The Bourne Supremacy Ending Song
Dimple Belousson
Extreme Ways is a famous song written and performed by Moby for the Jason Bourne film franchise. The version of the song used in each film varies from it predecessor. The song has been used at the first part of the ending credits on each of the five films released to date.
"Extreme Ways" is a song by American electronica musician Moby. Released on August 19, 2002, it was the second single from his studio album 18. It is also included on disc one of the American release of Go -- The Very Best of Moby. It samples the drum break from Melvin Bliss's "Synthetic Substitution", one of the most popularly sampled drum breaks in the history of music. It also samples the strings from the beginning of Hugo Winterhalter's cover of "Everybody's Talkin'".
For The Bourne Legacy, another new version of the song, subtitled "Bourne's Legacy", was recorded partially at Moby's home studio in Los Angeles and partially at Sony Picture Studios in Culver City. To create a new, orchestral-infused version of this song, Moby worked with a 110 piece orchestra overseen by film composer James Newton Howard and fellow composer Joseph Trapanese to record the full song and an orchestra-only version, which were both released as digital singles on July 31st, 2012. This version was also included on the film's soundtrack which was released on August 7th, 2012.
For the fifth film, Jason Bourne, Moby recorded a new version of the song, subtitled "Jason Bourne", which retained the orchestral elements found in "Bourne's Legacy". It was released as a single on July 22nd, 2016, then included on the soundtrack which was released on July 29th, 2016.
Is there some magic formula or EQ preset that will get me started?
Due to some hearing loss, just about everything sounds bassy to me, so I'm not sure I could hear the difference if I applied some EQ or otherwise processed a track.
I recorded the song in SHS 6 XL then imported the .wav into CbB for mp3 mixdown, but I don't know if I have the proper turd-polishing gear.
Advice, links appreciated. I know the topic of equalization has been discussed ad infinitum on these forums, but because of the aforementioned bad hearing, I've pretty much skimmed the posts, thinking I can't do anything about it.
Thanks!
then, look at an eq that shows active freq range, and find the one freq that always sticks up way above the rest of the freqs, and drop this freq down the same amount as it sticks up (4db, 5db, 6db, etc). use a Q on this freq that starts around 2, then spread it out or sharpen it til you get what you want.
No two basses are ever the same in a mix. I second the comments made by Batsbrew here. Mud can be caused by several things. One is simply too much of a certain frequency that needs to be notched back. If you have a graphic representation it helps to see where the highest peaks are on the bass track and drop them 3-5db usually. Sliding the frequency around on the EQ while listening helps to hear it in a mix. Lots of people think that bass needs to have a lot of low end when in reality you are likely hearing the "bump" from the bass more in the 200-300 range usually in a narrow Q . Sometimes you get the mud from something else and it seems like the bass when it isn't. What it really is, is several tracks all pumping in that same range, so the other tracks need to be EQ'd to stay out of that sweet spot which will be different each time.
A few toys that help are dynamic EQ and side chaining to an offending track. Gain staging can also play a part. If tracks are much over -6db after you load up on plugins and push the master things can get mushy.
Lastly, mp3's just plain suck, especially low rez mp3. If you can hear the mp3 before you mixdown on something like the features offered in Ozone using mp3 monitoring you can hear how badly the compression is going to toy with your mix and try to compensate. On SC upload on wav. Yeah it's still an mp3 in the end but it only went through one conversion. If you have the choice upload at least 256mps mp3.
People have given you some good suggestions but I have one that others have maybe not mentioned. Have someone else mix your music or at least listen to it to give you feedback. If you really do have some hearing issues, many of us do, you will need someone else to help you judge any moves you make anyway.
Thanks, all.
I should have mentioned that this is an EDM piece with no traditional bass, just synth sounds. In the Songs forum. Way out of my usual guitar/bass/keys/drums thing.
A poster wrote that the bass needs unmuddying, so I'm going to attempt to clean it up, as well as bringing the drums up in the mix.
