Amazing Music Tech mag.....AND ITS FREE!

Love this magazine, really informative, great interviews and reviews, cool adds.

Tape OP!!!

Home Taping is Killing Music

I found this on the back of a 1980's Bruce Springsteen album that was lying around, it reads "home taping is killing music...and its illegal", so thats when music piracy started, back in the 80's, and look at the extent of piracy now...if we only knew how bad things would get back then.  Perhaps illegal downloads will be laughing stock in 20 years time who knows.  

Orchestra in a Weird Space

Watched an orchestra perform in a large building with a very high ceiling and massive glass windows.  It was interesting to here such a large orchestra in a strange acoustic environment.  The picture above is taken from a bridge inside the building about quarter of the way up.  The picture bellow taken from a distance.  

Heres what it sounded like (crappy recording from iphone on the bride)

Prism Sound Mic To Master

Went to a Mic to Master event today with people such as Tony Platt, producer of some ACDC and Bob Marley albums, along with many other professionals in the music business.  Mastering Engineers from AIR studios and technicians from DPA, ATC acoustic engineers, audient, prism sound, and SADiE were all present.

Mic To Master is a series of workshops and masterclasses on recording techniques, mixing and mastering which are designed to give engineers, producers and all other creative audio enthusiasts an opportunity to learn expert tips and tricks of the trade from recording industry professionals. 


The day started with Tony Platt talking through the process of producing an entire album for an artist last year, it was really interesting to see what problems he encountered on the way and how he overcame them.  
Tony then went on to discuss the use of microphones and we did some comparisons, he also talked us through his choice of processing and mastering on some particular tracks.  


After lunch it was all about mastering with Matt Colton of AIR studios, he began with a talk about mastering for vinyl and how some techniques can be transferred to mastering for CD.  The second half of the afternoon was run as a workshop format with Matt mastering a track on the rig that they had brought in.  It was really cool to be able to observe this process and take some notes.


Well worth going!

HEAT listening challenge

Just had a go at the heat listening challenge.

Three mixes, Protools only, ProTools with HEAT enabled and a mix on a Neve 8048

"Many audio professionals believe that certain Neve consoles are the Holy Grail of analog mixing supremacy and are key to getting that coveted warmth in your digital recordings. Many others believe that you can get the same sonic richness mixing in Pro Tools, using plug-ins and no analog gear whatsoever. Still others believe that the answer lies somewhere in between, using analog inserts or summing boxes with an “in the box” Pro Tools mix."

I found it really difficult to distinguish between the pro tools only and the pro tools with heat mix however could easily here the analogue summed mix.

Avid | HEAT

Haven't had a chance to use it yet but sounds really cool

Found this video interesting 

Avid | HEAT

Non-graphic Eq Pluggins

So recently I've been using the Waves SSL G-Eq and have loved the results.  I find myself listening to every finely tuned adjustment i make and think it has worked wonders on vocals.  A really warm analog sound.

Compared to a graphic Eq like Logic's channel Eq, where i find my self just grabbing the mouse and ramping up random frequencies till i get the sound i like, i find the process far more focused and accurate.   

I dialled in some settings on the SSL to enhance the sound of a vocal recording.  I then tried to recreate the settings on a graphic Eq (sort of creating the graphic of the SSL Eq) i found didn't achieve as nice result as the SSL.

Not really expecting the same results as a Waves plugin on Logic's most basic Eq however i was quite shocked at just how much difference there was in the the sound.  I had to make more changes to Logic's Eq to get it sounding remotely near the SSL.

 

Band Recording Day 3

Day 3 Tuesday 2nd Nov 17:00 - 22:00

Tracking Vocals

Went in at 17:00 to pick mic’s etc. up and set everything up.  This included routing microphone, setting up reflection filter, recording some practice vocals to see everything was running smoothly.

Set up a foldback mix of every track for the vocalist to hear.  

Sent some reverb down the foldback on the vocal channel.  

Prepared a quick mix for the band to listen to

Whole band arrived including vocalist at 18:00

Vocalist had not yet finished writing lyrics or fitting them to the songs so he spent an hour with the track looping in his headphones perfecting the vocals.

19:00

Started recording first vocal takes, recorded many takes for the first verse and chorus. 

Tried different techniques when recording the verse as the vocals were fast and the vocalist was running out of breath by the end so experimented with recording each line separately, the band decided this did not sound natural enough so went back to record it in one take.

Gave the vocalist advice about singing directly into the mic, he kept looking at lyric book and were were not getting a consistent volume throughout the phrases.  

Mic was sounding ‘phasey’ so repositioned the SE electronics reflection filter.  

By know vocalist had warmed up and got a lot more confident and sang first verse and chorus in 1 take.

Short Break

Vocalist came in control room for listen and was reassured as it sounded much better here than it did in his headphones.  

Tracked the second verse and second chorus, vocalist was getting much more confident now.

