Scenes From The Dating Tree

Thought I`d share my thoughts on the making of the new album.

March 4th, 2025

Besides working on the music itself, I did get the album cover done yesterday after I`d finally settled on the album title which will be "Scenes From The Dating Tree".

And just because I was in the mood, I dug up an old copy of Sounds, a UK weekly pop/rock music newspaper, published from 10 October 1970 to 6 April 1991. Can`t even think back that far but I must have had an idea in 1979...

[img]https://wloops2.r.worldssl.net/galleries/67024/files/bf1c133ee5e871e30027655789891935.png[/img]

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Ha-ha! very clever, I almost missed the My Sounds article (prediction) Not sure about the Album title, rather cryptic, but then I don't know what the songs are yet. Carry on, we all wait in anticipation :)

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i do like the name...sounds progressive...does the dating tree have many branches?

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The dating tree actually exists in real life. It's near a small village close to Zurich in Switzerland. Pic will be on the album cover.

Slightly more weird is the Bridegrooms Oak in northern Germany, which is a tree with its own postal address to which people send their profiles. Anyone searching for a partner can pick a letter from out of the tree trunk.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridegroom%27s_Oak

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March 6, 2025

The good news is that I managed to finish track nr.7 tonight, though is was a close thing. As I had to re-record all keyboard parts again anyway (don't ask), a little devil whispered in my ear 'Go on, add a full-sized orchestra, it'll be worth it'. Thank god that my CPU started complaining after a couple of hours otherwise I'd still be working on that riff for celestial harps.

On a serious note, taking the time to mix and master is worth it. The outcome might not be good...but it's way better than the orginal uploads plus I'm learning a lot about song arrangement.

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I've learned there is no easy button to mixing. the time I put into mixing is usually minimal, and even that feels like a long time :) kudos to you and the mixing Thomas, it's definitely lots of work.

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Having produced two albums myself including mixing, mastering and all that I know what you are going through, I think I listened hundreds and hundreds of times to each track. When it was finished, I was exhausted. It is a lot of work... can't wait to hear the result of your work!

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At least I've found a way to deal with the frustration that sets in from time to time: I copy and connect snippets from the old and new versions on a separate track. Listening to the difference is uplifting.

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March 9, 2025

Last night I took the first batch of tracks on a car ride for quality control. Hamburg to Bremen offers a nice 90km stretch of motorway with no potholes and a new quiet road surface.

What can I say, the mix sounds like ... imagine the sound your dog would make when you're trying to clean it with a power washer filled with acid. Funnily enough, it sounded slightly better the faster I drove. As I firmly refuse to put a 'minimum recommended listening speed is 180 km/h' sticker on the album cover, I suppose it's back to the mixing desk again.

I think I'll need to work more on dynamic range and gain staging on the individual stems rather than the mixed tracks. Whereas on the headphone and monitor mix there are smooth transitions during crescendo parts, on the car stereo it sounds like separate events with different gain staging. Probably my mix settings affect the stems in different ways.

If this goes on, I'll petition the Oxford dictionary to strike the term 'mixing' and replace it with LSL (Listen-Swear-Learn).

p.s. No dogs were harmed during this experiment

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Hmmm car systems can be tricky, they add a lot of bass to counter the motor noise, so I have heard. P.S. my car is for sure a little tiny bit bass heavy. Just a little incy wincy bit B)

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TeeGee attached the following image:

Bassantrieb durch Rückstossverfahren? Cool, dann wird nicht mehr Sprit oder Strom getankt sondern wummernde Bässe. Wikiloops als Mega-Raffinerie.

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March 15, 2025

I think I need to take a break from working on the album just to refocus. It's just not a good sign when you get annoyed 'cause you have to listen to a particular part for the 100th time. I can't hear what I' supposed to be listening for.

So, a bit of jamming on new and old WL magic tracks will probably do me some good.

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One thing I`m slowly realizing is that working on tracks for an album is very different to working on stand-alone tracks. Take fade-ins as an example. Not really a major topic on stand-alone tracks but in an album context it suddenly becomes a headache, though that`s probably only because I`m overthinking things as usual. Anyway, spent last week reordering the tracks and doing some fine-tuning. Two tracks left to work on. Need to get this finished to get it out of my system.

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Lol it never ends to be honest. Every few months I listen to the album, and find things that I have missed, or should have dealt with, that includes fades that were too long or short, some dodgy notes and whatnot. But then I calm myself down and think: "you are the only one who will ever notice these little things. Relax man! Enjjoy it!!.." :D :D: D

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removing the 'clicks' :) fade in/out. arranging the tracks too...what you want to be first, second, and so on. then maybe an album image/artwork...things we don't really think too much about on a simple jam single jam track :)

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April 22, 2025

Finally some good news, at least for myself...all the re-recording, mixing and mastering is done. Took me 6 weeks longer than I had planned but once I started re-recording my keyboard parts on tracks on which I had orginally recorded up to 12 different keyboard stems ... I`m sure you get the idea.

