>>>Well, I hope no one has too high of an opinion of the effects 
themselves, I mean they are part of a 'groovebox', and not a dedicated 
rackmount unit.  Personally I think the effects are pretty good sounding, 
I know I was certainly expecting a lot worse.  I agree, they do sound very 
clean and crisp, but lack warmth, which is to be expected from a box that 
is doing sequencing, and synthesis at the same time and costs less than 
$999.  What makes them so flexible I think, is the excellent routing 
system Emu uses, which I know a lot of people don't care for (probably 
because they don't understand it fully).

One thing I wish Emu would add, is some more bizarre effects, or 
combinations, as the current ones are pretty tame, not very exciting in 
dance context at least.  How about a Flange/Phaser + Delay?  Sound 
Chopper?  I think that stuff like that would be better than say all the 
distortion combinations that are included, and seem to be to be largely 
not usable in the context of a mix. <<<

I would be interested to know what you did when mastering the "proper mix" 
as it sounds a bit fuller.

>>>Yeah hopefully the Proper Mix sounds fuller, that was the point! :) The 
original was just recorded straight from the XL into my computer, then 
converted to an MP3 (Lame Encoder, by far the best MP3 encoder, and it's 
free!).  The proper mix had a lot more MIDI work done in Cubase, as I 
initially copied the original arrangement, then proceeded to add a new 
track, and draw in lots of fills and drum rolls and such.  A lot more 
velocity variations (builds and fades) were drawn in too.  Once I was 
happy with the arrangement, I then imported all of the tracks one at a 
time into the computer as 24 bit/44.1kHz audio files (via that handy 
S/PDIF port) and used Wavelab 4.0 to eliminate the small bits of DC Offset 
(like 0.004%) that were present in the files. 

Then I set up a rough mix to get a feel for how everything was gelling 
together.  I added a nice warm EQ (TL Audio's wonderful EQ-1) to the snare 
to warm it up some, and then added some compression (Blue Plug Ins) to the 
BD, and my shaker roll to help tame some stray peaks.  The bassline 
surprisingly didn't get any treatment.  The reversed sound that starts 
about halfway through the song had a touch of distortion added to it via 
Steinberg's Quadrafuzz, and then a little bit of some GRM Tools plug ins 
too.  I'm sure some of the other tracks got some plug in treatment too, I 
just can't think of them right now.  That pulsing sound in the beginning 
intro was made by drawing in 64th note rolls for the BD, and then applying 
a Phaser plug in set with an LFO rate of 1/2 measure.  Made few more 
changes to the track levels in some places, then exported the final mix.

Mastering.  Once I had the mix done, I took a day off to rest my ears and 
regain my objectivity about how the track sounds.  Good thing too, as when 
I previewed the mix the next day the BD was too quiet and the snare was 
too loud.  Went back to Cubase fixed those things and exported the Mix 
again.  Took into Wavelab, and used Freefilter to gently roll off all 
frequecies below 40Hz, and tame some overly bright HH's with a 1/2dB cut 
around 13kHz (more or less, I forget the exact frequency).  Next up in the 
plug in chain was ME Compressor, which is a multiband affair.  I added 
some 3:1 compression in the low frequencies, everything below 200Hz. 
Tightened up the high end too.  Next was the Loudness Maximizer, one of 
the plug ins responsible for the demise of quality, dynamic music ;)  I 
used it to boost the track a tiny bit, maybe increased the Gain by 1.5 dB, 
with a density setting of 1, and a roll off amount of 3.  after that, I 
applied the plug ins to the file, normalized to -0.1 dB, and then used 
Apogee's UV22 plug in to apply dither before converting to a 16bit wav 
file.  Burned it to CD, and that was it! <<<

rEalm

----- Original Message -----

From: erik_magrini@...

To: xl7@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 7:28 AM

Subject: [xl7] Re: XL-7effects/mastering

The xx7 effects sound really thin to me. Perhaps there is something being lost in the conversion to mp3, but mine sounds the same way straight out of the headphone jack. Everything is crisp and bright and dynamic but thin.

>>>Well, I hope no one has too high of an opinion of the effects themselves, I mean they are part of a 'groovebox', and not a dedicated rackmount unit. Personally I think the effects are pretty good sounding, I know I was certainly expecting a lot worse. I agree, they do sound very clean and crisp, but lack warmth, which is to be expected from a box that is doing sequencing, and synthesis at the same time and costs less than $999. What makes them so flexible I think, is the excellent routing system Emu uses, which I know a lot of people don't care for (probably because they don't understand it fully).

One thing I wish Emu would add, is some more bizarre effects, or combinations, as the current ones are pretty tame, not very exciting in dance context at least. How about a Flange/Phaser + Delay? Sound Chopper? I think that stuff like that would be better than say all the distortion combinations that are included, and seem to be to be largely not usable in the context of a mix. <<<

I would be interested to know what you did when mastering the "proper mix" as it sounds a bit fuller.

