I glance from the window of the train, watching the landscape that cradles its inhabitants in various abodes stream past my vision. I consider that within each snapshot of time I am capturing a view of differing stories hidden within it. The patchwork of eccentricity contained within any town or city is embodied into a singular, momentary view.
There are a rollercoaster of emotions filled with positive and negative energies happening all at once.
Music is said to also capture a snapshot of society, echoing the emotion of the society it comes from and the social, political or economical status quo.
Songs which appeal cross genre, race and demographic tend to have the ability to take a more universal snapshot of the world highlighting and bowing to the most commonly apparent expressions of feeling.
When mixing and producing a record, it is important to endeavour to embody this flow of emotion. The exhilaration and misery, love and hate, excitement and angst. Let the record express itself colourfully and freely by taking care not to quash its expressiveness.
Dynamics are key to achieving this. The dynamic of a song can be affected by 3 main things; space, level and tone. These dynamic ingredients can be shaped by you through editing, level mixing, equalisation and compression (as well as other dynamic treatments).
Never underestimate the importance of silence, this alone can breathe tremendous dynamic and expression into a phrase – especially when you are trying to create tension or anticipation, or even just to tease the listener in a cheeky way.
Try cutting the last bar or few notes of a phrase, cutting the rhythm section works really well, or maybe even cutting all instruments and just leaving the bass part in, play around with your pauses and notice the different emotions that they help create. Don’t feel forced to have everything on the beat either. Having some parts coming in on the 3rd beat of the bar can add interest, or try having stabs or counter rhythm percussion coming in on the off beat.
As I’ve mentioned before, when starting to mix levels, I always like to start with the percussive elements of the track. I see the drums as the foundations of the audio track I am building – if these foundations aren’t right then my whole audio building feels unstable. I do not tend to play around with the drum parts once they are mixed, having snares pan round and kicks automated up and down in level is not something I think sounds good. Maybe some effects in places to add a stutter or delay, but I think it is more important to have a stable beat under your track. The excitement can come from varying beats, rhythms and parts rather than trying to make it sound like a drum kit is whirling around the listeners head.
The sounds you balance in level against your beats are then free to be more dynamically adjusting, allowed to roam more and be manipulated through automation and fades.
Use your automation of levels to signpost phrases in the lyrics or hooks in the guitar line. Use it to build excitement before the chorus or middle 8 section. Create a journey through the song that shies away from mono-dynamic monotony.
The tonal spectrum of your music can also be a way to manipulate the dynamics of a piece. This is something that is a favourite in dance music, with producers often using low pass and high pass filters to build excitement or create musical signposts.
Instead of increasing the volume of a part, you can add the perception of dynamic excitement by mirroring the phrase in a different octave or with a different instrument or indeed both of these variants. Also try automating between different equalisation settings for instruments as you move through the different sections of a song – maybe going for a sparse, thinner sound for the striking yet cold verse and a thicker, shaped sound for the more powerful chorus.
All of these aspects can help you create your snapshot of human emotion, a moment in time that can mirror the hidden stories of society and relate your music to the panoptic population.
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Wednesday 21 April 2010
THE SOUND BETWEEN THE SOUND
I am writing this months article whilst airborne heading towards the Frankfurt MusikMesse Trade Show. Whilst glancing out the window at the vast amount of air and space between the ground, and myself - I am reminded of the ratio of very little breathable air compared to the somewhat excessive and unusual facial hair that tends to fashion itself at this smoky, busy, industry trade show.
My current spatial position (and thankfully not the MusikMesse facial hair) has inspired me to really consider the concept of moving air in terms of transition of sound and how we think about it.
As you know when an instrument sounds, it sends out soundwaves, frequencies that ripple and resonate through the air. It is our job as an engineer to capture that movement of air using a microphone to reproduce and record its emitting patterns.
