A concept from my mixing kind of bled into a general thought on life recently, the idea of incremental improvements.
When we mix all to often we are looking for the golden bullet, that one thing we can do that will fix the mix, that will make that track hang together perfectly. The truth is, a good mix isn't acheived like that, its sculpted from many smaller steps that incrementally improve the mix as a whole. They might be tiny, they might seem insignificant at the time. e.g. Limiting a bassline by half a db so that it has a small amount more headroom. In time though, these small improvements mount up and the end product is significantly better for it.
I firmly believe that the world around us operates in this way as well. We are bombarded with the idea that we need to make massive changes, that everything needs to be done insantly and be huge in nature and far reaching in effect. Everything is sensationalised and everything is hyped up to the point where we are literally crippled against any action because it seems so insignificant im comparison. The truth is that if you are making small improvements all the time, little changes that leave things in a better state than they were before you started, you are making a big difference, over time. And even if the difference you make is only small over time, the fact that you are making something better, creating a better world than the way in which you found it, or doing something positive in nature, that's a good thing and not something that should be easily overlooked. In fact, in my opinion its the point of all of this. Do something positive, even if its only a small thing - It matters!
Monday, 17 September 2012
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Compensatory EQ
I dont know about everyone else out there, but I have some bad habits. One of them is applying too much much in my EQ when I'm mixing. I do this EVERY time I do a track and then have to go back and hack away at it after the fact. Its really bad.
I used to think it was because I was a bad mixer or because I was trying to make bad mixes etc. The real reason is that I listened to a lot of music when I was younger that had a lot of bass (dance, industrial, death metal etc) so my ears are trained to like certain kinds of EQ decisions (abuse). As such I've developed a good habit recently of placing an EQ on the master channel while I mix that compensates for some of these bad habits by exagurating them. For instance in the image below you can see my basic EQ that I use for this purpose. Its a 3db boost of the bass shelf from about 150, a 3db boost at 400 and then a 3db cut shelf of the hi's from about 10k.
I find that using this method, when I remove the eq afterwards, my mixes hold together a bit better. Then if I need to boost bass slightly when I reference them against other mixes, I have much more space to make that decision.
I used to think it was because I was a bad mixer or because I was trying to make bad mixes etc. The real reason is that I listened to a lot of music when I was younger that had a lot of bass (dance, industrial, death metal etc) so my ears are trained to like certain kinds of EQ decisions (abuse). As such I've developed a good habit recently of placing an EQ on the master channel while I mix that compensates for some of these bad habits by exagurating them. For instance in the image below you can see my basic EQ that I use for this purpose. Its a 3db boost of the bass shelf from about 150, a 3db boost at 400 and then a 3db cut shelf of the hi's from about 10k.
I find that using this method, when I remove the eq afterwards, my mixes hold together a bit better. Then if I need to boost bass slightly when I reference them against other mixes, I have much more space to make that decision.
Thursday, 30 August 2012
The importance of quality at the source
So two things struck me today, until I realised they were actually one thing in two places, my work and my audio. That one thing is the concept of the quality of data at the source.
I used to think that even the grimmest of sounds could be polished into something beautiful in the studio with the various tools and whatnot. I used to scoff at the idea that you had to capture the "quality" performance or the performance with the "best feel to it". My problem was that I felt that that view was restrictive to further processing, chopping and whatever else I wanted to do with the sound later on down the line. In short, it felt like an "old" way of looking at the matter. In actual fact it makes just as much sense for me as it does for someone who intends to leave those takes perfectly alone.
Getting a quality source for a sound will make processing it easier down the line because it gives you more options and more freedom to play with it. A beautiful vocal take will sound better whether it is an opera piece sung from start to finish, and never touched apart from subtle eq, to a screamer that you are going to chop up and make sound like a robot. Better in => better out, whatever you are doing. So in this sense, it really is worth getting the best quality you can at source. And im not talking about gear here, im talking about technique, performance, timing etc. All those age old things that make good recordings from yesteryear sound great, they still make a good recording now. So maybe its worth tweaking that synth on its own at source just a little, or tuning up that guitar, or doing that take again to get it just right. Sure you could touch it up after, but wouldnt that time be much better spent knowing you have a great take and then making it sound like something more creative to you?
It is worth practicing, it is worth playing well and it is worth putting those extra takes and time into each part of what you are doing, regardless of what you intend to do with it afterwards. It doesnt make you some kind of virtuoso, its just a quicker way of getting a better end result than trying to fudge it afterwards (something you will still have to do sometimes, but generally is best kept to a minimum).
Now for the other time this popped up in my life recently, at work. I work on a system where very often large extrapolations and assumptions about data have their rooting in single tables or data points. The point being that often small errors in this original source can snowball, very quickly, into much larger errors from something that at first seemed in no way dangerous to the extent it is.
