Goldfinger Feat. THPS - Safe 'N' Sane Skater Heaven Superman (Master Mi Remix)

[Master Mi]

After taking some time off from making music to develop a new mixing style and get used to my new Yamaha MSP 3 professional studio monitors (which are perhaps some of the most accurate and faithful studio monitors in the world, and definitely professional tools for mixing and sound engineering), I'm back on track with a nice remix of the "Superman" soundtrack originally composed by the punk rock and ska punk band Goldfinger.

The original track, on which I based this remix, became quite famous with the Playstation game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (also called "Tony Hawk's Skateboarding" in some countries). And since I really digged this song when I played the game as a teenager, I decided to use my new mixing skills and my new professional studio tools to create a kinda worthy remix of this track.
Since this remix is basically my first major music project mixed on my new Yamaha MSP 3 studio monitors, and I think it's one of my best tracks with a much more advanced and professional mixing style, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

So, I put a lot of time, effort, passion and inner fire into the new composition of this remix, and I really had a lot of fun creating it with my own musical style, which in this case consists of a nice alternation of ambient soundscapes, heavy rock parts and some casual jazzy lines.

For more information about the creation of my remix, check out the upload description of the YouTube link.
And here is the content.


Original soundtrack:
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Newest version of my remix: 1.1
>>>

>>>

>>> https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm41413951


Enjoy this one and don't forget give me some feedback on how you like the composition for the remix - especially my new mixing style based on my new Yamaha MSP 3 studio monitors and the use of the 2-channel surround feature in my DAW for creating a cleaner and more spatial mix with a greater imagination of depth.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Master Mi

[Master Mi]

This is the newest version of my Goldfinger remix "Safe 'N' Sane Skater Heaven Superman".

Besides a few new composition elements, the new version of this remix comes up with a brand-new mixing concept, which I'll explain in the text below the links.

But first, here are the links for the new remix version 1.1:
>>>

>>>

>>> https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm41413951

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After taking some time off from making new music in order to finalize my concept of a new mixing style and get used to my new Yamaha MSP 3 professional studio monitors (which are perhaps some of the most accurate and truthful studio monitors in the world, and definitely professional tools for mixing and sound engineering), I am now back with the latest version of my remix for the "Superman" soundtrack, originally composed by the punk rock and ska punk band Goldfinger, to demonstrate the progress of my new mixing concept.

The big goal of my new mixing concept is the production of very clean and dynamic soundtracks without the use of compressors and limiters for the best possible sound quality within a soundtrack which feels much more alive, moving and natural.
In my opinion, the mixings of modern soundtracks should be similar like the really good and highly dynamic mixings of the early 80s and the decades before, long time before the loudness war of the modern music industry kicked in and provoked a kinda nasty and dull trend of producing louder and louder records (just to get noticed like an intrusive but mindless commercial) to the disadvantage of dynamics, the natural behaviour of transients, sound quality and the pleasure of the listening experience.

In the future, I want to prove that this kind of dynamic mixing concept works with all kinds of music genres, even electronic music and metal.

With the EBU R 128 loudness standards, developed by truly farsighted audio engineers to counteract the loudness war phenomenon, I got a solid foundation for my ambition to create clean and dynamic soundtracks without using signal-degrading compressors or limiters.
Even without using compressors and limiters, I don't have to worry about the signal peaks in the master track, as they barely scratch the -5 dB mark.

Soundtrack productions mastered at EBU R 128 loudness standards may be produced just half as loud (much like the soundtracks of the early 80s) as most modern soundtracks (still, remember: "The listener owns the volume knob.").
But they have the great potential to sound much better than their compressed versions, which often contain more elements of bloody sound surgery than sophisticated sound design.

And...
You won't have these nasty loudness jumps between different tracks, different music genres oder different audio programs in general if you master your tracks at EBU R 128 standards.

...