The whole band went in to the live room and gathered around the mic to record a ‘chant/wowowoo thing’ in the breakdown.  Which ended up being dreadfully out of tune so was scrapped.  The vocalist then did this on his own.

Doubled up the breakdown vocals

Tracked vocals for final chorus and extended chorus, took afew takes for this to come together.

Went back to double track the whole vocals in one take.

Recorded rough mix to CD for band to take home.

Band Recording Day 2

Day 2 Sun 24th October 9 - 5

9:00
Went in before band to recall the last session and tidy up some routing and channels.  Channels all over the place had got a bit messy in the haste of the tracking session the day before.

11:00
Guitarist came in.  Wasn’t happy with his tone in the one song that we had done overdub guitar for so we spent some time messing with the amp and pedals.  Also added an extra mic to the amp, (guitar was sounding thin so added close sm57 for deeper sounding proximity effect)

12:00 - 16:00
Recorded multiple guitar tracks for 2 of the songs

The band felt that the 3rd song they recorded wasn't arranged properly so decided to scrap it. 

16:00 - 17:00
Did rough mix of first song to take home!

Band Recording Diary Day 1

I've been recording a band recently and thought I would share some of my documentation.  The tracks are not yet finished, I'll publish each day as a new thread.

Tracking on Radar mixing in ProTools HD

Console: Audient ASP 8024

Recording Device: IZ Radar (24tracks)

Day 1 - Sat 23rd October 9:00 - 17:00

9:00
Got studio keys and equipment

Mic’ed up guitar and bass amps

Went to collect drum kit and mic’ed up

13:00
Drummer came in and positioned his kit how he wanted

Made some mic adjustments to drum kit

1:30 p.m
Band arrived and practiced the songs while we set levels in the control room and prepared channels ect.

14:00
Recorded first live tracks, the band were not happy with some takes so re recorded.

Did live recording of 3 songs to use as a ghost track for overdubbing

Band came in for a listen / the band and us were very pleased with the unmixed live recording

Short Break

Did drum overdubs for all 3 songs

Recorded these new drums on 8 new tracks

Had to keep live drum overheads to hear count in

Recorded bass overdubs over unwanted live drum tracks

45min Break

Recorded rough overdub Guitar for one song

Did rough mixes

Just realised how painfull mp3 really is!!

I've been listening to vinyls all night when i decided to do the the ol' A/B'ing with vinyl and mp3. Listening to The Police i happen to have their album on vinyl and mp3 in itunes. My little mixers set up with a an input from my laptop and an input from my record player, both playing at the same time i flick the switch and immediately notice that the mp3 has become quite hard to listen to after the vinyl. MP3 is sounding so harsh and lifeless and was actually making me uncomfortable listening to it.

Vinyl will live on forever...

The way i see it with CD sales falling and the rise of the download, wouldn't it be nice to abolish CD's altogether and have high street shops like HMV just selling vinyls. It wont limit sales, it wont stop people buying the mp3 downloads it will just mean better quality audio for anyone listening at home on their record player.

CD's are in a weird grey area or portability and sound quality. They have average sound quality and average portability.

The MP3 maximum portability and crap sound quality but who cares when your just listening on your headphones on the go.

The vinyl maximum sound quality for when your at home chilling with one going round in the background.

There's no need for the middle man here...send CD's to their doom!!!!!!

Operating Systems & Visuals

In my opinion the only operating systems that are worth while working with (wwwwow) are MAC OSX and WINDOWS XP (pro)!

Vista and 7 are just bloated with a load of processes running in the background that will hog your CPU and besides who cares a fancy flashing desktop with countless widgets when the only with you want to look at is your DAW.

This brings me to another point.hmmm

You don't really want to be looking at anything when your mixing, you want to be listening. Eye catching graphics and so on distract your brain and take up a bit of 'CPU' space in your brain (effectively). I want my brain to be focused 100& on audio when I'm mixing/analyzing sounds.
That's something i notice about Logic, its a little too pretty perhaps? a bit too visual? I find the pro tools interface on the other hand quite boring so I'm less excited about how things look and focus on the sound more closely.

There's definably some research to be done here...

Keeping the Cutoff in Tune

Playing around with Native Instruments Massive synth today (truly massive sounds) and was using the filter to create a resonance frequency that added an extra mode to the sound. Heres a little digram and explanation.

Heres my Massive setup!

Next i altered the cutoff frequency so that the resonance frequency could play a melody within the alternating fundamental notes produced from the synth.

Using automation to adjust the cutoff with quite a bit of resonance you can easily create multiple melodies within one synth patch.

Heres the automation

Uni Starts Tomorrow!

Starting back at Uni again tomorrow so the posts should be a lille more frequent!

Geek Synthesis

Wanting to learn a bit more about programming synthesizers and effects Reaktor is a good place to start.

