hi to all, I found this tips somewhere, they are mainly for electronic music producers, but some infos and general rules are cool
cheers
-zv
1. Buying Equipment
Never sell, never upgrade. Buy middle of top of the range (brand new or second hand) first time around and keep it for life. It will become a classic, and if you look after it, it will last forever.
2. Sampling
Repeat after me... The sampler is simply the most versatile instrument ever invented and it is limited only by the sounds you can find to put in it.
Sample everything: aerosol hihats, pingpong snares, press record, flick the radio channels for a couple of minutes, edit what you get into discrete hits and autotune the fuck out of it.
Hit salvos and get some records to rip. Go for the non musical ones (spoken word et)
Grab the syllables Sebastian style to colour songs without adding words
Record your studio session and sample it. Youll gets lots of clicks and stuff
With stereo samples of ambient or melodic sounds, try reversing one channel for a more unusual stereo image. Then fuck with panning
Make a loop slowly go out of time over 4 bars, be careful! Taste required.
Have a melody play at normal speed, then put a pitched up and sped up 1 otve copy over the top. Edit both copies for crazy appregiator style madness.
3. Panning
first of all, get your mix sounding great in mono
The lower the frequency, the less you should pan it
Pan from 9 till 3 only
To reduce blurring of the stereo image: use a prepanned mono reverb on a sound. Will sound solid in the mix
Faking stereo: Split the audio file, apply chorus to one side. Also a better way to chorus any sound you still want up the front of teh mix
Or, Pan before you mix your levels because panning can cause a drop in db. Might be better
In techno, the only panning seems to be channel delay or fxs panned around. All the drums and bass are at centre.
Bass kick and snare in the middle. Check out some hard panning on a shaker sometime.
4. Reverb
Basically, Reverb is 2 processes: short delay like reflections and a cloudy tail. Eq plays a big part: all real life sound reflections are eqd.usually the tops are cut. Having said that, each company has a different way to achieve this.
Look into ambience: reverb but only the early reflections not the tail, keeps mixes clean. The best bet is to get some decent IRs for 80s lexicon units. Ambience rocks on artificial and close micd sounds, make them sit nicely in the mix
The spacing between initial reflections is a dominant factor in perceived room size
The main paramaters to tweak are early reflection pattern (ambience), pre-delay time (longer = larger room), overall decay time (helps reinforce the idea of large areas) and high-frequency damping (more you add, the less the reverb sounds like a prison cell and more like a forest). And Reverb density: sorta means the amount of voices in the tail of the reverb. Low density tails are a little grainy and good for vox and long sounds but bad on percussion. High density tails are good for percussion. Sometime you also get the diffusion parameter. Its like attack how long the reverb takes to build/gather momentum. prison cells are diffused.sound.
If early reflections are a discrete echo, the room walls are flat, if the reflections are more hazy and midrangey, the surface is stuff like trees.
A characteristic of plate reverbs is a ring in the tail of the sound. This is due to the architechure of the plate. Other reverbs
will (should? ) not have this ring.
Psychoaoustics: changing reverb will get out attention. So leave out of some passages.
Using tricky reverb: Gated Reverb: snare -> reverb -> compressor -> gate. (fastest release, open for half a second)
Using tricky reverb: Reverse reverb: voice, cymbals, chords or stabs
Using tricky reverb: Movement: set a bpm syncd autopanner after the reverb to move it around or delay one channel by a second using a delay, no feedback. Put 2 different reverbs in each stereo channel (maybe one that is a reverse reverb!)
If the reverb appears to add sibilance to a vocal track, dampen the high frequencies
If adding reverb in post, put an eq before it and remove anything below 150hz
Put a flanger/chorus before the reverb in the fx channel to give it movement
Try heavily effecting the sound before it hits the reverb: pitch bend an octave or a 5th, distortion, multitap delay with loads of feedback
If adding more reverb to a sound muddies the mix, shorten the tail of the reverb, and roll off some bottom end if you havent so already
Put shit right up the back of the mix by only using reverb mix
Midi gate the reverb to compliment or copy the rhythm.
