How do you approach learning songs by ear in a difficult mix?

[Rot]

Dunno where to put this topic, but here it goes:

There is this black metal album, that I admire for some time:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_SK1Gn63f0&t)

I like it so much that I decided to give it a try and learn some songs from it, starting from track called Consummation @14:35

The trouble is, there is no tabs, which has not stopped me from learning songs before - the difference is that songs that I learned by ear so far were not so difficult to actually hear exact notes and I knew at least the tuning and had some idea of key they were in.

This is different - I only have a suspicion they play in B standard since I found 2 (two) short live footages of their shows.
The mix sounds as if it was behind a veil, I think there’s lots of reverb slapped on guitars, which gives it awesome atmospheric vibe, but makes it difficult to read.
Slap some harmonies and synths on top and I’m lost for the most part.

I used to be able to isolate the tracks in my mind in the past, but this is different, if I try this then I get bits and pieces of lead guitar, but rythm track is pushed back too much to pinpoint what they play.

TL;DR - difficult to hear what is going on, no live footage or covers to cheat my way by eyeballing what is played exactly.

Are there any tips and tricks to overcome this problem?
Please send help.

[Pepepicks66]

I’m assuming you’ve tried to check out live videos, and maybe cover videos? If you’re past that, if you have a DAW (if not get a free one), I would mute the “mid” channel in the hopes that the guitars are panned hard left / right, potentially make them easier to hear.

[Rot]

There are only two live videos that I’ve found:

Akhlys - Aoratos , First show ever @Ascension Fest , June 2019

AKHLYS/AORATOS_2

No guitar covers - only vocal and drums.

I do use a DAW, namely Reaper, but I don’t know how to mute mid channel.

[Pepepicks66]

Never used reaper, but if you find something that looks like M/S, mid/side, imager… One of those would essentially allow you to modify the amount of mid / side playback you hear. You can also DIY this:

1. Save the track as mono
2. In Reaper, have 2 tracks: the original (which is stereo) and the mono version.
3. Flip the phase of the mono version. This will phase cancel out the “mid” channel.

[Rot]

This method seems to be viable to distinguish lead guitar, rythm still is difficult to pick up, but maybe, just maybe with enough patience and trying out some eq will finally manage some day.

[s_linste]

I use the software “Transcribe!” Among other things, it can isolate parts of the track through eq adjustments. It also slows things down while maintaining the pitch. I would recommend trying the free trial and see how it performs with that song.

[Rot]

I tried it, but doesn’t seem to do anything particularly useful for me - I can do the same stuff in a DAW, which I did (EQ shaping and stuff) and it does not help that much. Too many layers I guess.

I did manage to work out a few riffs though, just bits and pieces really - partially by looking at the longer live footage - but for some reason it sounds different on the album, there’s lots of shrieking high harmonics that do not seem to fit what I see played live.
For example - first riff of “Consummation”, I know already it starts on D# with an octave, so I play it this way and it sounds much darker when I do it.
It would seem there is an octace on top of that on album version, so I tried adding one more octave but it does not sound as it should.
At this point I don’t know now if this is a neat mixing trick, or I’m missing something.

[lars]

I use Transcribe! and fiddle with the EQ settings until the guitar is the loudest thing. If the mix is good, and every instrument isn’t in the same frequency band, this yields good results.

On the flip side, if the mix / piece of music is such that you can’t hear exactly what the guitar is doing, then just take a guess and play something that you like. If nobody can hear it, what does it matter exactly what you play?

[Rot]

Well, it matters to me - I’m a perfectionist and it would really bug me if I didn’t figure it out perfectly
Which is actually not a good trait to have, I can never be at peace XD

[tommo]

@Pepepicks66

• Save the track as mono
• In Reaper, have 2 tracks: the original (which is stereo) and the mono version.
• Flip the phase of the mono version. This will phase cancel out the “mid” channel.

Brilliant method to obtain “cheap” backing tracks for a guitar solo (assuming it’s in the middle)!

