just a reminder, tomorrow is the final deadline for this cover.

I am very sorry for the late post again.  here is my video

I need til the end of the week to complete the mix.  I will post what I have when I get home tonight.  I am working on the balance and EQ of the tracks.

Here is where I am at so far: http://www.mediafire.com/listen/aoqcv7n4yhy7y49/Departure_mix1.mp3

Ok here is what I have.  I need everyone's honest opinion on it:

https://www.mediafire.com/?sjquu18mvreofb0

magician422 wrote:Ok here is what I have.  I need everyone's honest opinion on it:

https://www.mediafire.com/?sjquu18mvreofb0

Is it just me or are there no vocals right now? It sounds like the instrumental track, but other than that the levels are pretty good. LOL

Oops, uploaded the wrong one

Ok, lets try this:

https://www.mediafire.com/?y4t5wzr856h0zty

magician422 wrote:Ok, lets try this:

https://www.mediafire.com/?y4t5wzr856h0zty

Overall it's a very balanced mix. If I had to nitpick, the music box in the beginning was raised in tamber, and it affected the lead-in strings as a result, but that's actually my fault because the recording was a bit funky, so it can't be helped. The instruments as a whole are very damp in general, but I think that it helped balance the peaking coming from the cymbals and rhythm guitar. Other than that, this sounds like the most legit Departure cover I've heard, and I'm not being biased. 

Also doumo arigatou for correcting the areas in my drum track when I was off rhythm, haha .please. Great job @magician422! (and everyone else)

good job with the mixing! my only problem is that the mix has too much low end, maybe you can high-pass the bass track a bit? 
also, i agree with marco that the music box in the beginning could be lowered down, kinda hurt my ears.

In overall, really great job. I agree with marco and madeindar, the music box at the beginning hurts haha The whole instruments are dump which not help my track which is already pretty damp. I also noticed that all tracks are in only one channel and it sounds messy in some parts, for me. I just can't distinguish cymbals and rhythm track

Can a passer-by comment too? ^^

I note the three comments above about the bassy tone for the guitar and bass tracks which I agree with, and because of that I can barely hear Noodle's rhythm guitar in the mix (I had to use a pair of monitoring headphones to actually hear his guitar). I understand you don't put all instruments in the same level in a mix but his rhythm guitar almost sounds non-existent.

Any updates on the mix?

Hey Guy  hope to see your cover soon  

Goodluck ^_^

3rd try:

https://www.mediafire.com/?j7s8fms3tc689d9

magician422 wrote:3rd try:

https://www.mediafire.com/?j7s8fms3tc689d9

Definitely less damp. I can hear the rhythm guitar and string tracks more clearly now. Great job!

magician422 wrote:3rd try:

https://www.mediafire.com/?j7s8fms3tc689d9

Definitely perfect ! Nothing to add  .clap.

Are you still OK for video editing or do you prefer to be replaced by anyone else ?

If anyone else want to do the video editing, its all theirs.  I've got a wedding to edit and that's going to take up a lot of my time.

magician422 wrote:If anyone else want to do the video editing, its all theirs.  I've got a wedding to edit and that's going to take up a lot of my time.

I've recently bought a plugin for my FCPX and since I wanted to play with it/have a test run, I tried my hand at editing the cover band video.

I have it in 1080p but here's a lo-res .mp4 version. If you like it and wanna use it I'd be well chuffed! ^^ If not, that's fine too!

Note: For this edit I used my own mix of the audio using Garageband. Also, Noodles doesn't have his video for this, so there's no visuals of him on the edit (obviously) but he has been credited for his role as the rhythm guitarist of the cover band. Also, not jumping the gun here - if you do want this vid and Noodles have a video done, I should be able to add it in the cut.

Spoiler:

kudo_maharizu wrote:

magician422 wrote:If anyone else want to do the video editing, its all theirs.  I've got a wedding to edit and that's going to take up a lot of my time.

I've recently bought a plugin for my FCPX and since I wanted to play with it/have a test run, I tried my hand at editing the cover band video.

I have it in 1080p but here's a lo-res .mp4 version. If you like it and wanna use it I'd be well chuffed! ^^ If not, that's fine too!

Note: For this edit I used my own mix of the audio using Garageband. Also, Noodles doesn't have his video for this, so there's no visuals of him on the edit (obviously) but he has been credited for his role as the rhythm guitarist of the cover band. Also, not jumping the gun here - if you do want this vid and Noodles have a video done, I should be able to add it in the cut.

Spoiler:

This looks...really freaking cool  .clap. It looks like as if we wrote the song and made our own music video, LOL.

Although we should use magician's mix for the final upload if we go with this video, but I assume that that's what you were alluding to.

marcoatendido wrote:This looks...really freaking cool  .clap. It looks like as if we wrote the song and made our own music video, LOL.

Although we should use magician's mix for the final upload if we go with this video, but I assume that that's what you were alluding to.

Hahaha. Thanks. It was the split screen transition plugin that I wanna try out. Was doing a couple at first but I got hooked and err... ended up doing the whole thing. I prefer cuts and not multiscreens when I do my edits, but there are instances when more than one person does something cool (like a complicated drum roll and a cool bass line simultaneously) - you'd wanna see both.