Only ambient reverb on drums.
Adding some pre-delay (between 50 and 100mS) will produce a subtle doubling effect that helps beef up weaker voices.
Reverb for drums and percussion: ambient settings only. Early reflections will beef up sound. Go the gated reverb, but use on diff perc then they did in the 80s for l less iconic sound. You can reverb the snare the most: try a plate reverb for its sizzly sound. use a heavy dose of short, bright plate or tiled-room ambience to add life to a dull snare sound. Toms have their own tail so don need reverb, unless your making hair metal inspired tunes. For a bigger sound, pick a short hall setting and experiment by adding a little pre-delay to give the drum hits something of a slap-back feel. Hats: short ambience or plate setting What you're after is a sense of space and high-frequency detail, without a tail. Roll off the bass on your
reverbs.
Use different reverb types in different sections of the mix, we are finely tuned to notice this and it will keep attention.
Trashy reverb rocks on dance music, dont forget it.
Vocals: To make a vocal sound up-front and intimate use quite a short setting. another popular trick: add between 50 and 80mS of pre-delay to the reverb: put a little space between the dry vocal and the reverb that follows. If you want that reverb tail to add shimmer to the sound, use a room, chamber or hall program, but increase the early reflections balance so that the reverb decay doesn't dominate.
Long decays only work if you leave space for them. Use them in breakdowns only perhaps.
To use long decays on vox/instruments:duck the reverb output when the dry vocal part is sounding. allow it to swell back to its normal level between words. You only need 3dB of ducking. Make sure the A & R is sympathetic to the sound.
Guitar: its all about spring reverb. (historically anyway)
Put a chorus before a reverb to get strings and backup vox. The reverb will distort the chorus modulation to a sizzley sound
Also, err on the side of adding too little reverb rather than too much
5. Making your track sound big
Each layer takes up more headroom, instead of adding a layer, why not make your existing layers more interesting. You cant have big kick and bass sounds combined with big vocal and guitar sounds, you need small sounds also
Make sure individual sounds in your arrangement occupy distinct, and separate, regions of the audible frequency spectrum. Try transposing parts till you get better balance
Bass sounds need harmonic activity above the fundamental (sawtooth, square) but keep in mind you might not wa to much activity so filter if needs be
Put distortion on bass and experiment. Try quadrafuzz also, its like multiband distortion, keeps the mix clean.
Make sure your drums and bass sound big to start with, Check out the envelope, keep a sustain on the sound for at least 30ms to give it punch, and compress shorter transient sounds to give them that sustain.
The more harmonics in a sound, the bigger it sounds. If you like pure sine bass then distort it a little to introduce sounds.
If you use chorus on bass, use it on an effect send and filter out the bass of the send
For delays: attach it as a send and really limit the bandwidth of the delay
Maybe chuck a whole mix through an ambience plug
Remember for a radio mix get rid of all of the bass.
To make drums sound big, put them through an ambience plugin with some careful post compression. The early reflections will lengthen the drum sound and make them bigger. You can only do this so much tho!
Sounds with a massive transient sound weak because their RMS is low. Use a fast attack comp, 10:1 and up release 10-50ms.
Instead of a limiter or compressor to remove large transients, why not try distortion? It can make sounds sound bigger and brighter is used delicately.
When compressing a whole mix, go for 3-4db gain reduction, start with a 5ms attack and a 50ms release. Its ok that transients get through, the limited will sort these out
After comp but before limitor get the saturation device happening
Limit now, aim for 6db reduction, watch out for squashing tho.
Clipping is ok as long as its under 1ms. Use your ears, if you cant hear it happen, its fair game.
6. Multiband compression:
When I'm mastering dance music for clients, I'll often use a multi-band compressor to apply very low-ratio compression to all three frequency bands (no more than 1.25:1 usually), but with a threshold of around -30dB. I normally aim for no more than about 6dB of overall gain reduction, and this tightens up the sound considerably without destroying the impression of dynamic range.