[Prlgmnr]

I guess the thing to do is learn loads and loads of songs by ear, of gradually increasing levels of complexity and difficulty to hear, until you hear this and instantly know what’s going on.

[gotmixes]

@Pepepicks66

Flip the phase of the mono version. This will phase cancel out the “mid” channel.

In Pro Tools, if you have the reference mix on a stereo track/channel, you can bring up anything with a phase button (I use a 7-Band EQ) – just make sure it’s Multi-Mono (NOT Stereo) when you’re instantiating the plug-in. De-select the stereo “Link” on the plug-in and hit the phase button (looks like a “0” with a “/” through it) – this will put the selected channel (defaults to L) out of phase. Then option-click each Pan on the mixer channel to center the L and R. Hit play, and you’ll hear the mix with center information cancelled out.

[JakeEstner]

Yeah, I do what I can with EQ/panning, however, at a certain point I’m not ashamed to give up, because:

• harmonic overtones are always going to be present so even if I’m hearing all the notes with 100% accuracy, that doesn’t mean those are the notes the instruments are playing (and it’s harder to distinguish between overtones and the fundamental when we start messing with EQ)
• multiple instruments, echo effects, combined with the above, again can make it so that even if I’m hearing the pitches with 100% accuracy, similar timbres of instruments in the mix can make certain things really tricky

However, for the purposes of transcription I might still be learning a cool combination of sounds/notes that I can recreate for my own music and I can still ‘reduce’ a guitar part that has a close enough ‘vibe’

[JakeEstner]

Case in point, here’s an example chord I just put together in midi - this is three different guitars plus a brass pad, all playing different notes, none of them standard voicings - incredibly hard to suss out not only what are all the ‘played pitches’ vs overtones, but which guitar is doing which? If anybody can figure it out, I’ll give em a medal! If anybody has software that can correctly suss it out, bronze medal!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XBaqr7Ju0FPRc2-wSEu_aW1AnV9bx62o/view?usp=sharing

[Rot]

@JakeEstner

Case in point, here’s an example chord I just put together in midi - this is three different guitars plus a brass pad, all playing different notes, none of them standard voicings - incredibly hard to suss out not only what are all the ‘played pitches’ vs overtones, but which guitar is doing which? If anybody can figure it out, I’ll give em a medal! If anybody has software that can correctly suss it out, bronze medal!

I think I could work it out, given some time and decent headphones. I’m on cheap speakers at the moment, so maybe later.
But this is different in a way - in the album I posted all instruments are made to sound clouded. That is what makes it difficult to understand and pick up.
On your sample the instruments sound really clear and unprocessed.

@gotmixes

In Pro Tools, if you have the reference mix on a stereo track/channel, you can bring up anything with a phase button (I use a 7-Band EQ) – just make sure it’s Multi-Mono (NOT Stereo) when you’re instantiating the plug-in. De-select the stereo “Link” on the plug-in and hit the phase button (looks like a “0” with a “/” through it) – this will put the selected channel (defaults to L) out of phase. Then option-click each Pan on the mixer channel to center the L and R. Hit play, and you’ll hear the mix with center information cancelled out.

Dunno if I did the same in Reaper - I copied the track, turned the copied one to mono and flippled phase.
Then I broke down the original to two side tracks and panned them.
This made it sound more clear, but thin at the same time - basically anything below 100hz is lost.
Somewhat useful to make sense of lead guitars, but rythm becomes just static.

@Prlgmnr

I guess the thing to do is learn loads and loads of songs by ear, of gradually increasing levels of complexity and difficulty to hear, until you hear this and instantly know what’s going on.

Yeah, agree.
I did that on a few covers actually - learned some Batushka, Mgła and Rotting Christ songs this way - but then I had some visual cues to help me.

[gotmixes]

@Rot

This made it sound more clear, but thin at the same time - basically anything below 100hz is lost.

Well, the bass and the kick drum tend to be mostly centered (minus a little FX), so once they cancel, you do lose the lows. That’s kind of the idea. If the production approach with the rhythm guitars is the fairly standard 2 take thing – one take each on left and right, then that should actually stay at full level while kick, snare, lead vocals, and bass cancel out (minus chorus/pitch stereo swirls and reverbs, which don’t cancel). Lead guitars should cancel unless they’re panned out a bit or have a harmonizer or something going. That’s why I’m surprised you’re hearing what you’re hearing with that. I would think it would be the opposite.

