SNAPSHOT OF SOUND

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.