7. Adding Warmth and Air
Warmth is low to mid range distortion, a cut to the highs, and a slight harmonic phaseshift. Commonly associated with valves.
Fake your own warmth: A subtle combination of compression and EQ can come surprisingly close if you first compress the signal using a fairly low ratio (less than 1.5:1), then adjust the threshold to produce a gain reduction of around 5dB on peaks. Follow this with equalisation and add a decibel or two of broad boost over the 50 to 150Hz region using a parametric or sweep equaliser. Sometimes you can clean up the mid-range by combining this boost with a gentle dip at around 200 to 250Hz to prevent the bass boost affecting the mid-range.
Air is adding a hig frequency boost without overemphasising any harmonics up there.
8. Equalisation
Rule number 1 get a good sound before it hits your mixer. Eq is like a circular saw, you wouldnt use it to cut up some nice sashimi.
Don't attempt better instrument separation by applying lots of EQ boost to everything, the overall effect will sound unnatural and harsh. If you must use EQ, cutting always sounds more natural.
Rethink: equalizers are tone control
Shelving: boost sounds above or below a freq
Bandpass: allows a freq spectrum to pass and cuts the rest, or boost the band only. Some have only a gain control, some have a freq control (sweep bandpass eq)
Parametric: like a sweep bandpass eq but with also a q function to determine the width of the band. The bandwidth places are identified by the place the gain has already fallen by 3db in 2 parts of the spectrum
Graphic EQ: high and lowest is shelving filter, the rest is a bunch of bandpass eqs for each part of the freq range.
EQ is making sounds more or less upfront. When you have several sounds they need to be put some upfront, some behind that and some in the distance, like sounds in nature.
To bring a sound to the front, consider boosting its fundamental harmonic first.
Listen to your mix and decide a packing order of leaders and supporting sounds. Eq accordingy
It is worth listening to the kick and bass parts at the same time when you are EQ'ing, as you need them to work together. If you find that they are competing, you can EQ them around eachother. A slight, narrow peak in one and a correlating dip on the other can help to achieve this.
Highpass eq everything else in the mix to allow the bass to breathe.
Pass your mids to allow the bass to breathe
Equalisation provides an opportunity to clean up mixes by understand which part of the frequency spectrum belongs to a timbre of the instrument. E.g. if a guitar sounds boxy, where can you cut most effectively?
to emphasise pitched elements in percussive instruments -- some producers find that this can lend these sounds greater punch. decide what pitch the instrument suggests most strongly, and then to array a set of very narrow peaking filters to boost the fundamental and harmonics of this note.
To emphasise certain timbres in pitched sounds, make a sharp eq boost and move around the frequency to identify sounds to boost and which to cut
Digital or analogue eq? Because good analogue equalisers induce musically useful phase changes in the audio passing through them, they can cause a significant tonal change even with less than a decibel of boost applied. On the other hand, digital equalisers can be designed to leave phase relationships almost unchanged, so large gain settings can be made less noticeably..
Boosting should be broad frequency, low db, cutting should be small frequency, high db
If you find your cuts are affecting the surrounding are too much, apply a narrow boost on the same area, and put the cut in the middle of it
When eqing, always check the bypass to see if your fucking the sound.
When equing at the end of a mix, notice what affect it has on the whole mix
Psychoacoustics: Equalisation or enhancement? If no top end exists in an audio track, eqing it will jsut add more noise. Try a harmonic enhancer, it makes harmonics of the fundamental, out ear accepts it as real. Be gente tho, they can be very abrasive
If working with specific instrument check: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Aug01/articles/usingeq.asp to see what you need
Highpass everything that isnt bass quite high. The harmonically richer, the higher
Psychoacoustics: Roll off the highs of anything that dosent need to be up front
Psychoacoustics : because we perceive midrange and higher levels than highs or lows, Setting up a smile curve during mastering can give an impression of loudness
Cut or boost??? The human ear prefers cut. So dont boost the lyrics to make them stand out, hp cut everything else
If 2 sounds are fighing in a mix, give each a little boost at different frequencies and connespondingly cut the other.
