Prairie Producers Collaborate in Creative Contest

When I did a callout on Twitter looking for any hypercubists who were musicians and interested in collaborating on doing a mix of one of their songs, Hearts and Clefs had also stepped up.

Hearts and Clefs is from Saskatchewan, and I'm from Alberta, so it was a grand ol' time for a couple of prairie guys to work on a collaboration like this.

When it came to choosing a song for the project, Hearts and Clefs gave me the opportunity to pick any song from his web sites. I selected Three Years... a nice little song that tugs at the heart-strings a bit with a nice guitar, some bass, a little sax, and some interesting vocals/lyrics... A nice little selection of source tracks to work with.

The original recordings, however, had some obtrusive pops throughout (possibly from a bad cable/jack during recording). But that didn't deter me! Using filters, EQ's, compression, etc., I was able to eliminate most of those pops. I couldn't remove some of them from the main vocals, so I added an effect to the vocals such that the dull pops sounded like they were part of the effect.

The additional mixing and mastering to the song really brought out some of the interesting parts of the song, and gave it a little more emotional tug. I hope you enjoy the new mix.

Visit my contest canvas to compare the original Three Years song (written and performed by Hearts and Clefs) with the new mix, Three Years (Qubic's Lonely Mix), produced by me, Qubic. And while you're there, please cast a vote for me.

Also visit Hearts and Clefs contest canvas to experience his creative work, and cast a vote for him, too, while you're there.

East Meets West for Creative Contest Collaboration

I did a callout on Twitter to all hypercubists looking for any musicians in the hypercube contest interested in collaborating on a remix of sorts of one of their songs. I figured this would be a great way for a couple of us to show our creative abilities and have some fun doing it.

Strych9 stepped up right away for this little creative challenge. Strych9 is from Montreal, and I'm from Calgary, so this was an opportunity to add a little cross-Canada creative to this cross-Canada contest.

The two of us immediately got to work on a new mix for his fabulous and fun rockabilly style cube song called 3 Dimensional Rock.

I asked Strych9 to produce some additional guitar segments and vocals for the new mix, and he quickly produced some very useful pieces for the mix. With additional feedback from Strych9 to guide me in keeping his original intent for the song, it was now up to me to rework the mix and apply additional mixing and mastering techniques to make his music shine.

When it comes to music production, there's a creative side and there's a technical side (I'm sure there's other sides, but just go with me on this one). My expertise lies more on the technical side and trying to bring the creative and technical together to produce the right results. My technical production work allows musicians to focus on the creative stuff, and leave the techy stuff to people like me.

Watch the 3 Dimensional Rock original music video by Strych9. And while you're there, please cast a vote in his direction.

Listen to 3 Dimensional Rock (Qubic Tesseract Mix), mixed and mastered by me (Qubic). And while you're there, please cast a vote in my direction.

I recommend that you first listen to the original version by Strych9, then listen to the mix I produced so you can hear how post-production mixing and mastering can enhance the musician's music and make it more enjoyable.