Due to the way that we interpret this movement of air into voltages and then often again converted into binary figures, it then tends to focus our mind very much onto a final precise value. We tend to forget about the variants, the subtle movements that weren’t picked up or were lost along the way. We also mask out the frequencies that have less content within the final sound capture. We disregard these things as “unwanted noise” or “interference”, but is that really the case?
As a comparison, if you were monitoring the sky as my plane flew threw your vision, the object that is seen as moving and most important is the actual plane. Your perception of the fact the plane is flying would be that it is not stationary on the one constant of your vision, the ground. However, if you were to just take note of the actual plane (the moving object) and the ground (the constant), you would be disregarding all the information in-between (in this case the air in-between, which is obviously quite important!).
What I am trying to say is that the sounds between the sounds that we noticeably perceive are arguably just as important. The human ear usually picks up frequencies from as low as 20Hz right up to 20kHz with perfect hearing (although in reality and also with age this number decreases). Even with these figures, it has been proven that humans can “feel” frequencies outside the realm of their hearing capabilities. This means we must be very sensitive to different frequencies and even if we cant easily pick them out in our hearing, we may still be aware of their existence and possibly even rely on them to make things sound “natural”.
In Physics and Astronomy, many have discussed “dark matter”, a fascinating topic that really is delving into the furthest reach of our understanding of the universe. Basically with dark matter, it is the “stuff” that isn’t there, the space between the space that must exist - and helps to explain the workings and expansion of our universe. It is said, that just because we cant see something, doesn’t mean it isn’t there and so should respect its existence. I think the same could be said with sound, that just because we cant hear all the sounds, between the sounds we can hear, doesn’t mean they are not there and we should have respect for them in the recording and mixing process.
You could look at the process of creating and capturing sound - right through to the mixing and monitoring of it - as an energy flow process, where the energy is the sound.
So now your whole system (your studio technique) and your task (as engineer) is to help this energy flow freely and passionately (yet controlled accurately by you) through your entire recording, mixing and monitoring process.
This should help you focus on elements that are all vitally important in creating a great record.
The recording space, the microphone, the pre amp, the mix bus, the converters, the processing power, the editing, the effects, the dynamics, and the monitors all play a part in how you can respect this flow of energy. Each element when explained in this way, can help make sense of why these separate considerations and processes are important and what effect they could each have on the sound energy flow process.
So next time you begin to venture into a fresh capture of moving air, or sit down to process your captured energy, be mindful and respectful to allow it to flow with the freedom and passion that nature intended, yet helped along with your inspired and creative hand.
My current spatial position (and thankfully not the MusikMesse facial hair) has inspired me to really consider the concept of moving air in terms of transition of sound and how we think about it.
As you know when an instrument sounds, it sends out soundwaves, frequencies that ripple and resonate through the air. It is our job as an engineer to capture that movement of air using a microphone to reproduce and record its emitting patterns.
Due to the way that we interpret this movement of air into voltages and then often again converted into binary figures, it then tends to focus our mind very much onto a final precise value. We tend to forget about the variants, the subtle movements that weren’t picked up or were lost along the way. We also mask out the frequencies that have less content within the final sound capture. We disregard these things as “unwanted noise” or “interference”, but is that really the case?
As a comparison, if you were monitoring the sky as my plane flew threw your vision, the object that is seen as moving and most important is the actual plane. Your perception of the fact the plane is flying would be that it is not stationary on the one constant of your vision, the ground. However, if you were to just take note of the actual plane (the moving object) and the ground (the constant), you would be disregarding all the information in-between (in this case the air in-between, which is obviously quite important!).
What I am trying to say is that the sounds between the sounds that we noticeably perceive are arguably just as important. The human ear usually picks up frequencies from as low as 20Hz right up to 20kHz with perfect hearing (although in reality and also with age this number decreases). Even with these figures, it has been proven that humans can “feel” frequencies outside the realm of their hearing capabilities. This means we must be very sensitive to different frequencies and even if we cant easily pick them out in our hearing, we may still be aware of their existence and possibly even rely on them to make things sound “natural”.