If your mix sounds 'muddy', boost the main frequency range of each of the principal instruments. Boost 'decorative' sounds even more and pull the faders right down.
If you can't get your tracks to blend together in the mix, cut the main frequency range of the principal instruments
9. Eqing Instruments:
Bass Drum EQ: meat is 80-100hz, warmth is in 200-300hz, 2.5-6khz for click
Snare: fat is at 120-400 hz, boxy gunners snare sound 800hz 1.2 khz, ringing timbre (reggae) 2-4 khz, attack 4-8 khz,
Hi hats: sizzle 8-12k, ringing 1-6k
Acoustic Guitar: 80-120 for weight, boom 200-300, clarity 2-5, 5-10 sparkle
Electric Guitar: can vary a lot! Hp 80 always, warmth 125-250, crisp 3-5 and to get ultra crisp slash style, get a harmonic enhancer out.
Bass Guitar: weight 80-100 warmth 100-300 attack (boxy) 500-1500, jangly :2-5k boost, airy tone 2k high shelf
Vocals: boomy when boost around fundamental frequency, cut below 100hz to reduce noise, nasality 1-3, prescence 4-5, cut highs and lows for telephone sound, 7-12 sibilance & breath noise, 16-18, or psychoacoustic enhancement for crispness
Psychoacoustics: To put lead vocals infront of backing vocals: just roll off the high freq a little but.
Because electric guitars and synths dont have a strong acoustical image, you can eq the fuck out of them without freaking people out.
apply an overall boost of just one or two dBs at around 15kHz with a wide bandwidth setting. This is what people mean when they talk about 'air EQ', 'sheen' or 'gloss'.
adding a gentle dip at around 180-250Hz may help clarify a muddy lower mid-range, while a boost at 70-90Hz will firm up a weak bass end
10. Bass
Most home systems roll off at 60-80hz so your mixes are gonna need a lot of energy in the 70-90hz range. So for instance, high pass at 50hz and boost around 80 to compensate.
Sine and triangle waves have strong fundamental harmonics are are for bass you can mostly feel. If you are using this, distort it, then use a blend of a fx send speaker simulator to round off the less mucisal higher frequencies generated. And maybe a little post eq. distortion also makes sounds louder
Try a second osc an octave above the bass osc. Try a percussive sound instead. Have the filter envelope on the top sound shut off more quickly than the lower sound, reminiscent of strings
Waves Rbass is for smaller systems, while DBX 120xp boombox is more for large systems
Try adding a little more sustain to the bass note
When using 2 bass sounds, detune them 3% or so a la trance
Human ear can be fooled into perceiving a non existant fundamental if there is sufficient harmonic information.
To understand the nature of bass, you must understand how a string works: when a string is it, it vibrates at the fundamental plus simple harmonics.You need to pay attention to both.
TB303 only offers square (odd integers) and sawtooth (odd and even integers) because triangle and sine are not harmonically rich and therefore useless unless you want some serious subbass. You also cant filter sine and triangle you just get a reduction in volume. Also to hear the sounds in a mix you gotta raise the level which means you miss out on a lot of headroom
Sometimes harmonic exciting the bass in a mix is more effective then eqing. Try waves maxxbass or renaissance bass (which is a synth but stil serves the same purpose) try crysonics newb also, or waves trans x. They generate new harmonic content and allow you to reduce or remove the original fundamental frequency content of the signal, which makes them particularly effective at adapting material with deep bass for use on limited-range systems such as televisions, and
cheap consumer systems such as those people use to listen to your Myspace tunes which tend to roll off somewhere around 80Hz. They work because the brain tends to 'imagine' the missing fundamental if the upper harmonics are present, so these processors can create the impression of more bass while actually reducing the level of very low bass.