In combination with:
- some professional and really neutral tuned monitoring equipment like the Yamaha MSP 3 studio monitor speakers (gently supported by a small Fostex PM-SUBmini 2 subwoofer) and the good ol' Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro studio headphones (driven by a Lake People G109-P high-end headphone amp connected to my Steinberg UR 44 audio interface)
- more or less bold but fitting EQ editing decisions
- my deep relaxation in leaving out unnecessary effects and effect chains which you will barely hear on less dominant tracks in the mix (but which might clutter up and cloud your mix kinda fast)
- and with the help of a really useful 2-channel surround editing feature (which allows me to visually place the instruments and audio signals any old in the stereo and surround field for even better separation of frequencies, and to create a more accurate imagination of depth in my mixes - finally, all the audio information is converted into a stereo signal which should also be fully compatible with surround speakers), ...
... my mixing concept seems to pay off more and more.

Feel free to compare this new mixing with the first version of my remix, which you can still find here (I guess I'll keep the old version for a few months) - that way you might be able to hear some of the things I'm talking about:
https://soundcloud.com/master-mi/goldfinger-feat-thps-safe-n-sane-skater-heaven-superman-master-mi-remix

...

The original track, on which I based this remix, became quite famous with the Playstation game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (also called "Tony Hawk's Skateboarding" in some countries).
And since I really digged this song when I played the game as a teenager, I decided to use my new mixing skills and my new professional studio tools to create a kinda worthy remix of this track.

So, I put a lot of time, effort, passion and inner fire into the new composition of this remix, and I really had a lot of fun creating it with my own musical style, which in this case consists of a nice alternation of ambient soundscapes, heavy rock parts and some casual jazzy lines.

…

I'm not fully sure what kind of compositions or remixes I will do next.

But no matter what the future holds - let's mosey. ))

…

If you are a socially just skater, always make sure to skate 'n' destroy rather lavish private property than communal property.

 

[MentalMusic]

I really like your arrangement, it has a very happy and positive vibe to it and I think you did a great job! I also dig the transition at 3:06.
If you don't mind a little feedback, in my opinion you could give your track more substance by filling in the complete sonic space.
At the moment it feels like it's just panning. You could move the brass more to the front and give them a touch more dynamics and transient designing to cut through the mix better (brass tends to sound synthy and flat without dynamics)
A bit more low end on the guitar, that plays the bass parts would also add some punch!

Best Regards!
 

[Master Mi]

Thanks for the detailed response, dude. ))

Besides, I've listened to your composition "Temple of the Dragon" to understand your musical way a bit better - really impressive stuff.

But coming back to my remix.

1) What do you mean with "... in my opinion you could give your track more substance by filling in the complete sonic space.
At the moment it feels like it's just panning."

Do you think it's lacking a greater impression of depth?
That could be because I wanted to mix this ska-punk-like track rather dry, except for the little intro, because I flooded most of my previous mixes with reverb (I couldn't hear and adjust the right amount of reverb due to my previous equipment and my lack of understanding how to mix better and more precisely).

...

2) I'm not sure which brass that could be more in the front you mean.
There's a trumpet (more on the left side, starting at 0:43 the first time) and a sax (more on the right side, kicking in at around 0:47 the first time) directly at the front.
And there are trombones playing a bit behind the front and slightly left from the center (starting at 0:33, for example).

...

3) The dynamics of the brass element were kinda tricky in this track because just 1 dB more could make especially the trumpet too loud and dominant for my taste - especially in the heavier guitar parts (where the brass should not dominate the electric guitars too much).
My intention was to let the brass elements (especially the trumpet) shine more in the less rockin' and more relaxed parts - for example at 0:53.
But even there - just one single dB more for the trumpet at this part could make the trumpet unpleasantly loud.

So, I decided to handle the brass elements just with the MIDI velocity dynamics and different articulations to give 'em a little bit more realism and dynamics without letting them dominate the track too much nor letting them drown in the mix - they shall have their shining parts in the track just like the electric guitars shall have theirs.