In Physics and Astronomy, many have discussed “dark matter”, a fascinating topic that really is delving into the furthest reach of our understanding of the universe. Basically with dark matter, it is the “stuff” that isn’t there, the space between the space that must exist - and helps to explain the workings and expansion of our universe. It is said, that just because we cant see something, doesn’t mean it isn’t there and so should respect its existence. I think the same could be said with sound, that just because we cant hear all the sounds, between the sounds we can hear, doesn’t mean they are not there and we should have respect for them in the recording and mixing process.
You could look at the process of creating and capturing sound - right through to the mixing and monitoring of it - as an energy flow process, where the energy is the sound.
So now your whole system (your studio technique) and your task (as engineer) is to help this energy flow freely and passionately (yet controlled accurately by you) through your entire recording, mixing and monitoring process.
This should help you focus on elements that are all vitally important in creating a great record.
The recording space, the microphone, the pre amp, the mix bus, the converters, the processing power, the editing, the effects, the dynamics, and the monitors all play a part in how you can respect this flow of energy. Each element when explained in this way, can help make sense of why these separate considerations and processes are important and what effect they could each have on the sound energy flow process.
So next time you begin to venture into a fresh capture of moving air, or sit down to process your captured energy, be mindful and respectful to allow it to flow with the freedom and passion that nature intended, yet helped along with your inspired and creative hand.
Tuesday 9 March 2010
VOCAL PLACEMENT
One can sometimes forget the power that a single voice can contain. It has been a single voice that with the correct delivery can inspire a generation or inject fear into a nation. A voice can carry valuable information as well as hopes and fears and desires. A voice using speech, is one of the oldest forms of communication and has always been an essential basis for many cultures, passing on wisdom, skills and stories that in many societies formed the foundations of their modern religions, culture, beliefs and moral identity.
Within music, the vocal is also ever dominant. A badly mixed or balanced vocal can ruin the entire feel of a song and loose its power and charm. Often the vocal contains important lyrics to define the songs meaning, but even if not, the tone and placement of the vocal is in essence a primary colour within the songs sound canvass.
So where do you start in helping to achieve a well-mixed vocal? Let’s start at the beginning, the actual recording.
Choosing the correct microphone for your vocalist is not always as easy as you think. There is not one magic microphone that is perfect for every vocalist. Each studio microphone tends to have a slightly different frequency response and “sweet spot”. This means that in the same way your vocalists have a different tonal make up, so in turn do the microphones you can use to record them.
Don’t be put off from using a mic aimed at recording acoustic guitar or other instruments, for use on vocals, it may just work out as the best option. Try and get to know your mic collection and get accustomed to the tonal qualities of each one to make this process easier. Getting a good recording to start with is like making sure you have quality fresh ingredients before you cook, the end result will be much tastier and easier to achieve.
Once you have finished all your recording and are starting to mix, you need to have a general playback listen to account for obvious problems. Listen out for if the vocal gets lost on quiet passages or becomes overpowering on more energetic phrases; do you loose the vocal when the piano is playing or the guitar?
Getting the vocal mix right isn’t just to do with the level. Its how it balances against the other components of the track. Compression can help get a more consistent level on your vocal but sometimes people are guilty of over-compressing to try and cover up tonal clashes and imbalances in the mix. When compressing a vocal the ideal settings will vary dependant on the vocalist, but the compressor shouldn’t be making the track louder, just more even, preventing large peaks and troughs in the dynamics. Try to avoid using presets on plug ins, play around with settings or use a dedicated outboard unit to really get to know how the compressor you use works and sounds.