Psychoacoustics: freq response is not flat, so when your playing a bassnote up the chart check if it needs to be a bit quieter
Psychoacoustics: a snappy sound can appear quieter then a sustained sound. So make sustain happen on bass (30ms might be a good starting point)
Psychoacoustics: the strongest impression of timbre from a bass sound is from its attack portion. So dont squash it with
compression. Also think about what this attach portion is. Try a percussive attach sample for a woody bass
Psychoacoustics: if we can hear all the harmonics but the fundamental is removed, we imagine it. So you can make some wicked radiomixes and shit I you use harmonically rich bass but remove the fundamental so it can be played on shitty systems (then make a club mi offcourse!
Given that the harmonic content of bass and the attack portion of the envelope are so critical to our perception of the sound, it is important to make sure we capture these along with the deep bass we can always remove what we don't need using filtering at the mix stage.
Eq before compression so you can get the tone right, then eq after also if needed.
11. Mastering
Check out the SPL vitaliser
Soft bass setting is good for clubs or bass lacki mixes. Tight bass
setting is goot fo hifi
Maybe chuck on a final comp. but only 1.1-1.5:1 and maybe 5ms attack and 50 ms release but big threshold. Hot it up even more bro! use soft knee and rms setting also.
To master for vinyl check basslane for mono bass
12. Reverb
Spring reverb = a spring, transducer at one side and mic at the other. Has a nice 50s twang, check it out on vocals, guitar and organs
Plate reverb = a thin metal plate with mics on the plate and mechanical dampeners. No early reflections, reverb tail builds up unnaturally quickly. This artificialness is good tho. If you use a plate with a short delay you can get early reflections also
Digital Reverb = has predelay to simulate early reflections. The longer the predelay, the bigger the room
Early Digital reverb = quick multitap delay for early reflections. Then a mix of the original input plus some delays are fed into recirculating filters to create the tail.
Convolution reverb = processor hungry. Can emulate real spaces, but for music they can be a bit muddy. Emulating hardware delay boxes is the go. Put a mic in the middle of the room, make a 1 sample sound, record the reflactions, make an angorythm and put every sample in an audio signal through it. (there is a better way to do this now using sine waves)
Lexicon delay is the best
Which reverb is best: convo bright sounding present good for drums. Or if its a style of music the preset its naturally heard in is good e.g. choral in a cathedral. For pop music digital or plate (either real or convo sampled) is the best as its what we are used to. Remember to try using a reverb that is high in early reflections and low in tail to reduce clutter.
For drums go for ambience settings with early reflections only. Same with vox. Remember whatever gets lots of reverb is pushed back in the mix.
Flangers before reverb to make movement
13. Mixing
The biggest hump to overcome when mixing is that everything sounds better when it is louder, the crapper the mix, the louder you have top play it.
If you can change the level of an instrument in the mix by a tenth or two-tenths of a dB and you can hear the change that you made, the mix is getting pretty good. If you change an instrument by that much and nothing happens ..
Make a hat your mixing hat, and put it on when you mix and pretend youre a gay French sculptor working delicately and with empathy for the mix. Try and hear it for the first time. Forget the composer you were when you were making the track.
Think of any instrument as two separate components: the low end of the instrument and the high end of the instrument. If the balance between these two halves is not right, then you will never get it to sit in the track correctly. There will always be places where it seems too loud or too soft.
If you cant hear the low end of a sound in the mix, you dont need it.
If your eqing is making an instrument sound all over the place, maybe its due to too much dynamic range. Compress a 2:1 ratio, dont worry 2 much about a&r, get -3/-4 reduction. You probably cant even
hear the compression. Then retry the e.q.
Turn off all effects and processes you can and make it sound the best you can at that point.