This is the same issue. It doesnt matter how much work you do with something down the line, its worth doing the leg work on where you get your source from, to begin with.
I guess the moral here is "take it and break it" as always but isn't it more fun to break something truly great? The pieces you get back tend to be so much more interesting that way.
I used to think that even the grimmest of sounds could be polished into something beautiful in the studio with the various tools and whatnot. I used to scoff at the idea that you had to capture the "quality" performance or the performance with the "best feel to it". My problem was that I felt that that view was restrictive to further processing, chopping and whatever else I wanted to do with the sound later on down the line. In short, it felt like an "old" way of looking at the matter. In actual fact it makes just as much sense for me as it does for someone who intends to leave those takes perfectly alone.
Getting a quality source for a sound will make processing it easier down the line because it gives you more options and more freedom to play with it. A beautiful vocal take will sound better whether it is an opera piece sung from start to finish, and never touched apart from subtle eq, to a screamer that you are going to chop up and make sound like a robot. Better in => better out, whatever you are doing. So in this sense, it really is worth getting the best quality you can at source. And im not talking about gear here, im talking about technique, performance, timing etc. All those age old things that make good recordings from yesteryear sound great, they still make a good recording now. So maybe its worth tweaking that synth on its own at source just a little, or tuning up that guitar, or doing that take again to get it just right. Sure you could touch it up after, but wouldnt that time be much better spent knowing you have a great take and then making it sound like something more creative to you?
It is worth practicing, it is worth playing well and it is worth putting those extra takes and time into each part of what you are doing, regardless of what you intend to do with it afterwards. It doesnt make you some kind of virtuoso, its just a quicker way of getting a better end result than trying to fudge it afterwards (something you will still have to do sometimes, but generally is best kept to a minimum).
Now for the other time this popped up in my life recently, at work. I work on a system where very often large extrapolations and assumptions about data have their rooting in single tables or data points. The point being that often small errors in this original source can snowball, very quickly, into much larger errors from something that at first seemed in no way dangerous to the extent it is.
This is the same issue. It doesnt matter how much work you do with something down the line, its worth doing the leg work on where you get your source from, to begin with.
I guess the moral here is "take it and break it" as always but isn't it more fun to break something truly great? The pieces you get back tend to be so much more interesting that way.
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
The weakest link
So I was recording guitars last night and getting loads of riffs that I was really digging, but the big problem was that the guitar tone was total fudge ! It sounded dire and I couldnt figure out why. The first reaction in this situation is to look for gear fidelity etc and all the usual causes such as converters and whatnot. Then it hit me, I havn't changed the strings on this guitar in a LONG time. Could this be causing it ? Yep, also the fact that my guitar's action is so low that the strings are flopping around like crazy. Basically I had no resistance to my playing so I couldn't get any purchase on the strings for the harder sections of the track.
The reason i'm mentioning this is that as music makers, we are often angled towards blaming expensive gear for problems that can be solved much more cheaply or for free by looking at our source, in my case a guitar (And my playing !). A 10 bucks set of strings is a much nicer solution than upgrading my soundcard or the rest of my rig and in my case was much more responsible for the cause of the issues.
Peace out.....
Pipo
The reason i'm mentioning this is that as music makers, we are often angled towards blaming expensive gear for problems that can be solved much more cheaply or for free by looking at our source, in my case a guitar (And my playing !). A 10 bucks set of strings is a much nicer solution than upgrading my soundcard or the rest of my rig and in my case was much more responsible for the cause of the issues.
Peace out.....
Pipo
New blog remit
Welcome back !!!!
So you might have noticed I've slightly changed the blog now to include tech stuff. Basically anything audio or programming related is the new remit although i'm game for cool tech stuff as well. I'll try to post whenever I find something interesting from now on.
Enjoy !
So you might have noticed I've slightly changed the blog now to include tech stuff. Basically anything audio or programming related is the new remit although i'm game for cool tech stuff as well. I'll try to post whenever I find something interesting from now on.
Enjoy !
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Guitars, picking your tone
So,
I thought i'd do a quick post for a tip i've learned about selecting guitar tones. Its real simple - dont select your guitars in absenteeeeee of your track. I know this sounds like a no brainer but so many people fiddle with their amp settings to get a great tone coming out of it, the problem? They do it without ever considering how this will sound with other instruments and in a mix. As such when its put together with a mix where the kick wants the bass, the bass wants some more bass, the hats want hi's and the vocals want everything else, the tone ends up sounding weak or, usually, way too bassy. This normally creates huge amounts of mud in the lower ranges (200 - 400k).
The moral of the story is, that tone might sound great on its own but you only really care about what it sounds like in the context of a full track, so learn to weed out what I call "fudge". IE stuff that sounds great on its own and really thick and fudgy, but is really bad for you in terms of a healthy balanced mix.