If you find that you are loosing the vocal on the verse because of the guitar, you could try two different solutions, firstly ducking. This is where you use a gate in “ducking” mode. Normally a gate acts almost like a switch in an electronic circuit or a binary digit, in that it has one of 2 values – open or shut. When open, a gate lets the sound freely through, when shut it mutes sound completely. The input threshold usually controls the gates parameters, so if signal goes below a threshold of so many dB, the gate is shut and sound muted. When a gate operates in “ducking” mode however, the sound isn’t muted, but instead is lowered in volume by several dB. In this mode the way in which you activate the process differs too. For the case of our vocal struggling with the guitar to be heard, we would insert a gate over the guitar track and set to “ducking” mode. We would then insert the vocal track into the sidechain input of the gate. This enables the vocal to become the trigger for the ducking gate and force the guitar down in level when the vocal sounds, creating manipulative automation.
Another method is one of my most used “mix tricks”. Using a simple EQ inserted on the vocal track, sweep up and down the spectrum to find the most prominent and favourable frequency. Have this frequency boosted by at least 3dB with a narrow Q of at least around 7. Then on the opposing track, set up the same EQ but this time cut the same frequency by the same amount. This method of mixing is sometimes referred to as spectral mixing or what I call a sound amnesty, allowing each frequency and instrument to be heard fairly and coexist in harmony within the frequency spectrum.
Once you have a well-balanced vocal, its important to add the correct dimension to it, this can be done using reverb to help place it in the mix. The less reverb, the further “forward” the vocal will sound. A vocal without any reverb added will sound unnatural and also as if it is just hovering aimlessly above the track. Too much reverb and the vocal will be swallowed into the mix, loosing power and intelligibility.
As a general rule, always use more reverb on backing vocals and keep the main vocal a little drier. Pay attention to the tone of the reverb you add and check it with just the vocal soloed and against the whole track, don’t be scared to layer reverbs either – sometimes layering reverbs can help the trail sound lusher and more natural.
Prioritise your vocal and use your ears and the tools of your trade to make sure it has the attention it deserves, help your mixes to stand out and be remembered through your commanding and enchanting, well balanced and mixed vocal. Strive to achieve a vocal that can communicate with the listener by resonating through the universal language of music in the most harmonious way.
Within music, the vocal is also ever dominant. A badly mixed or balanced vocal can ruin the entire feel of a song and loose its power and charm. Often the vocal contains important lyrics to define the songs meaning, but even if not, the tone and placement of the vocal is in essence a primary colour within the songs sound canvass.
So where do you start in helping to achieve a well-mixed vocal? Let’s start at the beginning, the actual recording.
Choosing the correct microphone for your vocalist is not always as easy as you think. There is not one magic microphone that is perfect for every vocalist. Each studio microphone tends to have a slightly different frequency response and “sweet spot”. This means that in the same way your vocalists have a different tonal make up, so in turn do the microphones you can use to record them.
Don’t be put off from using a mic aimed at recording acoustic guitar or other instruments, for use on vocals, it may just work out as the best option. Try and get to know your mic collection and get accustomed to the tonal qualities of each one to make this process easier. Getting a good recording to start with is like making sure you have quality fresh ingredients before you cook, the end result will be much tastier and easier to achieve.
Once you have finished all your recording and are starting to mix, you need to have a general playback listen to account for obvious problems. Listen out for if the vocal gets lost on quiet passages or becomes overpowering on more energetic phrases; do you loose the vocal when the piano is playing or the guitar?
Getting the vocal mix right isn’t just to do with the level. Its how it balances against the other components of the track. Compression can help get a more consistent level on your vocal but sometimes people are guilty of over-compressing to try and cover up tonal clashes and imbalances in the mix. When compressing a vocal the ideal settings will vary dependant on the vocalist, but the compressor shouldn’t be making the track louder, just more even, preventing large peaks and troughs in the dynamics. Try to avoid using presets on plug ins, play around with settings or use a dedicated outboard unit to really get to know how the compressor you use works and sounds.
