Making a song working may need milli-acurate mixing

[Heigen5]

This seems to be the case in most of my music. Making a song working, may be up to really small tweaks. So holding a shift down and turning the knobs, seems oftenly a must. Acurate mixing is very challenging, when your sound is clean. As when you have a trashy punk sound, you don't need to be as acurate in comparison.

As a side-question, what kind of alternatives there is to Scream4's Tape?

Cheerz!

[esselfortium]

I think generally if you're feeling the need to make lots of adjustments in increments of less than a decibel or so, your ears are probably fatigued and are hearing things that aren't there.

[chaosroyale]

Pinpoint-accurate mixing is indeed a struggle on Reason. Even using shift, you often can't simply return a fader or knob to zero, or match 2 parameters on identical but separate devices. I have been wishing for "text input of values" since around R4 but no luck. As the other poster says, you often don't need tiny tiny adjustments, but in the case of aligning 2 parallel signals sometimes you really do. Also for workflow if a fader is set to "Zero" that can help you remember what things have been changed or not. If everything is set to "-0.1" or "99.87" or whatever, it can be confusing what the intention was.

As for Scream tape: this is my least favourite mode of Scream because although it can sound great it just has so many problems (a weird phase-invert, loss of transients, some mushy low end). So I would recommend getting the FREE rack extensions from "that music company" and trying something like this (example to get you started):

Mr. Overdrive (mild overdrive and harshness and only about 30% wet mix) >>> Compressor with 30-40MS attack and quick release, with only a little gain reduction >>> High shelf EQ to take off the harshness around 6k and up >>> Softube Saturation Knob backed off below the point where the distortion LED comes on, using "keep low" setting for a cleaner low end and less obvious distortion.

And try the same thing using Distortion Chain (distort type 1, mild saturation and harshness and about 30% wet) instead of Mr. Overdrive, and maybe try the Pulverizer Squash instead of the Compressor but use a mostly dry mix on the pulverizer because that thing can really suck the life out of your signal.

This seems to be the case in most of my music. Making a song working, may be up to really small tweaks. So holding a shift down and turning the knobs, seems oftenly a must. Acurate mixing is very challenging, when your sound is clean. As when you have a trashy punk sound, you don't need to be as acurate in comparison.

As a side-question, what kind of alternatives there is to Scream4's Tape?

Cheerz!

[Heigen5]

I think generally if you're feeling the need to make lots of adjustments in increments of less than a decibel or so, your ears are probably fatigued and are hearing things that aren't there.

Also true when that's a case, but micro-mixing is sometimes needed too. As example, sometimes a kick drum that has a compressor in the chain, needs a slight tweak on the attack and BAM the whole listening experience has a new face then.

[16161d]

As a side-question, what kind of alternatives there is to Scream4's Tape?

Cheerz!

If you're not looking to spend any money, Softube Saturation Knob is free and quite pleasant, and if you want something more subtle there is the Audiomatic Retro Transformer (my personal fave for adding a little or a lot of character to sounds). Outside of those you have dozens of high end or more affordable tape/saturation RE's/VST's, but it may be better to ask over on the Rack Extension or VST forum for those. (though I personally recommend checking out some of the different tape/emulation/saturation plugins by airwindows which are free, brilliant, and with a super minimal interface, or in Reasons case, no interface at all)

[Heigen5]

Pinpoint-accurate mixing is indeed a struggle on Reason. Even using shift, you often can't simply return a fader or knob to zero, or match 2 parameters on identical but separate devices. I have been wishing for "text input of values" since around R4 but no luck. As the other poster says, you often don't need tiny tiny adjustments, but in the case of aligning 2 parallel signals sometimes you really do. Also for workflow if a fader is set to "Zero" that can help you remember what things have been changed or not. If everything is set to "-0.1" or "99.87" or whatever, it can be confusing what the intention was.

As for Scream tape: this is my least favourite mode of Scream because although it can sound great it just has so many problems (a weird phase-invert, loss of transients, some mushy low end). So I would recommend getting the FREE rack extensions from "that music company" and trying something like this (example to get you started):

Mr. Overdrive (mild overdrive and harshness and only about 30% wet mix) >>> Compressor with 30-40MS attack and quick release, with only a little gain reduction >>> High shelf EQ to take off the harshness around 6k and up >>> Softube Saturation Knob backed off below the point where the distortion LED comes on, using "keep low" setting for a cleaner low end and less obvious distortion.

And try the same thing using Distortion Chain (distort type 1, mild saturation and harshness and about 30% wet) instead of Mr. Overdrive, and maybe try the Pulverizer Squash instead of the Compressor but use a mostly dry mix on the pulverizer because that thing can really suck the life out of your signal.