What can happen is that if someone recorded ONE track of rhythms and then used a fast chorus (maybe 20 ms) or something to widen it, taking it to mono will make some serious comb filtering happen. And this could occur even if you’re not doing the phase reversal trick. Some of those swirly stereo spreads just don’t translate well to mono.

Your mid/side approach allows you to mix in the center information – not cancelling all the way, putting the “center” on a fader (functionally, anyway), which is cool. If I’m on Pro Tools, the process I explained literally takes about 3 seconds once you get the keystrokes down – that’s why I brought it up. I really use it most to play around with hearing backgrounds on reference mixes – those are almost always doubled and panned hard, after about '75, anyway.

Can I post an mp3 directly on the forum? I’d want to take a couple of tracks and just do some snippets – I just don’t want to mess with posting on YouTube/Vimeo for something that small.

[JakeEstner]

@Rot

But this is different in a way - in the album I posted all instruments are made to sound clouded. That is what makes it difficult to understand and pick up.
On your sample the instruments sound really clear and unprocessed.

I think the exact same principles apply - we have to suss out pitches when it’s difficult to access the information we want. Those midi instruments are clear but the distortion and echo effects add tons of overtones, multiple by 3 guitars with different eq and gain settings on each, all playing different chords, it’s pretty ‘clouded’ just in a different way,

@Rot

I think I could work it out, given some time and decent headphones. I’m on cheap speakers at the moment, so maybe later.

case in point, the 2 second sample was made to intentionally be vague in a misleading way - you hear it and think it’s a major chord with a note or two in there, but really, figuring out the octaves and getting the exact right notes for each guitar…from my experience I feel basically 99.9% confident nobody’s going to be able to figure that out unless they’re like Beato/Collier level ears or something, and even then likely using a lot of tech. I just listened to it again and messed with the EQ…I can’t even hear some things that I know for a fact are there because I programmed it!

[Rot]

@gotmixes

Can I post an mp3 directly on the forum? I’d want to take a couple of tracks and just do some snippets – I just don’t want to mess with posting on YouTube/Vimeo for something that small.

If you are asking if this is possible then I say yeah, I think it is.
Alternatively you could use some platform like Zippyshare or Soundcloud, though I think they cut quality a bit.

@gotmixes

Lead guitars should cancel unless they’re panned out a bit or have a harmonizer or something going

I can definitely hear some harmony.
Also, there are notes in lead that should not be possible to play on a 6 string in B standard, which I have a strong suspicion they are using.

But, if the method described above just removed bass and kick, then I understand I would hear the guitars as they really are? That is, if both takes were identical (which kinda defeats the purpose of double/quad tracking tbh).

@JakeEstner

I think the exact same principles apply - we have to suss out pitches when it’s difficult to access the information we want. Those midi instruments are clear but the distortion and echo effects add tons of overtones, multiple by 3 guitars with different eq and gain settings on each, all playing different chords, it’s pretty ‘clouded’ just in a different way,

It is clouded because of information. There are several pitches you hear at the same time.
The album I posted does that and on top of that there are some mixing tricks that make the notes blend in with the background, sort of smudged.

Out of curiosity - how does one achieve such effect? Everytime I mix something I get very clear and “in your face” type of sound.

[Rot]

I tried to transcribe the part @ 18:00 and came up with this:

Minus articulation. At this point I’m not sure if there is any fancy harmony in the lead guitar, just two takes and heavy articulation, but then again it feels like I’m missing something. Can you guys have a look?

BTW given it is like (one of) the easiest part of the album I begin to question my ability to transcribe it.
Like, seriously.

[Pepepicks66]

I think that sounds correct but there’s a higher harmony that I think you’re missing (kinda what Nile / Meshuggah do on top). I might be able to check it out tonight some more, if not tomorrow!