Mixing & mastering

While I was writing about starting initial mastering processes, ... putting final touches to mixing comes first. In this case it's less of a deal than usually, as I have far less sources of sounds (or simply just tracks) to be mixed. Actually I've been doing the mixing already when I was recording the guitars - there are the chiptunes as one track, and then there are the guitars, varying from one to two tracks. That's it. So it is pretty simple, straightforward task and I'm doing the final adjustments to mixing.

I could have done this in much more complicated way, by separating each channel in chiptune tracks while exporting them into wav files. Chiptunes have separate channels varying from 8 into 12. Drums take 3-4 channels, bass 2 channels and the rest is for them chirpy soundbytes. But there would be no reason to make it channel by channel - I have done initial mixing already when I was composing & programming (tracking, tracker music) the chiptunes. Tracking a song, you need to know what you are after - and you reach the overall sound you want, based on your tracking knowledge and experience. Having started tracking with Amiga 500 back in 1989, I think I have enough experience, heh heh ... but seriously, it is easy, smooth and flowing operation with me - I reach the vision I have in my mind easily. So it's one chiptune track which gets exported ... and then it's just working with DAW (Reaper in my case nowadays), recording extra elements - in this case just guitarworks and mix the two according the vision.

I managed to get serious mastering work done yesterday for 10 songs - half of the album, yeah. Excellent evening in that sense, massive progress. I don't know if the rest 10 songs go as smoothly from mastering point of view, that remains to be seen. In best possible scenario, and if I have enough free time after dayjob, I might get the music finalized already during January (!) ... dunno yet how it goes, but that's not all there is. I have to craft the artwork too, and name the songs properly. February release feels quite likely, in any case. :)

I can also state something; while first Chipfusion release ("Yksi") was enjoyable in its' own way, it wasn't sort of primarily done for Chipfusion itself. It was chiptunes crafted for Scumfusion, grindcore, and of course Scumfusion came first. Chipfusion was born in the process. So that first album is different in that sense ... this second album though ... this is done 100% for Chipfusion itself, chiptunes first, expanding (fusion) the soundscapes with guitars this time somewhat. Musically speaking it is a big difference, and it means many things.