If you find that you are loosing the vocal on the verse because of the guitar, you could try two different solutions, firstly ducking. This is where you use a gate in “ducking” mode. Normally a gate acts almost like a switch in an electronic circuit or a binary digit, in that it has one of 2 values – open or shut. When open, a gate lets the sound freely through, when shut it mutes sound completely. The input threshold usually controls the gates parameters, so if signal goes below a threshold of so many dB, the gate is shut and sound muted. When a gate operates in “ducking” mode however, the sound isn’t muted, but instead is lowered in volume by several dB. In this mode the way in which you activate the process differs too. For the case of our vocal struggling with the guitar to be heard, we would insert a gate over the guitar track and set to “ducking” mode. We would then insert the vocal track into the sidechain input of the gate. This enables the vocal to become the trigger for the ducking gate and force the guitar down in level when the vocal sounds, creating manipulative automation.
Another method is one of my most used “mix tricks”. Using a simple EQ inserted on the vocal track, sweep up and down the spectrum to find the most prominent and favourable frequency. Have this frequency boosted by at least 3dB with a narrow Q of at least around 7. Then on the opposing track, set up the same EQ but this time cut the same frequency by the same amount. This method of mixing is sometimes referred to as spectral mixing or what I call a sound amnesty, allowing each frequency and instrument to be heard fairly and coexist in harmony within the frequency spectrum.
Once you have a well-balanced vocal, its important to add the correct dimension to it, this can be done using reverb to help place it in the mix. The less reverb, the further “forward” the vocal will sound. A vocal without any reverb added will sound unnatural and also as if it is just hovering aimlessly above the track. Too much reverb and the vocal will be swallowed into the mix, loosing power and intelligibility.
As a general rule, always use more reverb on backing vocals and keep the main vocal a little drier. Pay attention to the tone of the reverb you add and check it with just the vocal soloed and against the whole track, don’t be scared to layer reverbs either – sometimes layering reverbs can help the trail sound lusher and more natural.
Prioritise your vocal and use your ears and the tools of your trade to make sure it has the attention it deserves, help your mixes to stand out and be remembered through your commanding and enchanting, well balanced and mixed vocal. Strive to achieve a vocal that can communicate with the listener by resonating through the universal language of music in the most harmonious way.
Thursday 28 January 2010
SKY HIGH AUDIO
As we now enter the beginning of a new decade, we are able to look back at the achievements of the noughtie’s and the technology that they brought us.
The advancement in computer based hard disk recording, software integration, digital live consoles and affordable pro-sumer recording and mixing equipment has been substantial.
Now, with the consumer and manufacturer ever more conscious of money efficient solutions, will this halter advancements? I think not. Tougher trading and more competition for work amongst users will mean that there will be a newly generated demand for intuitive ideas and products that cater to the demands of the market.
Looking at the way technology and trends are moving in other industries, there is one very sensible progression I see coming to the world of audio in the very near future.
Cloud computing. Google are doing it, Microsoft are doing it, they’re all working towards it. When Global corporations such as these are championing a technology, you know it is just a matter of time before it is employed into business practise and then home computing too.
For those who have not seen the many articles on the subject, cloud technology basically enables you to store and share data in a dedicated virtual (online) ‘cloud’ space and access hosted services and software via the Internet.
Within the audio world, this could be very interesting. Although there are already some provisions for online music making and sharing data, they can still be a little clunky and there are no official services from the main audio software giants like Digidesign Pro Tools, Steinberg Cubase / Nuendo, Apple Logic, or Propellerhead and Ableton.
With the current economy driving the change of business models it would be a perfect time to adapt to a way of working that would benefit both the manufacturer and the consumer.
As a software manufacturer you suffer from software piracy and the constant pressure to attract new paying customers. These customers, through whom you receive a one off payment for the DVD installation disk, instruction manual, software license agreement and the packaging; form your only income stream. It is also a general expectation by customers to receive any minor updates to this purchase for free. Therefore it becomes ever harder to attract a constant, steady income beyond the initial purchase.
As a software user, keeping up to date with software becomes harder too. As new operating systems are released there are always compatibility concerns. Being left with an un-operational DAW because of version incompatibility between your software / plug-ins / OS is a worst nightmare.
