ForaBrokenEarth
Offline
Nottingham, UK
Invisible Robot Hands wrote:
my.Explosion wrote:

So far most of my chiptunes have been raw output. On some tracks I may add a slight, *slight* reverb. It's not often noticeable at all, but I think it gives it a little more "softness".

My general thinking is: if the track sounds good raw, no need to make more of it. Don't fix it if it ain't broken. wink

Some sorts of tracks generally just seem to do better raw, too. Crazy noisy chipthrash shit, etc.

It depends on your audience as well. The harsher your production the less likely it is to appeal to more casual listeners, but people more involved with chip will be more likely to give it a chance.

irrlichtproject
Offline
Nomad's Land
4mat wrote:

If you're releasing streaming files (which 99% of the chip scene are) you might as well master them. There's hardly anybody doing music disks outside the demo scene.

And sadly, few people in the chipmusic scene care about demoscene prods.

On topic, raw recordings generally get bonus points in my book, but there's nothing wrong with mastering, if it's done right. Multitrack mixing on the other hand... I dunno. It might sound great, but if you can't actually play it live then what's the point.

roboctopus
Offline
Madison, Alabama

I record all my stuff straight. No individual channel recording or anything. I do EQ and light limiting and sometimes add a *tiny* almost unnoticeable amount of reverb.

For my upcoming album, which is 2xLSDJ, I recorded and EQ'd each Game Boy part separately. There's a bit of FX on a few tracks, but it still sounds like what you'd hear if you were listening to the output on my DJ mixer.

walter b. gentle
Offline
babylon

everyone knows you have to leave it alone so you can put RAW LSDJ in your song description.

ForaBrokenEarth
Offline
Nottingham, UK
walter b. gentle wrote:

everyone knows you have to leave it alone so you can put RAW LSDJ in your song description.

Meh. I always just considered that the Chip version of [DEMO].

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA

If you're doing it right, you are using the straight sound and mixing and mastering.

I'm surprised I don't know more people who experiment with amps, speakers, and mics, but it's not cheap...

breakphase
Offline
Earth

A little EQ and compression goes a long way with dmg sounds. If I'm really serious about a track, I'll test it on different types of systems. There's nothing beneficial about distributing raw recordings, imho.

Last edited by breakphase (Jun 3, 2013 1:25 pm)

theghostservant
Offline
Chicago
Invisible Robot Hands wrote:
my.Explosion wrote:

So far most of my chiptunes have been raw output. On some tracks I may add a slight, *slight* reverb. It's not often noticeable at all, but I think it gives it a little more "softness".

My general thinking is: if the track sounds good raw, no need to make more of it. Don't fix it if it ain't broken. wink

Some sorts of tracks generally just seem to do better raw, too. Crazy noisy chipthrash shit, etc.

Wizwars' "Welcome to Thrash City" was recorded, mixed, and mastered in a studio. I think I remember him saying those tracks were "compressed as shit" or something to that effect.
even chipthrash can use some TLC from a professional sound duder.

theghostservant
Offline
Chicago
irrlichtproject wrote:

Multitrack mixing on the other hand... I dunno. It might sound great, but if you can't actually play it live then what's the point.

yeah, I've thought about that. There are some songs that I have done and am working on that I know I can never do live for this very reason.
It is hard to find the balance of recording tracks that are creative and progressive in the studio (speaking generally, what percentage of chip albums are done in a studio?) and recording tracks that you can play live.

egr
Offline
Abandoned on Fire

My opinion on this changed after I'd been to a few chip shows. Even a gameboy sounds a lot different through a big sound system and for me it sounds much better.  Creating that big sound through mixing and some effects is my goal when I'm working on a project.  To quote 10k "live it seems less dumb" tongue

Victory Road
Offline
Gosford, Australia

gate, compress, EQ, reverb, compress again
i feel like my vocals are produced as fuck though (spoilers!)

Ultrasyd
Offline
Fr

Raw

geckoyamori
Offline
danimal cannon wrote:

I just applied some mastering to my straight Gameboy sound for my first record. The 2nd one all the channels were isolated, realigned, and then mixed AND mastered

Unfortunately I don't think it turned out all that well. Not that the Game Boy chip is a super-dynamic, hi-fi listening experience in the first place, but I think the added mastering on Parallel Processing makes ear fatigue kick in much quicker than usual.

bryface
Offline
vancouver, canada

real men mix down to mono

danimal cannon
Offline
buffalo, NY
bryface wrote:

real men mix down to mono

Alex Mauer is a real man. 

And I stand by my mastering on Parallel Processing, I was going for a modern sound, and it's a pretty intense record.  It was a conscious choice, but I respect people's opinions that would prefer it differently.

SuperBustySamuraiMonkey
Offline
Madriz, Supain
BR1GHT PR1MATE wrote:

this is going to sound douchy, but what people are talking about 99.999% of the time when they say "mastering" is... just mixing.

mixing. dont be afraid of the word.

Probably what you mean by mixing is equalization and panning, not even mixing. It makes me a sad panda.


On topic: I record every channel separated and mix them.