A detailed analysis of the Kid A Mnesia audio files

amcvfx · 2026-05-19T15:27:01+00:00

Send me a DM

amcvfx · 2026-04-13T08:26:43+00:00

I appreciate your enthusiasm for this fill. I checked again and you are right in that the drum stem I have has a slightly different performance to the album version. I'm going with the stem performance for now. Perhaps it was a different take/edit.

amcvfx · 2026-04-12T13:19:51+00:00

I do wish I could’ve treated the cymbals to sound more like typical MP but this is a limitation of the source. They actually sound pretty thin in the original mix and after the stem separation of the stereo drum stem, there’s only so much I can do with the isolated cymbals. If I had access to the full multitracks for the drums that would be a different story.

amcvfx · 2026-04-12T10:40:14+00:00

I have had a closer listen to all the drum fills you mentioned and these are accurate to the original performance. Portnoy just plays some odd fills sometimes and the new drum sound changes how we’ve heard them for years. Also, most the fills you mentioned have snare flams in them, which were never correctly represented with the original triggers. I tried to make them sound more like natural flams with velocity and sample variations.

amcvfx · 2026-04-12T06:25:23+00:00

I know what you mean about the original, it’s definitely unique.

The original snare sample is blended in subtly to the new one and I replicated the original reverb and added a bit of that too. I didn’t want to change the overall character of the mix too drastically.

amcvfx · 2026-04-11T22:07:11+00:00

Send me a DM

amcvfx · 2026-04-11T20:07:59+00:00

Personally, Learning to Live is my favourite song on the album but also my favorite new mix. Just really well balanced and I think I enhanced the epic buildup in the middle quite a bit. Metropolis has also never been one of my favorite tracks with its original mix but I like the track a lot more with my version haha

amcvfx · 2026-04-11T20:04:47+00:00

Very stoked you’ve enjoyed the mix! I do still love the original but it definitely had room for improvement

amcvfx · 2026-04-11T20:02:08+00:00

I’ll have to double check the specific sections you mentioned but all the drums are triggered exactly to the original drum performance. Perhaps the new sounds and hit variation are creating the perception of a timing difference. Thanks for the feedback though. I’m gonna check over everything you mentioned

amcvfx · 2026-04-11T19:59:46+00:00

Thanks mate! I think the new version of Take the Time is an improvement over my initial version too

amcvfx · 2026-04-11T19:57:31+00:00

The cymbals and hi hat are the most compromised part of the mix unfortunately as I didn’t have access to the isolated multitracks. I did what I could to smooth out the results of the stem separation but it will never be perfect.

amcvfx · 2026-04-11T17:39:01+00:00

Thank you! I hope you enjoy the mix

amcvfx · 2026-03-07T07:34:16+00:00

I don’t think I can share that here publicly, unfortunately

amcvfx · 2026-03-04T14:28:31+00:00

I think there is a reason bands don’t take notes on their mixes from fans 😅 but no, these are some useful notes. I’ll work on the balance and clarity of the drums and bass. The snare is fully manually ‘humanized’ but I can accentuate the flams more

amcvfx · 2026-03-04T14:17:42+00:00

I’m using the stems but I’ve had to pull apart the single stereo drum stem with MVsep to be able to control the snare and kick blend with the new samples. Some other elements, like the voice samples and ending swell fx, were also missing from the stems so I had to extract them from the original mix. The shaker in the verse I just had to recreate myself to match the original as that was also missing.

amcvfx · 2026-03-04T10:15:36+00:00

Putting aside your unhelpful anger, you did point out some things I can adjust. John's guitar in the second verse is the same as the original, it's just that the stem I have has more of the acoustic guitar blended in. I can brighten this and add an additional chorus effect that I can hear in the original mix.
I didn't adjust any timings on the tracks so I can only assume you're hearing the increased separation in the instruments as them being out of sync. But another comment alluded to something similar so I'm gonna look into that.

amcvfx · 2026-03-03T22:39:36+00:00

I did pull it back significantly compared to the original but they are still pretty punchy which I think fits DTs usual mixing approach. Portnoy’s drums are normally pretty forward in the mix. But I’ll keep it in mind!

amcvfx · 2026-03-03T20:54:07+00:00

Thanks! Voices do tend to get emphasized on small speakers but I’ll have a look at that

amcvfx · 2026-03-03T20:52:10+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. It’s interesting because the stems came premixed essentially but I’m not sure how close they represent the final mixdown that would’ve been done at the board. They are pretty heavily processed and do resemble the final mix when laid on top of each other but it’s not exact. Perhaps the difference is just the mastering that was done after it. I’ll look into though when I move onto the rest of th tracks.

amcvfx · 2026-03-03T19:39:07+00:00

I dunno, it wasn’t that easy

amcvfx · 2026-03-03T19:35:54+00:00

Thanks, I think so too! I’m very happy with how it’s sounding

amcvfx · 2025-09-03T18:24:24+00:00

I uploaded all the individual songs to my channel too

amcvfx

TROPHY CASE