Wouldn’t it be great to not have to spend hours installing new software, going through Challenge / Response and iLok complications and be able to access a session anywhere in the world, from any computer with Internet?
I think this would be a winner all round. Software companies could attract a steadier income stream by offering a “lite” version for free / demo, then a pro version either by utility type usage or via subscription fee. You could have features where you can access any plug-ins in real time with a trial or buy functionality. Whatever you need for your session available immediately at your disposal and without the need to clog up your personal computer with software, data files and unnecessary features.
As Internet technology speeds up and becomes more accessible worldwide it will make this technology even better. Imagine musicians working on a session in 5 different parts of the world simultaneously, linked via the Internet in an online cloud session, you then join the cloud and start comping and editing files ready to mix down the track in your studio later that day… A finished track in a day, recorded with musicians from around the world without any travel expenses. It also will make recording and production software available to anyone with an internet connection, this alone could tremendously diversify the creative output into the music world and offer us all some interesting things to think about. There are many possibilities with cloud computing, lets see who from our industry will be the first to harness it.
The advancement in computer based hard disk recording, software integration, digital live consoles and affordable pro-sumer recording and mixing equipment has been substantial.
Now, with the consumer and manufacturer ever more conscious of money efficient solutions, will this halter advancements? I think not. Tougher trading and more competition for work amongst users will mean that there will be a newly generated demand for intuitive ideas and products that cater to the demands of the market.
Looking at the way technology and trends are moving in other industries, there is one very sensible progression I see coming to the world of audio in the very near future.
Cloud computing. Google are doing it, Microsoft are doing it, they’re all working towards it. When Global corporations such as these are championing a technology, you know it is just a matter of time before it is employed into business practise and then home computing too.
For those who have not seen the many articles on the subject, cloud technology basically enables you to store and share data in a dedicated virtual (online) ‘cloud’ space and access hosted services and software via the Internet.
Within the audio world, this could be very interesting. Although there are already some provisions for online music making and sharing data, they can still be a little clunky and there are no official services from the main audio software giants like Digidesign Pro Tools, Steinberg Cubase / Nuendo, Apple Logic, or Propellerhead and Ableton.
With the current economy driving the change of business models it would be a perfect time to adapt to a way of working that would benefit both the manufacturer and the consumer.
As a software manufacturer you suffer from software piracy and the constant pressure to attract new paying customers. These customers, through whom you receive a one off payment for the DVD installation disk, instruction manual, software license agreement and the packaging; form your only income stream. It is also a general expectation by customers to receive any minor updates to this purchase for free. Therefore it becomes ever harder to attract a constant, steady income beyond the initial purchase.
As a software user, keeping up to date with software becomes harder too. As new operating systems are released there are always compatibility concerns. Being left with an un-operational DAW because of version incompatibility between your software / plug-ins / OS is a worst nightmare.
Wouldn’t it be great to not have to spend hours installing new software, going through Challenge / Response and iLok complications and be able to access a session anywhere in the world, from any computer with Internet?
I think this would be a winner all round. Software companies could attract a steadier income stream by offering a “lite” version for free / demo, then a pro version either by utility type usage or via subscription fee. You could have features where you can access any plug-ins in real time with a trial or buy functionality. Whatever you need for your session available immediately at your disposal and without the need to clog up your personal computer with software, data files and unnecessary features.
As Internet technology speeds up and becomes more accessible worldwide it will make this technology even better. Imagine musicians working on a session in 5 different parts of the world simultaneously, linked via the Internet in an online cloud session, you then join the cloud and start comping and editing files ready to mix down the track in your studio later that day… A finished track in a day, recorded with musicians from around the world without any travel expenses. It also will make recording and production software available to anyone with an internet connection, this alone could tremendously diversify the creative output into the music world and offer us all some interesting things to think about. There are many possibilities with cloud computing, lets see who from our industry will be the first to harness it.
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