This seems to be the case in most of my music. Making a song working, may be up to really small tweaks. So holding a shift down and turning the knobs, seems oftenly a must. Acurate mixing is very challenging, when your sound is clean. As when you have a trashy punk sound, you don't need to be as acurate in comparison.

As a side-question, what kind of alternatives there is to Scream4's Tape?

Cheerz!

Ok, thanks for recommendations, - even though I may want to try some VST Tape plugins instead.
Propably will need to check out some DEMOs - but if anyone can recommend some alternative to Scream4's Tape, I'd like to try it out.

[Heigen5]

As a side-question, what kind of alternatives there is to Scream4's Tape?

Cheerz!

If you're not looking to spend any money, Softube Saturation Knob is free and quite pleasant, and if you want something more subtle there is the Audiomatic Retro Transformer (my personal fave for adding a little or a lot of character to sounds). Outside of those you have dozens of high end or more affordable tape/saturation RE's/VST's, but it may be better to ask over on the Rack Extension or VST forum for those. (though I personally recommend checking out some of the different tape/emulation/saturation plugins by airwindows which are free, brilliant, and with a super minimal interface, or in Reasons case, no interface at all)

Thanks, just downloaded their (airwindows') zip.

[Heigen5]

If you're not looking to spend any money, Softube Saturation Knob is free and quite pleasant, and if you want something more subtle there is the Audiomatic Retro Transformer (my personal fave for adding a little or a lot of character to sounds). Outside of those you have dozens of high end or more affordable tape/saturation RE's/VST's, but it may be better to ask over on the Rack Extension or VST forum for those. (though I personally recommend checking out some of the different tape/emulation/saturation plugins by airwindows which are free, brilliant, and with a super minimal interface, or in Reasons case, no interface at all)

Thanks, just downloaded their (airwindows') zip.

Are these plugins some kind of an early April 1st' jokes?

[16161d]

Thanks, just downloaded their (airwindows') zip.

Cool, just to elaborate on my 'no interface' comment then, in order to access the controls, you will need to expand the CV programmer for the VST rack instrument, and then you can add the parameters under the parameter drop down and change the values using the base value (maybe this will complement your workflow as it's easy to make micro adjustments here). Might be worth checking the guys videos/articles on the plugins you intend to use just to get an idea of what it's doing. Some of them don't have controls at all either and can just be put on a send to dial them in. They're not very adaptable to Reason in this sense, but they still work!

[aeox]

Thanks, just downloaded their (airwindows') zip.

Are these plugins some kind of an early April 1st' jokes?

They don't have gui. Since Reason doesn't really have a default gui for those kinds of plugins like other daws do, you have to use the cv programmer section.

Select parameter and adjust base value

[Heigen5]

I think I'll pass.

[Exowildebeest]

Text/numerical input on rack device controls (instead of just in the sequencer automation section) is very high on my feature wish list! It's frustrating having to use that automation workaround all the time. I'm OCD about setting values (even if it makes no audible difference, sometimes I just prefer a certain number ).

[Kalm]

I have certain values I shoot for as well. It helps when trying to compare settings between compressors, EQ's, etc. But that's just one benefit. But instead scream, this new Fat50 plugin and Mr. Overdrive plus PMS-20 is my go to umpf for everything.

[Exowildebeest]

this new Fat50 plugin

Oh yes it's really good! Highly recommended.

[mcatalao]

This seems to be the case in most of my music. Making a song working, may be up to really small tweaks. So holding a shift down and turning the knobs, seems oftenly a must. Acurate mixing is very challenging, when your sound is clean. As when you have a trashy punk sound, you don't need to be as acurate in comparison.

As a side-question, what kind of alternatives there is to Scream4's Tape?

Cheerz!

Actually i prefer mixing cleaner genres against over processed.

However imho, the most important thing about mixing a clean genre, something like acoustic songs and so on, is space. It's not as much about setting levels at sub decibel levels (tbh i don't think you can make a difference of half a decibel in an instrument on any kind of mix, so when you lower something less than half a decibel you're actually making a subjective decision) but more about where you're putting the instruments in your song, the way they interact between them, at their level and frequency range.

What i mean is that, the approach to mix a "clean" genre is different than a heavier one. Both have different challenges. Heavy genres tend to have too much stuff in the low mid to low range and most often you have a hard time getting a good balance on that frequency ranges.

What i like most about clean genre songs, is that most time they tell you a history that explains you where the mix has to go. Most times your job is just make it sound fuller and balanced and not taking out the space a clean source already has.