...

4) Hm, you think the electric bass deserves more low end in this track?
I just had this deeper electric bass setting before - but then I decided to let the kick drum have most of the low end frequency range for a cleaner mix and use a small low-cut filter on the bass instead to turn the electric bass a bit more into one of those funky radio-rock electric bass presets.

I really had the intention to cut even more of the low end of the electric bass and rather raise the volume of the bass afterwards - it sounded really nice at some parts but I guess I didn't want to exaggerate the stuff too much and push my luck in the end - because at mixing my ears can tell me different sounds to the same story of composition each day.
Some of the bigger questions for me are often "Will I still like it the next day?" and "Does it significantly improves the previous version?".

If there's a definitive yes to both questions, I consider to implement the changes.
If there's just one single no, I discard the changes in most cases and keep the old setting, which I have liked for a longer time.

Edited January 17, 2023 by Master Mi

[MentalMusic]

On 1/4/2023 at 1:16 AM, Master Mi said:

Do you think it's lacking a greater impression of depth?
That could be because I wanted to mix this ska-punk-like track rather dry, except for the little intro, because I flooded most of my previous mixes with reverb (I couldn't hear and adjust the right amount of reverb due to my previous equipment and my lack of understanding how to mix better and more precisely).

Yeah, by dropping some instruments to the back or moving some to the front, you create the feeling of a room and giving it a lot of depth. Some vst instruments offer you to mix with different microphone positions, but if you don't have that option, there's vsts like Tverb/Berlin Studio/ocean way studios etc., that let you mess with the dry/wet signals. That can sometimes work much better than adding reverb, since it preserves the clarity and if you want, you can still slap the reverb on top in the end.
 

On 1/4/2023 at 1:16 AM, Master Mi said:

4) Hm, you think the electric bass deserves more low end in this track?
I just had this deeper electric bass setting before - but then I decided to let the kick drum have most of the low end frequency range for a cleaner mix and use a small low-cut filter on the bass instead to turn the electric bass a bit more into one of those funky radio-rock electric bass presets.

I'm not sure, how it's handled in rock music. What works for me is again placing the instruments in the room in different positions. I use iZotopes Ozone Imager for that, it's free, I use that on almost every instrument to place it in the mix and in the end I fix the frequency issues, for example low-end heavy stuff are centered and instruments with higher frequencies can be stereo. And if it still doesn't work, I try to sidechain the bass or work with layering kickdrums to seperate low and high frequencies.

On 1/4/2023 at 1:16 AM, Master Mi said:

"Will I still like it the next day?"

I have that too, at 3 am it's still insane and I wake up at 12 to find out it wasn't insane at all haha

[Master Mi]

On 1/22/2023 at 11:46 AM, MentalMusic said:

Yeah, by dropping some instruments to the back or moving some to the front, you create the feeling of a room and giving it a lot of depth. Some vst instruments offer you to mix with different microphone positions, but if you don't have that option, there's vsts like Tverb/Berlin Studio/ocean way studios etc., that let you mess with the dry/wet signals. That can sometimes work much better than adding reverb, since it preserves the clarity and if you want, you can still slap the reverb on top in the end.

If I need hall-like but also highly assertive sound sources - like lead guitars - in a track, I rather use echoing delay effects than reverb.
It makes the sound source stronger in the mix - but it also contains some kind of room impressions, especially if there's already enough reverb from other sources in your mix.

I wouldn't go so far to eliminate reverb effects completely from your tracks like some composers and audio engineers obviously do.
But I would be really careful with reverb, because even a little too much of it can ruin the clarity and listening experience of the entire track.

I try to use only one or two sound sources in the mix with a bigger reverb like concert hall convolution reverb (if it fits the track and the genre) while the other tracks in the mix get a more subliminal recording studio reverb (like drums or rhythmic guitars) or even no reverb (often bass in my case, or maybe even lead guitars with just some echoing delay effects).

