Progress & Informalities - Sountrack - fearuring lapsteel guitar

[lokeyfly]

Genre

Soundtrack

Instruments

Harley Benton CST24 with glass slide
Chandler Lap Steel Guitar
Martin HD28-V
Fender P Bass, 68'
NI - Massive X
Arturia Pigments 6, & Prophet V
Multiple percussion including Studio One's library
Roland Octapad for triggering percussion.
Presence - Fretless, and Vintage Bass

Effects

Assorted, but namely
Valhalla reverbs
Neural DSP - Mesa Boogie
Presonus Open Air, Rotary, and numerous delays.
NI Lexicon 224 reverb

Special techniques

A few notables to share or discuss are at 4:20 where I swept the Pro EQ via automation on one band (they vary at different parts of the song). The dynamic compression also activated. The intent is mainly targeted at bongos, and congas to vary pitch around 200 hz to 600 hz. This adds realism to the instrument in a number of ways. Namely some subtle changes in pitch. Almost non discernible I could have randomized the changes, but instead I created a sine wave shape to the automation. Scaled it to fit with the tempo, and the results are similar to hitting certain parts of the drum's skin. I've used this technique before, in some of my other songs enough to make good use of it. Here, I'm simply showing it.

Another area I explored was in creating another slide guitar effect, much different than the lapsteel sound. I did this by playing a glass slide through a vocoder, using a dobrow as a sound source. So the final effect ends up being a standard electric guitar sounding like a dobrow instrument. Cool beans.

Released when

Sept. 23, 2025

Hi all,
Definately one of my longer songs, Progress & Informalities showcases a new lapsteel guitar I just recieved. There are other parts that include a glass slide with conventional guitar as well. However, take note of the lapsteel sound which provides uniquely long silky clean sustain and slurry runs. Such sustaining tones really work with ambient textures, cinematic soundscapes, as they also do for country music.

Enjoy, take a little trip, and break away from life's many distractions. At least for seven and a half minutes! ; )
"Thank you" ahead for listening and responding.
James
p.s. feel free to leave a comment on my YT channel where the link is from. TY.

 

[yeah dude whats up]

Woah, this is FANTASTIC! I love the slide guitar and lapsteel, as well as the riffing that comes in after the 1 min mark. I also really like the percussion and all the little synth embellishments. The whole thing just seems so intelligently layered together. Oftentimes, atmospheric music can be a bit boring, but you managed to keep things moving along for over 7 minutes, all the while keeping me engaged. Awesome work!

 

[lokeyfly]

Woah, this is FANTASTIC! I love the slide guitar and lapsteel, as well as the riffing that comes in after the 1 min mark. I also really like the percussion and all the little synth embellishments. The whole thing just seems so intelligently layered together. Oftentimes, atmospheric music can be a bit boring, but you managed to keep things moving along for over 7 minutes, all the while keeping me engaged. Awesome work!

Thanks man, for the kind words and what areas grabbed you about the piece. You nailed exactly how I feel about atmospheric music. Its potential is often great, though it rarely, gets off the ground. Leaving the listener (and even composer) feeling like that's all there is. I tend to build progressive flavors out of ambient or atmospheric textures for the same reasons you mention.

So very appreciated.

 

[Craig Anderton]

I like the attitude, the inventiveness, the textures, the flow, the whole package. The inclusion of the slide guitar and the way you warped it was super-cool. The percussion accents propel the song, and I think they're part of why it moves along so well.

Too bad you weren't doing this in the 1980s, you would have had a deal with Narada or Windham Hill

I did get the sense it was very compressed, but before I said anything, I wanted to check if my ears were fooling me. The LRA dynamic range reading was only 1.2, which indicates very little dynamic range. Even heavily compressed EDM and hip-hop usually hit 4 or 5. Granted, if it's a soundtrack, I get that you'd want it tucked below dialog, effects, etc. But it can stand on its own! I'd love to hear it given a more outfront/dynamic mixing and mastering job. I think it would make all the cool aspects just that much more effective.

Personal bias alert: My songs usually have an LRA of around 5 to 13. That's more like typical country, jazz, and even some classical music, so my ears have become acclimated to (or perhaps "addicted to," LOL) more dynamic range.

 

[lokeyfly]

Thanks Craig, and yes, I also was thinking along the latter 70's progressive offerings. Ala, something along King Crimson meets Brian Eno. : )

To your point, I had LUFS (1st try) at about 7. Far greater than what YT look for (at 14) and the output validated this in my tests. My measurements came from the LUFS readings from the project, page post effect.

I then uploaded the song to YT, and saw how the overall level dropped slightly. Btw, it's not compression you're hearing or reading (per se), but due to YT's choking the volume, it does appear to be compressed.