Anyway, that part is finished.

Although the new versions sound better and cleaner than the original versions, I`ve decided to keep the new versions in album format only and not to upload the individual tracks to the original song trees.

Hopefully I can upload the album the coming weekend, once I`ve done all the admin stuff. Keeping track of songs that are new versions under a different name can be a tad confusing. And creating a manual credit list can be a project in itself.

At least I can now put the tracks into my file and forget folder.

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April 26, 2025

It`s done, the Wikiloops engine room is busy uploading the album. In the meantime....

Scenes From The Dating Tree

There might be a true story behind this album or it might be pure fiction, who`s to know?

What is true is that there`s a hill in a small village in Switzerland overlooking Lake Zurich. On the top of the hill there is a single tree under which someone once placed a bench. Locals refer to the spot as the Dating Tree.

Some stories may have started there, some may have ended and some could have been but never were.

But sitting on that bench on many summer evenings and watching people walk by, I couldn`t help wondering what if…

The tracks on this album are not only the soundtrack to these thoughts but are also - for the most part - tracks I listened to sitting on that bench after the initial recording sessions. The notes I made on what changes I wanted to make to the tracks led to the creation of this album. In that sense none of the tracks are new but I did re-record all the keyboard parts, changed some of the arrangements and generally tried to make the tracks sound better than before.

Most on these re-recorded, remixed and remastered tracks won`t be available as new branches of the original Wikiloops song trees, as the “bad old” versions are already there. At the end of the day, it`s just my vanity that led to these new versions.

Extra mention must go to KellsBells who kindly let me do some weird rearranging and mixing of her vocals on “Love Grown Cold” with the background sound of her broken heater included as a special effect. I did some unspeakable things to her vocal track but you may rest assured that a) she signed off on the vocal multilation and b) her voice sounds lovely in real life.

Thanks also to rootshell and TeeGee for words of encouragement during the mixing process, to Shamika and Aito for distracting me with all things finnish (up to and including thoughts on saunas) and of course to Richard for making it all possible in the first place.

The Dating Tree has since (metaphorically) been burned to the ground and people have moved on. Some stories are meant to be archived and then forgotten. What remains is the joy of listening to the music these fabulous musicians have created.


Dare To Dream
Based on “Never forget”, #308485
PJE (dr), niodoj (gt), MySounds (kb, bs)

The Flame Keeps You Higher (ft Shi)
Based on “The Fire!”, #201073
Sami (gt, perc, bs), Shi (voc), PJE (dr, perc), MySounds (kb, arr)

Alone Under The Tree
Based on “Frankie`s 66 GTO”, #306217
FrankieJ (gt), Ernie440 (bs), MySounds (kb)

Island Of Dreams
Based on “I Dream Of An Island”, #272999
SlonMusic (gt, bs, dr), ROBJOL (voc, gt), MySounds (kb)

Second Movement
Based On “Sonhos Musicais No04”, #84739
MarceloD (kb), Fishinmissio (sax, taken from #138221), MySounds (kb)

Ghosts Whisper In Your Ear
Based on “Long Seagulls”, #307298
Andri (gt), MySounds (kb)

It Will Never Last
Based on “Down, Too”, #242783
DanDiplo (gt), FrankieJ (gt), MySounds (kb)

Love Grown Cold (ft. KellsBells)
Based on “The Abandoned Factory Of Dreams”, #307628
KellsBells (voc), MySounds (kb)

Burn The Tree Down
Based on “Take It Or Leave It”, #274185
Ign1742934059 (gt), MySounds (kb)

Moving On
Based on “Cosimorock And Fatras”, #29634
COSIMOROCK (gt), Shumdrummer (dr), fatras (bs), MySounds (kb)

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Thank you all for the kind messages and responses to the album. I thought I`d wrap this thread up with a few lessons learned - mostly things I should have considered BEFORE even starting this project instead of facing issues during working on the album.

**Get it right at the source**
While I usually take my time in recording my stuff, I`ve always focussed on the playing, on finding melodies and sounds which fit the track (according to my taste) rather than what the final result "sounds" like. I think I mentioned the issue of "confirmation bias" before. When I checked the original adds prior to uploading I was always listening to what I played instead of listening to the overall result. So, despite lots of examples where the final track sounded muddy in places, where my timing was off, where I had played even glaringly obvious bum notes or chords, I simply didn`t take notice as I was listening out for something else. When these things pile up in a single track, it`s nearly impossible to correct all the issues without starting from scratch again. Nevertheless I did do an analysis of all the original tracks just so that I had an indication of what to avoid during the re-recordings.

