The song Features Zinzi on the main vocals, and Mr. Funkdaddy on the male backing vocals. Laid back, simple with a cheeky bassline

205 Experience - Take Time To Know Her

The song features 2be on the vocals. The title "Uvelaphi"  means "Where do you come from" in Xhosa; a South African language. She sings "You are my joy...You are the sun to me, You have also made me happy (like others have been), Where do you come from?" She praises her lover's immense love for her in song, in the old  African melodic style...back to the old way of loving.

Uvelaphi

Puremix competition.

Mixed by Tshepo Leshomo
Cubase 6.5
RME Fireface audiocard
KRK V6 monitors.
Sennheiser 380 pro headphones

Comments:

Kick

Firstly I noticed that the kick track ha a big difference in dynamics and volume, so I split the tracks into two. One channel had the softer kick, 
and the other channel for the louder kick. I then subgrouped them and level the individual channels. I felt that if its intesnsity that was wanted, 
it can still be achieved by the ovrall drumset when the overheads and snare kick in.

I used the UAD LA2A because of its soft and smooth compression on the harder kick  and put the peak reduction at 40 and gain at 40 to smoothen and tame it.
I then used the Barinworx boom to bring out the air boom from the kick and compressed it with the UAD Fairchild for its texture and overall taming of the 
kick at a threshold just below 3 and input gain of 14 units. Then used the Oxford EQ to cut below 20 Hz for any rumble at a LF of 18db so that i still
mainatin some roundness while eliminating the lower frequencies in a way that is not too sharp.

Snare

I used the native SSL drumstrip gate to try and limit the bleed. at 0.02ms on attack; release of 0.33ms, hold at 9.87ms enough while still mainaining
the sound of the main instrument which is the snare.
Oxford EQ, shelving off until 125 with the LF at 24db for a sharper cut of unnecessary low frequencies to make later compression less complicated. There
was some annoying frequencies around 256hz to 369 hz that i toned down. Gave a slight 1db gain at 1.5khz and 3 kz to brighten with a not a nwrrow q width.
Shelfed off the HF up to 7khz to soften the highs, especially with the whole overall bleed from overheads.At 30db shelving.
Then around 30db peak reduction on the UAD LA2A AND A GAIN OF 40 to tighten it softly.
I then did a further low cutting using the Brainworx bx-digitalV2 to shelve the low frequencies until around 200hz with a round curve.
The added a UAD precision limiter for its warm colour after cutting so much and to bring out the dynamics a bit upfront with an input gain of 0.60db
I used the UAD EMT140 to create a plate reverb spacing and cut off its loq frequencies and widened the stereo effect of it at 100% and used the send level at 
around -23. I panned the EMT exfx channel to the left slightly to give it its own space thats not going to cloud the whole set.

1
Overheads:

Used the Oceanway studios to setup a preferred distance and space of the overheads using the ksm54 mic setting. UAD Neve1073 to shelve off some of the lows 
and bring out some brightness on the high mids for toms. Then the UAD Neve33609 and chose the bus compressor roomy drums setting which worked so well. 
I then used the UAD RS1 to create a small room ambiance to create some space that is close but removed. 

Drum Group:

I routed all the drum tracks into a drum group. The kick was routed from the Kick group track.
I used the UAD 33609 compressor to glue up the drums at a threshold of 4dbu and just over 1500 recovery and a 1db gain and a ratio of 15:1. 

Bass:

I used melodyne to check pitch correction. Cut out 31hz with the API-560 EQ. I love the texture. Used a UAD fairchild WITH AN INPUT GAIN OF 10 and 
threshold of 3 to also for its texture and sound and its width. I didnt mind the bleed. Then I used the UAD SoftubeBassAmp. Chose a clean sub, coz i wanted that 
reggae sound of round sub bass and shelved off some highs.
Used the bx-digital V2 again just to limit the air of the bass to give the kick space to thump with it by cutting off around 27Hz very slightly. Then
used the LA2A to tighten the bass and its dynamics at a peak reduction of 30db AND INPUT GAIN OF 40. Used the lexicon224 send effects at around -15 to give it some room
and add some air too and checking not to make it muddy.

Guitar:

I duplicated the guitar track to have a stereo effect to the right. Created a big room by adding the H-Delay plugin on  send effect at a feedback of around
52ms 16th notes.
Used the UAD Oceanway plugin to create a big studio feel.  Used the UAD LA2A to tame the dynamics at a peak reduction of 35db,40db input gain. Used the 
Brainworx bx-control to exaggerate the width to 272%. Used the Oxford EQ to do a sharp LF cutting up to 100Hz, LF at 30dB. I also cut off the high frequencies
up to around 6KHz and around 3 Khz for softer highs, because the ain purpose was for the feeling of a wider space thats going to complement the main guitar channel.
The volume level slightly lower.

The main guitar, Used the LA2A to tighten it at aournd 35db peak reduction,input gain of 40. Used the Oxford eq to remove some of the highs
 as the other channel still maintained brightness. Used the UAD SOFTUBEVINATGEAMP and chose a brown jazz present and created distance slightly putting the
microphone further away from the cabinet. Used the UAD precision limiter with a gain of around 2dB to bring up the guitar more upfront and give it a warmer colour and texture.
Panned the guitar to the far right.


Voice:

Cut off unwanted frequencies and bleed  using the Oxford EQ LF shelf to 50HZ, 30dB octave and did the same cutting with the Cubase channel EQ. Lifteed a slight 1,5db 
at around 109Hz for some lost warmth. Compressed with the UAD LA2A to really tame the dynamics with input gain of 50dB, SND peak reduction of 60dB. Added
a UAD Fairchild  for its grey colour and bringing the vocal upfront at input gain of 12db thresholdof about 4.5
On the send effects used the UAD EMT140 plate reverb to create a big space and panned it slightly to the left, and added the H-Delay plugin with a very short feedback to creat a short space, like a tap.

On the vocal effects, because i did not calculate the tempo of the song from the beginning i created another channel and cut and pasted words i wanted to repeat as echoes with much more reverb and tap 
delay from the H-delay send combined with the EMT140 SEND LEVEL OF UP TO 6 UNITS. tHE COMPRESSION IS THE SAME AS THE MAIN CHANNEL. The difference being the eq whose high frequencies i shelved off to create
a sense of different space. I also sharply shelved off the lower frequencies to achive that. Where the pitch sounds higher i used the Cubase pitch correction. 

Overall spacing i used different volume levels on different instruments.  I reckon the guitars will sit nicely with the voice at the final compression. I tried that to see if that would
happen when i compress the whole track. Then I deactivated... 




205experience