Prior to uploading on the 2nd try (what you hear now), the song had several areas where the overall TP vary quite nicely. What I then did was slightly raise those lower sections (i.e. church scene, acous. guitars scene, and intro) by sending the song to the Projects page. Then with clip gain, raise only those lower level sections to match the slightly louder staccato-like guitar part, sections. Of course, then check if the overall feel worked. It did.
That brought LUFS to about 6.3. The same drop occurred after uploading again.

I should probably note, I dont like LUFS too loud, like when some waveforms look like a slice of bologna. So I usually release at around 9 to 10 LUFS. Readings like at 4 LUFS are typically those super annoying advertisements, that make one jump out of their skin.

At the close of this year, I'll be releasing an album and I'll definately proof out this song possibly being added to that album

What I believe you might be seeing is the overall parts being level, but not by compression. I'll explain.
There's a lot of dynamic activity going with the beats/bar differences, but on whole, the overall sections levels are close. Perhaps (and it's my guess) giving the feel of compression. I actually don't use much compression ever except for where guitar sustain might benefit, but almost never anywhere else. Never on bass (no need, when I can keep a dynamic feel by varying velocity. Never on drums either as that's taboo to go and kill drum dynamics with.

Its my guess, and thank you for your comments, is that any limiting is from YT squashing at upload. With limiting, I always leave about 1 dB headroom remaining when limiting a mix or master. So that should have been fine. Only they likely lowered the ceiling.

In the end, I felt the vibe and dynamics work.

I might try one morr level change to explore further, but can't at the moment. That might be a 12 LUFS upload to compare.

 

[Craig Anderton]

That makes sense. What I expected to hear was based on your Rio Amazonas, which I thought was great for many reasons, one of which was the way it handled dynamic range. (Just to be clear, I wasn't talking about LUFS, but LRA - I've never seen an LRA as low as in Progress and Informalities., which is why I commented on it.) Using the Gain envelope on the master, and possibly the limiting to some extent, sounds like you were making an intentional artistic decision to prioritize the vibe. As I've always said, there are 20 valid ways to mix or master any music, but the only one that matters is the one that conveys the artist's intent most accurately

Anyway, I'd definitely vote for your revisiting the song for an album release, and seeing if you can retain the vibe you want while throwing more of a spotlight on individual instrument parts. I really like what's going on, I just want to hear more of it!

 

[lokeyfly]

Good thoughts. For the album release, it will most certainly be raised on a whole. Not changed per individual instrument parts. That's done. Sorry for the delay..... been on vaca.

 

[Craig Anderton]

The parts themselves definitely don't need to be changed! What I meant by "more" is I just want to hear a few parts mixed another dB or so higher in a couple places. It's kind of an anti-complaint - instead of saying "make it go away," I'm saying "make it come closer." Now that I think about it, maybe it's just that I'd love to hear what it would sound like as a binaural mix. It seems like a natural for that format!

Good thoughts. For the album release, it will most certainly be raised on a whole. Not changed per individual instrument parts. That's done. Sorry for the delay..... been on vaca.

 

[lokeyfly]

A fun song, and additionally should reveal some details about LRA that I can take note of.

 

[lokeyfly]

Yeah as mentioned, long vaca so I just got a chance to look at LRA levels. The master is at 4.7 LRA. I can still expand on the dynamic range and will. There is almost no compression at all except in the power chords where I use a Mesa Boogie IIC+, by Neural DSP. I'd replace the song by providing the master in something like Bandcamp, only I want distribution to go out a without Bandcamp version. So from what I see, YouTube did a number on limiting and thereby reducing dynamic range as well. Where that is less constraiining, I'd have to experiment with further. I've uploaded many songs/videos without post processing impact. Crazy.

Other releases for this new album, all good.

 

[Craig Anderton]

I think YouTube might also juice the treble a bit. Or, maybe it has a target EQ curve that approximates the curve that it seems Atmos adds to binaural stereo downmixes but not to conventional stereo downmixes (your conspiracy theory for today ). FWIW I did some test uploads with and without respecting True Peak. It seems like you really need to have a max output of no more than -1.5 dB for LUFS values above -14 dBFS. Of course, your music does that, but I mention it for the benefit of others since it seems to make such a differerence.

The LRA figure I mentioned was from downloading your YouTube file for analysis in Studio One. If you're getting 4.7 on the original master, wow...that's a helluva difference compared to what I saw, and a scary one at that. Time for some more tests...

 

[lokeyfly]

Thanks Craig. I'll try the max output of no more than -1.5 dB for LUFS above -14 dBFS. That's around where I like to live. Yeah, all of the other tracks (songs) are meaty, nice and analog synth like. I tried to understand if it were the acoustic guitars with sustained synth pads in the background. Potentially reducing dynamic range and their (YouTube) limiting to crush from top-down. Dunno. Perhaps some tell tale of why it drops in volume. But we live to improve our works, and see what might be some secret sauce YT and others might be doing. Onward and forward.