The second point concerns actually hearing what was recorded in the templates (i.e. the tracks to which I wanted to add something). I usually work with headphones during recording and mixing and while the headphones are of studio quality, you just don’t get a complete representation of the template. So quite early on during the analysis of the old versions I listened to everything on headphones, my studio speakers, my car stereo and some seriously expensive home stereo speakers. An eye- or rather an ear-opening experience. I suddenly got to hear things on the templates that I had at best only registered subconsciously before. That by itself went a long way to explaining why certain parts of my adds just sounded “off”.

The one area where I`m quite happy to live with issues is that I don`t usually record in midi and that I don`t quantize my tracks. So if a part of my brain simply refuses to let me hit a note right at the precise time, that`s something I`m willing to accept. (Numerous examples are on the album)


**Get yourself organized**
I usually take notes during recording, especially on my keyboard sound settings. Revisiting those notes I found that I had in most cases ignored the most basic things like bpm. If a track is in 120bpm and the tremolo or delay effect of the synth is in 130bpm, it`s bound to sound not quite right. The thing is that soloing your keyboard track is not going to give you any pointers, even if you`ve got a perfect take. There are many similar things I`ve now learned to look out for even before starting any recording. So I`ve compiled a little checklist for myself. Being able to re-create a particular sound at the very least gives me a sense of security so that I can focus on how I`m doing applying the sound to the template.

Naming conventions are another organizing topic. When you download a complete template with say 3 HDs you get 4 files that start with “Wikiloops_jam…”. But there`s nothing in the file names that really ties them together. So usually I rename the files to the name of the template and also add the instrument, musician, bpm and key to the file name. And while “Lady and the cross_gt1_rootshell_120_Amaj_315490.mp3” is a mouthfull, it does help me keep track of the source files, especially when I want to revisit them at a later date. While helpful, it doesn’t solve the problem when you apply a new title to the resulting track. But a simple excel file lets me keep track of the original file names and any changes I made afterwards. Of course, none of this is relevant for pure throw-away jam tracks.


**Mixing and mastering**
It’s literally been decades since I last did any mastering, so I really started out as a complete novice again. In that sense I`ll probably need to complete a couple more mastering projects just to become aware of any lessons learned.

One thing I did notice during this project was the importance of somehow finding a sonic common ground between the 10 different tracks so that they might just go together in an album context. The thing that worked (for me) in this particular case was applying tape saturation to all tracks to give them a at least related feel – though that might just be fooling myself. Never really easy when you`re working on material that covers a whole spectrum from hard electronic sounds to soft acoustic guitars. So the lesson probably is that there will be lessons to be learned in future.

HD`s: A difficult topic. I did use HDs when available. It makes it so much easier to create spaces for instruments. One thing I always find particularly difficult is working on tracks where drums and guitars are locked into a single download. When you try to keep the drums at a consistent volume but want to lower the guitars a bit (to make extra room for vocals or keys) ... can`t done. I think sonically I could have achieved more had HDs been available. But I can`t really complain, not being a member of the "I`ll upload my 15 keyboard HDs" fraternity.

One thing that proved helpful once again was using a range of different speakers. You just wouldn’t believe how many changes I made to the mixes after listening to them through various speakers. And while it`s never a good idea to listen to music on your cell phone, at least there are ways to make sure that your music doesn`t sound like a cat locked in a tin box. Finding that compromise where you can still hear some bass and the high frequencies don`t cause bleeding ears on any speaker system is an art in itself. Just out of curiosity I even went so far as to feign an interest in buying Barefoot speakers and got the guy at the music store to let me listen to the album on those mega expensive speakers. Most of the tracks sounded alright, so for once I didn`t hide my face in shame.

Re-reading all the above I think the most important and time-consuming issue lay in not getting it right at the source during the original recording. If I had paid more attention to output instead of input first time round I could probably have slashed the whole project effort in half.

Final note: Get a therapist or at least someone who can help you take your mind off things for a couple of days. On occasion, I was close to defining the term “studio rampage”. Listening to bars 25 to 37 of a particular track over a hundred times creates this unsafe desire of wanting to inflict damage to objects and people...well, mostly objects. Going for a walk from time to time and keeping a good bottle of wine close by is the number one recipe for keeping you sane.

All in all, a worthwhile experience and all made possible by the Wikiloops members.

Regular programming (i.e. creative song destruction) will now resume.

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great and insightful summary <3

out of curiosity, did you get any 'ear fatigue'? sometimes when I spend a bit of time on a track, my ears get tired, or need a break. it can be quicker with like metal and thick guitars, but in general I do get some sort of fatigue from listening and need a break. how often did u take breaks and revisit the track ,etc?

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Oh, I got that every day and I think the length of the piece I could listen to got shorter every time I listened to it. In the final weeks I did need to take a listening break every 30 minutes. But even if that helped against ear-fatique, it didn`t do enough to counter the boredom of having the same couple of bars on repeat.

Don`t know how it is for other people, but there was a conflict building up between trying to make a track sound better and at the same time beginning to hate it more and more just because I had to listen to it so many times.

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