Peace,
Pipo.
I thought i'd do a quick post for a tip i've learned about selecting guitar tones. Its real simple - dont select your guitars in absenteeeeee of your track. I know this sounds like a no brainer but so many people fiddle with their amp settings to get a great tone coming out of it, the problem? They do it without ever considering how this will sound with other instruments and in a mix. As such when its put together with a mix where the kick wants the bass, the bass wants some more bass, the hats want hi's and the vocals want everything else, the tone ends up sounding weak or, usually, way too bassy. This normally creates huge amounts of mud in the lower ranges (200 - 400k).
The moral of the story is, that tone might sound great on its own but you only really care about what it sounds like in the context of a full track, so learn to weed out what I call "fudge". IE stuff that sounds great on its own and really thick and fudgy, but is really bad for you in terms of a healthy balanced mix.
Peace,
Pipo.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
Second post, and its another repost ! Yup more from the red dog blog that I did a while back. This time about pushing analogue gear and the general differences in the treatment of overs.
Pushing the Analog
Posted in Mixing and Mastering on January 19, 2011 by RedDogMusic by Phil Graham
The life-cycle of a piece of music can often be split into 4 stages: writing, recording, mixing and finally mastering. Mastering is the step of the music production process that is typically handled by a separate person and considered to be something that it is worth paying a bit to have done professionally. It is the finishing touch required to add polish and bring a piece of music up to a commercial standard with regard to EQ, volume and dynamics.
This said, many people still master their own material, either because of a budget issue or a desire to handle all aspects of the process themselves. This type of mastering is also very attractive due to the relatively low cost of software mastering bundles when compared with the cost of having an album professionally mastered.
Typically, when DIY mastering is performed, it involves the use of a variety of plugins to bring a sound up in volume and process its dynamics in certain ways. The purpose of this is to push the dynamic range of the sound closer to 0db.
The problem with this process is that analog and digital gear don’t deal with ‘overs’ (when a sound goes above 0db) the same. If a sound is over 0db in digital gear it will clip: the top of the waveform of the sound will be chopped off leading to a nasty clip or pop. In analog gear, the process is different – sounds over 0db will typically distort but in a softer, less harsh way. This can often lead to a more forgiving, compression-like, effect.
One trick involving this is to take the full mix and run it through a couple of channels on an old analog desk or some other piece of analog gear, relatively hot, so that it is being pushed into the distorting region. What many find is that this process leads to a more pleasing way of compressing and volumising the mix when recombined with digital processing.
I found myself using this process when mastering a track recently using my 1970s studiomaster desk that was originally used in the Albert Halls, Bolton. Under normal use, the desk is crackly, hissy, with a really high noise floor. But for this extreme use, it functions perfectly well due to its old, soft distorting analog circuitry.
Hint: The level in digital gear is typically about 18db higher than that of analog gear, it is for this reason that many analog products will have a 20db pad on them and this should be engaged when running input from a digital source.
The life-cycle of a piece of music can often be split into 4 stages: writing, recording, mixing and finally mastering. Mastering is the step of the music production process that is typically handled by a separate person and considered to be something that it is worth paying a bit to have done professionally. It is the finishing touch required to add polish and bring a piece of music up to a commercial standard with regard to EQ, volume and dynamics.
This said, many people still master their own material, either because of a budget issue or a desire to handle all aspects of the process themselves. This type of mastering is also very attractive due to the relatively low cost of software mastering bundles when compared with the cost of having an album professionally mastered.
Typically, when DIY mastering is performed, it involves the use of a variety of plugins to bring a sound up in volume and process its dynamics in certain ways. The purpose of this is to push the dynamic range of the sound closer to 0db.
The problem with this process is that analog and digital gear don’t deal with ‘overs’ (when a sound goes above 0db) the same. If a sound is over 0db in digital gear it will clip: the top of the waveform of the sound will be chopped off leading to a nasty clip or pop. In analog gear, the process is different – sounds over 0db will typically distort but in a softer, less harsh way. This can often lead to a more forgiving, compression-like, effect.
One trick involving this is to take the full mix and run it through a couple of channels on an old analog desk or some other piece of analog gear, relatively hot, so that it is being pushed into the distorting region. What many find is that this process leads to a more pleasing way of compressing and volumising the mix when recombined with digital processing.
I found myself using this process when mastering a track recently using my 1970s studiomaster desk that was originally used in the Albert Halls, Bolton. Under normal use, the desk is crackly, hissy, with a really high noise floor. But for this extreme use, it functions perfectly well due to its old, soft distorting analog circuitry.
Hint: The level in digital gear is typically about 18db higher than that of analog gear, it is for this reason that many analog products will have a 20db pad on them and this should be engaged when running input from a digital source.
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