>>>Yeah hopefully the Proper Mix sounds fuller, that was the point! :) The original was just recorded straight from the XL into my computer, then converted to an MP3 (Lame Encoder, by far the best MP3 encoder, and it's free!). The proper mix had a lot more MIDI work done in Cubase, as I initially copied the original arrangement, then proceeded to add a new track, and draw in lots of fills and drum rolls and such. A lot more velocity variations (builds and fades) were drawn in too. Once I was happy with the arrangement, I then imported all of the tracks one at a time into the computer as 24 bit/44.1kHz audio files (via that handy S/PDIF port) and used Wavelab 4.0 to eliminate the small bits of DC Offset (like 0.004%) that were present in the files.

Then I set up a rough mix to get a feel for how everything was gelling together. I added a nice warm EQ (TL Audio's wonderful EQ-1) to the snare to warm it up some, and then added some compression (Blue Plug Ins) to the BD, and my shaker roll to help tame some stray peaks. The bassline surprisingly didn't get any treatment. The reversed sound that starts about halfway through the song had a touch of distortion added to it via Steinberg's Quadrafuzz, and then a little bit of some GRM Tools plug ins too. I'm sure some of the other tracks got some plug in treatment too, I just can't think of them right now. That pulsing sound in the beginning intro was made by drawing in 64th note rolls for the BD, and then applying a Phaser plug in set with an LFO rate of 1/2 measure. Made few more changes to the track levels in some places, then exported the final mix.

Mastering. Once I had the mix done, I took a day off to rest my ears and regain my objectivity about how the track sounds. Good thing too, as when I previewed the mix the next day the BD was too quiet and the snare was too loud. Went back to Cubase fixed those things and exported the Mix again. Took into Wavelab, and used Freefilter to gently roll off all frequecies below 40Hz, and tame some overly bright HH's with a 1/2dB cut around 13kHz (more or less, I forget the exact frequency). Next up in the plug in chain was ME Compressor, which is a multiband affair. I added some 3:1 compression in the low frequencies, everything below 200Hz. Tightened up the high end too. Next was the Loudness Maximizer, one of the plug ins responsible for the demise of quality, dynamic music ;) I used it to boost the track a tiny bit, maybe increased the Gain by 1.5 dB, with a density setting of 1, and a rol! l ! off amount of 3. after that, I applied the plug ins to the file, normalized to -0.1 dB, and then used Apogee's UV22 plug in to apply dither before converting to a 16bit wav file. Burned it to CD, and that was it! <<<

rEalm


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What do you mean? Freefilter, EQ-1, ME compressor, and Loudness Maximizer 
are all pro quality mastering effects.

rEalm





"divisionstreet13" <divisionstreet13@...>
04/18/02 09:35 AM
Please respond to xl7

 
        To:     <xl7@yahoogroups.com>
        cc: 

        Subject:        Re: [xl7] Re: XL-7effects/mastering


try mastering effects
 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: erik_magrini@... 
To: xl7@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 7:28 AM
Subject: [xl7] Re: XL-7effects/mastering





The xx7 effects sound really thin to me. Perhaps there is something being 
lost in the conversion to mp3, but mine sounds the same way straight out 
of the headphone jack. Everything is crisp and bright and dynamic but 
thin. 

>>>Well, I hope no one has too high of an opinion of the effects 
themselves, I mean they are part of a 'groovebox', and not a dedicated 
rackmount unit.  Personally I think the effects are pretty good sounding, 
I know I was certainly expecting a lot worse.  I agree, they do sound very 
clean and crisp, but lack warmth, which is to be expected from a box that 
is doing sequencing, and synthesis at the same time and costs less than 
$999.  What makes them so flexible I think, is the excellent routing 
system Emu uses, which I know a lot of people don't care for (probably 
because they don't understand it fully). 

One thing I wish Emu would add, is some more bizarre effects, or 
combinations, as the current ones are pretty tame, not very exciting in 
dance context at least.  How about a Flange/Phaser + Delay?  Sound 
Chopper?  I think that stuff like that would be better than say all the 
distortion combinations that are included, and seem to be to be largely 
not usable in the context of a mix. <<< 

I would be interested to know what you did when mastering the "proper mix" 
as it sounds a bit fuller. 

>>>Yeah hopefully the Proper Mix sounds fuller, that was the point! :) The 
original was just recorded straight from the XL into my computer, then 
converted to an MP3 (Lame Encoder, by far the best MP3 encoder, and it's 
free!).  The proper mix had a lot more MIDI work done in Cubase, as I 
initially copied the original arrangement, then proceeded to add a new 
track, and draw in lots of fills and drum rolls and such.  A lot more 
velocity variations (builds and fades) were drawn in too.  Once I was 
happy with the arrangement, I then imported all of the tracks one at a 
time into the computer as 24 bit/44.1kHz audio files (via that handy 
S/PDIF port) and used Wavelab 4.0 to eliminate the small bits of DC Offset 
(like 0.004%) that were present in the files.   