Appreciate your time and advice.
Rip a similar sounding track from a CD and import it into your project. Have the track routed directly to your audio device output, or it's own bus routed to the audio interface output (i.e. so it's not through the main master bus). Then swap between soloing the reference bus / main bus to the match the volume between the two.
Once you've done that, if you can match the EQ (preferably using your ears rather than a tool) of your own mix to the reference track, this might mitigate some of the effect of hearing loss, or even badly matched monitors/room.
It's a tool, and not ears, but Newfangled Audio's EQuivocate works well for this. You feed your reference track to its sidechain input, and it'll match the EQ of the target audio over its 26 Mel Scale bands. I had it, then upgraded to the Elevate bundle, which included EQuivocate. Not cheap ($99; not on sale at the moment), but a good one.
No magic formula but if you have trouble hearing and don't have someone else to mix... I'd buy iZotope neutro. Elements and run the assistant function. It should help get rid of some offensive stuff automatically.
Dealing with EDM and several soft synths it's important to think over how the sounds match. Many synth sounds include variable portions of very low frequencies, even though the general sound isn't bassy. If you have several soft synths with bass content, decide which one has the bass "dominance" at any particular point. It may require cutting the lows of other synths very radically.
You need to make strategic frequency boost and cuts with different Q levels to eliminate 2 or more instruments taking up the same frequency field in a mix. Its called 'Complimentary EQ' and this technique leads to a more clearer mix. Most mixes you hear have had this done in the mixing stage. Its a very common procedure and very easy to apply.
Below is how its done and you do this 'Complimentary EQ' technique when you have 2 or more different instruments taking up the same frequency field, like the bass and kick drum or the vocals and piano.
For this example, I will use the most common scenario, the bass guitar and kick drum. Lets say you boost the bass guitar at 220hZ by 1.9dB with a Q setting of 2.6, you should not boost the kick drum at the same frequency range. You should actually cut the kick drum at 220hZ with the same Q setting. The amount you cut depends on how it sounds, so just dial it in until you are happy with the sound. This makes the 2 instruments coexist together in harmony in the mix.
Three quick items. First, as mentioned above, there is no magic formula, but references like this (can Google "EQ Cheat Sheet" to find others similar) give a nice overview of how frequency ranges of common instruments affect their character.
Second, mixing is where you will often create issues, so placement of things on the sonic stage and minimizing frequency collisions will keep each instrument more clear. This old Fabfilter Pro-Q walkthrough by Dan Worrall (10:10) is one of the nicest I have seen and worth a gander to see mixing "in action" and why he is doing what he is doing. This is geared more to traditional instruments with defined frequency ranges, which leads into...
... reason... synths (especially presets) are often WIDE, and cover a MASSIVE frequency range... two synths can be challenging, but several can make an absolute frequency collision nightmare. Some quick comments on how to deal with this (these are more than just bass, as synths create their own unique challenges):
if you can match the EQ (preferably using your ears rather than a tool) of your own mix to the reference track, this might mitigate some of the effect of hearing loss, or even badly matched monitors/room.
This. As a veteran of many live stage performances and shows, I definitely have rolloff, and it's never completely quiet, but I keep my ears "tuned" by having close listening sessions with favorite well-produced albums and songs. Later Radiohead is some very well-produced music with deep and wide soundstages, good instrument separation, etc.
What others have said about the bass, can't add much except maybe to say if you have synths that are taking the roles of "bass" and "kick," let the kick take the lower end and carve those frequencies out of the bass track, assuming you still have access to the mix and aren't just mastering in Cakewalk.
I always remember that I listened to top 40 radio through the speaker of a small transistor radio when I was a kid, and I could still hear all of the instruments on that 2" made in Japan driver. David Essex' "Rock On" sounds killer no matter what you play it on, and most of the song is Herbie Flowers' double-tracked bass. So perception of "bass" doesn't necessarily depend on hearing the booooom, although it should be present when played on a full-range system.
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