My first project in Ardour - old guy music

Something sort of old school I created with the help of a few old guys (it’s not exactly hip hop or electronica). Recorded the saxes and keys initially in Ardour, and imported the drums and bass from my collaborators. Mixed in Ardour, mastered using Jamin as an insert.

Hi,

Well if ‘old guy’=shredding jazz then OK… sounds like very accomplished musicians make great music timelessly ‘in the moment’ to me. Very nicely performed and produced!

I also play and produce a genre not terribly prevalent among musicians using Linux so I understand how it appears that you’re outside the norm if you aren’t posting EDM, metal or hip hop. Linux Audio is a small niche of producers and I’m grateful we have folks of all ages and genres posting here, great jazz like this is a welcome addition and complement to everything else, please post more :).

Thanks. I don’t know anyone locally who can appreciate jazz fusion, and it does seem like a majority of home recording people I know do EDM, metal or hip-hop.

I do have a lot of online musician friends with similar interests, and we’re always bouncing ideas back and forth via email or kompoz.com. I hope to be posting more soon.

Thanks!

Yes, not only my first project with Ardour, but first with Linux as well. I used the MDA JX-10 for my synth pads, and guitarix reverb on its own bus for saxes and drums. My drummer provided a stereo drum mix straight from his Roland TD11 kit, so I really didn’t have to do any processing or mixing of drum tracks.

I tried mastering both ways, with plugins in Ardour, and with Jamin. I felt more comfortable with my results with Jamin. That being said, Ubuntu Studio comes with a BUTTLOAD of plugins I still have yet to explore to find what works best. I plan to try some compare and contrast with different plugins to find what works best for me.

OK, cool.

Take a look at the Calf plugins too – I’ve had good luck with them, though I’ve heard some people say they’ve had problems.

Best of luck, and looking forward to hearing more from you.

I have tried a few. I tried Calf reverb, and then the guitarix stereo reverb and liked the guitarix one better, mostly for its simplicity. The Calf multiband and single band compressors work well, and I particularly like having a graphical interface with compressors.

I like the way Jamin’s limiter works, but have not found that in a plugin (yet). I’m not fond of Jamin’s EQ section. It acts sluggish if I try to adjust anything while my track is playing, and is easy to overcorrect things. Perhaps a bit of a CPU hog.

Well now you know two people over the Internet who like jazz fusion.

Sounds great, and welcome to the wonderful world of Ardour!

Out of curiosity, did you mix with the built-in plugins? (And since you’re using Jamin, you’re on Linux, yes?)

If there’s a processor to avoid after any of the Calf plugins, it’s Jamin. According to some people anyway.
See this thread for mixed comments: https://community.ardour.org/node/3582

The LinuxDSP plugins are mentioned more favourably there, now called OvertoneDSP. I haven’t used them extensively for mastering but the only time I’ve used their multiband compressor so far (to tame some shrill high notes on a violin) it did a fantastic job. Their stuff is not free but still good value.

The only problem I had with this is that I wanted it to go on for another 15 or 20 minutes.