I’ve been messing around with Native Instrument's Reaktor for the past couple of days and have merely scratched the surface of its complex and endless possibilities. To get me started i followed this tutorial (http://electrictrumpet.com/SympleSynth/index.htm). This was actually one of those tutorials thats really easy to follow, i everything worked perfectly i didnt have to go back and make any changes to get the thing working.

Heres a screen shot of the synthesizer

It takes you through the basics of creating a synthesizer and has left me wanting to learn more.

Reaktor is amazing! don’t need much programming knowledge and i found its system of Modules, Macros, Instruments, and Ensembles really easy to pick up and understand.

Heres a screen shot of the synthesizer’s structure

The ability to create macros that can contain modules really tidies up the structure of your instrument and makes it easy to each part of the synthesizer.

This is the structure of the oscillator 1 macro

I want to look into Outsim’s synth maker and also Synthedit, witch are both well known programs!

Reverb Fight!

Two reverb signals can often fight for space in the mix and end up clashing, creating a swirl of echo’y muddiness. I’ve been experimenting with side chain compression on the reverb auxiliaries to hold one reverb back while another takes over.

In this case i have a snare track and a vocal track each with a send at 0dB to SpaceDesigners each with a different setting (snare at a time of 1.2s and vocals at 2s)

I noticed that when the snare is played the reverb from the vocals clashes with the snare reverb and really muddies the mix. May be i could just dial down the reverb sends however the reverb in this mix was necessary for effect.

Solution

I put a compressor on the vocal reverb auxiliary with a side chain fed from the snare. The compressor has a threshold of -50dB and a ratio of 20:1 so this is basically limiting rather than compression however it is the release time that allows the reverb signal to slowly creep back in that is important.

So every time the snare is played the side chain ducks the vocal reverb, allowing the snare reverb to cut through!

Evaluation

The mix is a lot clearer and the vocals sound crisp over the snare

Packing up and downsizing my mixer!

Im going away to uni and don't really want to take my Mackie 1604 VLZ so I've been looking around for a small 2 to 6 channel mixer, just to record some guitar and provide a balanced output for my monitors.

Maybe I could just spend £40 on something from Behringer's xenyx range but i fear sound quality and durability will suffer.

I came across this from Soundcraft and think it will do the job for me!

Its fully analogue and has the same pre's as their reputable Gb series mixers.

Confussed!

Here is my problem, recording a sine wave through my mixer, soundcard, and into my DAW. All at unity gain 0dB. Recorded the signal and then played it back out the DAW at 0dB into the mixer at unity gain on the channel pre and unity gain on the channel fader. I was then getting +7dB on my master buss. Somehow, somewhere between leaving the computer and entering the mixer there had been an increase in gain and i had no idea where it came from!

Heres some pics, (poor quality i know)

So i searched the internet for answers and didn't really find one, i even posted a question on gearslutz forum about it, lots of views but no replies!

I finally stumbled upon a document on http://www.popmusic.dk/links-us.html titled Levels in Digital Audio so i had a read and discovered this. From © 2010 Popmusic.dk, written by Holger Lagerfeldt.

So problem solved!

I want one!

The Symphony I/O by Apogee

Apogee's latest interface for the mac is in a class of its own, heres some specs.

• Flexible design architecture with a base unit and two I/O module slots
• Up to 32 channels of I/O per unit
• Future proof connectivity with PCI, USB, Ethernet and all popular digital formats
• Compatibility with Logic, Pro Tools HD, Pro Tools LE and any Core Audio driven application
• Total software control of Symphony I/O with Maestro

The fact that this can be used with logic and pro tools sells this for me, i'm gona get saving!

Gain structure

Gain structure is often overlooked, at least in my studio anyway.

When i get a spark of creativity or a melody going round and round in my head that i just need to record quickly before its gone i turn on the guitar amp set the mixer pre and fader to who knows what setting, hit record in logic and bam!! I've got a poorly recorded either clipping or too quite, but at least I've got the idea down ahy!!

Ok so once I've got the idea i can concentrate on re-recording and making sure my gain structure is better!

This time open my input channel fader to 0dB I then turn up the mic preamp until i get between -6 and -3dB showing. Hit record again, now i have a nice clean, clear signal with headroom!

Sometimes its a good idea to record at -6dB in order to take advantage of more headroom that could be needed once some compression and other processing has been added.

Whats your bit depth?!

Your bit depth will effect your choice of input level, record at 16 bit and your limiting to a dynamic range of 96dB, even through this is the bit depth of audio CD's its always better to record with a higher bit depth e.g. 24bit giving you 144dB of dynamic range and better resolution at low level inputs, also more overall headroom resulting in less chance of clipping and making setting your input gain a lot easier.

Heres a bit depth and dynamic range reference table

And finally - A little experiment

I recorded a sine wave straight into logic at -3dB

Overloaded the output via a bus by 3dB and recorded the result

The result shows that the recorded sine wave has not clipped despite being overloaded.

Heres an image of a clipped wave resulting in distortion.