...

For separating the tracks and placing them more accurately in the room, I often use a 2-channel surround feature from my DAW Samplitude.
It's a pretty cool visual tool that lets you place mono and stereo sound sources in a surround environment, and it encodes surround information into a standard stereo signal.
According to the manual, it also retains surround information for real surround speaker setups (just reminded me to ask someone on OCR who uses a surround speaker setup and who might be able to verify if that's true or how the track translates between stereo and surround setups).

Just to give you an imagination of the interface of the 2-channel surround feature and how I worked with this tool in my Goldfinger remix...

1) Here you can see how I used it for the kinda jazzy clean electric guitars with a great stereo width, which play just a little bit behind the front, only left and right, leaving out the center and the other channels:



...

2) Here you can see how I used it in connection with the completely dry bass, kinda centered between front and rear surround channels, almost fully mono, but I opened the signal just a little bit towards stereo width to give the already dry bass at least a little space to move, roam and articulate more differently:



...

3) For separating the bass from the drums in the mix, I placed the drums (all 3 drum tracks) a little bit behind the bass, added a little recording studio reverb and opened the stereo width up to around 50 % (if mono would be 0 % and true stereo would be 100 %).
So, the drum kit with all frequencies from low to high - together with a well-separated bass - dominates the inner circle around the center, while all the other instruments with their frequencies rather dominate the outer circle of the 2-channel surround field:



...

4) And one last example...
Some electric guitar power chords, only enhanced with some stereo delay effects, are placed much more in the rear field on the right side (on the mirrored left side is another powerful guitar playing some more bass-like rhythms) with a very small stereo width only affecting a little bit the right front channel and mostly the right surround channel in the back (also to avoid frequency clashes with other instruments that are playing more in the front and center field).



...

I also uploaded a short video on OCR in which you can hear how the sound changes when I move a stereo sound source in the 2-channel surround field (my post from April 17, 2023):
https://ocremix.org/community/topic/49135-creating-a-realistic-impression-of-depth-in-stereo-mixes/

Maybe you can give me a little feedback with your impression on this visual 2-channel surround tool.
I also used an additional positioner tool as a nice feature included in a convolution reverb plugin in the uploaded demonstration video.

...

I also got inspired by your idea to use plugins with different microphone settings to create a greater feeling of distance.

But the probably most similar thing I could find in my huge internal plugin collection of my DAW was a plugin called Mic Modeler in my Independence Pro Premium Suite.
There you can use different kinds of microphones in connection with settings like omnidirectional/directional, close, far, farer etc.



But I can't really hear a real difference between the different distance settings of a specific microphone - might be a plugin for something else.

...

On the other hand, I have a really nice microphone control feature within my bass and guitar amp plugin Vandal with which I can really feel an impact on the imagination of distance.



...



...

But I'm not so sure if a bass and guitar amp plugin (even with undistorted, clean settings) is the optimal VST plugin for using microphone settings on usually non-amped instruments like trumpets, pianos, flutes and drums. ;D

I'm not even sure if the original signal of these instruments remains so clean and untouched in a bass and guitar amp as I would hope.
Even if I turn off all the other parts of the amp (except the one with the microphone feature), it still sounds a little bit different.



It mainly might have to do with the fact that the microphone feature (right side) is directly connected to the cabinet simulation (left side).
If you want to switch it off, then the microphone feature is turned off as well.

But even if you turn off both, the audio signal with the amp plugin is still not identical to the original audio signal without the amp plugin.

...

On 1/22/2023 at 11:46 AM, MentalMusic said:

I have that too, at 3 am it's still insane and I wake up at 12 to find out it wasn't insane at all haha

The mystical late night hours of the dead dreamer ears.

Yeah... after waking up, it sometimes really feels like you were mixing like this the night before:


 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Master Mi