Then I set up a rough mix to get a feel for how everything was gelling 
together.  I added a nice warm EQ (TL Audio's wonderful EQ-1) to the snare 
to warm it up some, and then added some compression (Blue Plug Ins) to the 
BD, and my shaker roll to help tame some stray peaks.  The bassline 
surprisingly didn't get any treatment.  The reversed sound that starts 
about halfway through the song had a touch of distortion added to it via 
Steinberg's Quadrafuzz, and then a little bit of some GRM Tools plug ins 
too.  I'm sure some of the other tracks got some plug in treatment too, I 
just can't think of them right now.  That pulsing sound in the beginning 
intro was made by drawing in 64th note rolls for the BD, and then applying 
a Phaser plug in set with an LFO rate of 1/2 measure.  Made few more 
changes to the track levels in some places, then exported the final mix. 

Mastering.  Once I had the mix done, I took a day off to rest my ears and 
regain my objectivity about how the track sounds.  Good thing too, as when 
I previewed the mix the next day the BD was too quiet and the snare was 
too loud.  Went back to Cubase fixed those things and exported the Mix 
again.  Took into Wavelab, and used Freefilter to gently roll off all 
frequecies below 40Hz, and tame some overly bright HH's with a 1/2dB cut 
around 13kHz (more or less, I forget the exact frequency).  Next up in the 
plug in chain was ME Compressor, which is a multiband affair.  I added 
some 3:1 compression in the low frequencies, everything below 200Hz. 
Tightened up the high end too.  Next was the Loudness Maximizer, one of 
the plug ins responsible for the demise of quality, dynamic music ;)  I 
used it to boost the track a tiny bit, maybe increased the Gain by 1.5 dB, 
with a density setting of 1, and a rol! l ! off amount of 3.  after that, 
I applied the plug ins to the file, normalized to -0.1 dB, and then used 
Apogee's UV22 plug in to apply dither before converting to a 16bit wav 
file.  Burned it to CD, and that was it! <<< 

rEalm 


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> >>>Well, I hope no one has too high of an opinion of the effects 
> themselves, I mean they are part of a 'groovebox', and not a 
dedicated 
> rackmount unit.  

No dissapointment here. I am definitely getting my moneys worth out 
of this machine.

> One thing I wish Emu would add, is some more bizarre effects, or 
> combinations, as the current ones are pretty tame, not very 
exciting in 
> dance context at least.  How about a Flange/Phaser + Delay?  Sound 
> Chopper?  I think that stuff like that would be better than say all 
the 
> distortion combinations that are included, and seem to be to be 
largely 
> not usable in the context of a mix. <<<

I think this goes back to the patch editing discussions last month. 
The sound engine in the xl-7 is aimed at people who already have some 
production gear, rather than the bedroom DJ set.
> 
> 
> >>>Yeah hopefully the Proper Mix sounds fuller, that was the 
point! :) 

WOW that was a lot of work. Its a good thing it was worth it :) I am 
very impressed how clean that track sounds considering the amount of 
processing you did. I may have to rethink some plugin purchases. 
There is still more dynamic range than most techno and the usual 
compression muddiness is ... well.. clear. I agree, basslines out of 
the xl-7 do not require much processing. I think my downstairs is 
getting a little grumpy.

--Ezra

I think this goes back to the patch editing discussions last month. The 
sound engine in the xl-7 is aimed at people who already have some 
production gear, rather than the bedroom DJ set.

>>>Hmm, gotta disgree here to an extent.  While I believe you're right 
that the sound engine in the XL-7 is definitely pro-spec, the point of a 
box such as the XX-7's, is to be all inclusive.  IF Emu thought only 
people with other sequencer gear were going to use the XX-7's, they could 
have stuck to just sound modules, and not even put effects in the boxes. 
<<<<

WOW that was a lot of work. 

>>>Actaully that's pretty typical of how I do my songs.  I used to churn 
out a song a week, if not more, but I find the more time I spend on a 
tune, the better it sounds (to a point, you still have to keep moving 
forward while writing). <<<

I am very impressed how clean that track sounds considering the amount of 
processing you did. I may have to rethink some plugin purchases. There is 
still more dynamic range than most techno and the usual compression 
muddiness is ... well.. clear.

>>>Honestly it's this aspect of recording and producing that interests me 
the most.  Getting nice big, clean sounds is very important to me, and 
largely comes down many times to a less is more aspect.  I used to go 
crazy with my plug ins, and while it can be fun, it often leads to a 
muddied mix, or loss of depth and space in the song.  Subtle effects used 
sparingly can be more attention grabbing that off the wall stuff happening 
though out the entire tune. Other tips?

1. Always record at 24 bit or 32 if you can, it gives you much more head 
room when it's time to mix.
2. Record your tracks as loud as possible initially without clipping.
3. Use EQ (cut, don't boost) and panning to give each sound it's own sonic 
space, panning in particular is one thing most people don't take enough 
advantage of.
4. Use effects sparingly, and try to keep delay times and reverb tails 
short.  Less chance of clutter later on. <<<

rEalm