As I said, it's up to you guys - if you like it and want it that's all right, and if not, that's fine too. The time spent on this wasn't wasted as far as I'm concerned as I'm learning the ropes as it were.

If the band does decide to want this edit - it shouldn't be a problem to replace the audio with magician's mix.

____________________________

The reason I did my own audio mix here was I wanted to split the guitars a bit more to the L+R channels, and to my ears SCANDAL's mix on Departure feels like it's more driven by the drums and the bass. I brought the guitars down a tad and really pumped marco's drums up as best as I could. You can hear Noodles playing on the right when baba is not playing in the first verse for instance, like the actual recording. Also, I re-amped all the guitars - eg baba's guitar are now layered and run through two Marshall heads+2 4x12" cabs, and mic-ed. Noodles' clean guitar is now overdriven, like the actual recording. neopode's tone is a bit fuller. Added a lil' reverb to one of the singers as to match the other who already had it in hers. Sounds like a lot of work, but all these are done with mouse clicks. No heavy equipment involved lol

kudo_maharizu wrote:

marcoatendido wrote:This looks...really freaking cool  .clap. It looks like as if we wrote the song and made our own music video, LOL.

Although we should use magician's mix for the final upload if we go with this video, but I assume that that's what you were alluding to.

Hahaha. Thanks. It was the split screen transition plugin that I wanna try out. Was doing a couple at first but I got hooked and err... ended up doing the whole thing. I prefer jump cuts when I do my edits, but there are instances when more than one person does something cool (like a complicated drum roll and a cool bass line simultaneously) - you'd wanna see both.

As I said, it's up to you guys - if you like it and want it that's all right, and if not, that's fine too. The time spent on this wasn't wasted as far as I'm concerned as I'm learning the ropes as it were.

If the band does decide to want this edit - it shouldn't be a problem to replace the audio with magician's mix.

____________________________

The reason I did my own audio mix here was I wanted to split the guitars a bit more to the L+R channels, and to my ears the real SCANDAL mix feels like it's more driven by the drums and the bass. I brought the guitars down a tad and really pumped marco's drums up as best as I could. You can hear Noodles playing on the right when baba is not playing in the first verse for instance, like the actual recording. Also, I re-amped all the guitars - eg baba's guitar are now layered and run through two Marshall heads+2 4x12" cabs, and mic-ed. Noodles' clean guitar is now overdriven, like the actual recording. neopode's tone is a bit fuller. Added a lil' reverb to one of the singers as to match the other who already had it in hers. Sounds like a lot of work, but all these are done with mouse clicks. No heavy equipment involved lol

Video editing and audio mixing can be subjective sometimes, but it's all good; I understand your reasoning. I like to make my own edits for fun as well.

Now regarding whether or not we should use this video edit, I myself am all for it 

I think that we should use this edit because the cover has been technically overdue already. Plus it looks really professional/kakkoii tbh! Thoughts, @babaloued? (and everyone else)

Audio replaced with magician422's mix. Dragged and dropped. Like my earlier video in the link above, this is also a lower res version (1080p HD version available).

And end credits changed too! ^^

Spoiler:

Sorry for long reply ! I was too concentrated on my anime haha

As marco said, mixing and video editing are subjectives so your mixing, Kudo, is also good. magician was first so we are going to use his mix. Maybe, you can submit for the next cover :D

Video editing is awesome but I have some details to point out:
- Logo is too dark in my opinion
- As it's an "international" cover, it might be good to know which person comes from which country
- How can I say ?... Even if videos switch a lot it might be interesting to make appear all vocals or all intruments in the same time or why not all of us  . For exemple, at around 1:20, make appear all singers.


This cover is soon done and even it's over deadline, it's better than the previous cover haha Except we lost lot of time in the mixing process, feel free to post your feeling about the deadline in the general thread.

babaloued wrote:Sorry for long reply ! I was too concentrated on my anime haha

As marco said, mixing and video editing are subjectives so your mixing, Kudo, is also good. magician was first so we are going to use his mix. Maybe, you can submit for the next cover :D

Video editing is awesome but I have some details to point out:
- Logo is too dark in my opinion
- As it's an "international" cover, it might be good to know which person comes from which country
- How can I say ?... Even if videos switch a lot it might be interesting to make appear all vocals or all intruments in the same time or why not all of us  . For exemple, at around 1:20, make appear all singers.


This cover is soon done and even it's over deadline, it's better than the previous cover haha Except we lost lot of time in the mixing process, feel free to post your feeling about the deadline in the general thread.

Done:
- SH logo brightened a tad.
- country identifier done for each band member (without trying to look like a sports broadcast for the Olympics hehe)

As for the third suggestion, I have to admit I am not a big fan of multi screens (hence the transition effects employed to reduce that element of, if I should say so myself, "tackiness") - just Google the opening sequence to the Brady Bunch to see my point. Actually that is cool, but not for an entire length of a music video. But I digress.

I kinda knew someone'll bring out the issue of 'airtime' but please be assured the amount of screen time a band member gets has its relevance to what he/she is playing/singing at the time, and for visual aesthetic reasons too. Just to give you an idea, a person not singing gets screen time because she is looking at the camera, or the drummer gets screen time because a cool drum roll is being executed, etc you know what I'm getting at.

Anyway, here's the revised edition. See what you guys think:

Spoiler:

PS: magician422 - have you got the audio in AIFF or AAC format?