Start with kick drum, bass and snare dynamic and go from there, but themix will usually end up a little hot. So maybe try starting with the lead sounds, and working down the mix pecking order. Remember once the full mix is in you will still probably have to go back and adjust your starting channels
Wth reverb, bring up the effect send to where you can hear it in the mix, then back it off by 5 db
Psychoacoustics: the louder the sound, the higher the perceived pitch. Monitor at reasonable levels (80db)
Bass is usually more heavily compressed or limited than other sounds. This irons out peaks, and helps the groove to feel solid, and to underpin the rest of the mix. The attack and release settings in particular are critical. Too short an attack, and you'll squash the important attack phase of the note. Too long a release time and you'll ruin the groove. If you let the attack phase of the note through, then it's also a good idea to place a limiter after the compressor, in order to catch any wild peaks, and leave you more room for make-up gain so you can increase the level without peaking.
A common trick to increase the impact of the bass is to send the kick and bass to the same compressor and bring the compressed signal back in quite low, just to glue things together.
Kick, bass and snare in the middle. Other perc should be panned if it works to create space.
Once youve got a mix. Then turn up sound seprartely 1db. And ask: did that help or make it worse? Then turn it down 1db and ask the question. If both times it made the mix worse, you got it in the right position. Once youve done this for every sound, and gone through it a few times, and the answer is definently no for eveything, then you got your final mix.
14. Getting Audio into the digital domain.
A little bit of compression is always good to keep the audio in a good range for bit conversion
Voice channels are pretty kool for this because they include comp/limit/head phone preamp/and maybe a little eq. they might also have an instrument in. and have phamtom power also
15. Recording Vocals
Getting a well-recorded vocal part to sit in a track relies on it having an even level, the correct tonal and level balance, and the right reverberant ambience. (tonal balance is the hardest and concentrate on it at first, dampen room, move mic and change mic till you get it)
IIf the vocal take sux, all bets are off and dont even bother with anything till you get a good one.
Always try repositioning or replacing a microphone before reaching for the equaliser.
To turn on phantom power: turn everything off, then turn on the soundcard, then phantom, then turn on/up mixer/monitors
Any carpeted room will do
Put the mic away from the walls but not in the center of the room
Singer 6 to 9 inches from the mic
Pop shield
Boxiness results from 2 smaller room/mic 2 far from the singer, or in rooms where a lot of damping material has been applied, you'll often find that it only absorbs effectively down to around 250-300Hz.
Slightly compress the signal and a hint of reverb to flesh out the sound helps, but is the take isnt good then it isnt worth it. Get a good sounding take first
With the singers headphones, make it loud so they have to speak up, and also add reverbto help accurate pitching
Mics have different characteristics and are good for different voices. When buying mics, go for 1 neutral, 1 warm (low mids), one fizzy (high harmonic accentuation), and one tube
Chicks can be hard to get to sound good because of their smoother voices maybe. Some mics can bring out undesirable throatiness in female voices, might sound like distortion.
Fizzy mics might accentuate ugly voice characteristics, while for another singer struggling for clarity, they might be the better option.
Home studio: put singer close to a wall with her back to it and the mic within 2 feet of her. Place a big mattress behind her to reduce any reflection from the wall into the sides of the mic. Then put a rug on the floor and consider putting foam on the ceiling. Then put a chuck on furniture foam right behind the mic
You need a popshield!
Make the singer comfortable, offer them water, nice room temperature, subdued lighting and be encouraging and relaxed, but still get enough takes to comp together something good. Know when to make another take or take another break. Eye-contact between the producer, engineer and vocalist is very important -- it is surprising what encouragement can be passed in the wink of an eye or a well-timed smile. Also if shit hits the fan mid take, dont flinch and freak out the Singer
Watch out for siblance, the sound of wind whistling through teeth. This can be helped putting a pencil infront of the mic on a rubber band or placing the mic either above or below the singers mouth
The pop shield should be 3 from the mic and the singer 6-12 from the pop shield.
Compressing during singing: 4:1max 6dB gain reduction max. 25ms
If the Singer adopts different singing styles in a track, record them separately (or record one set of takes the whole way through and punch in where needed.
If your compressor dosent fix it, just automate the word thats out
you really want to add density to a voice, try upping the compression ratio to around 8:1 and then adjusting the threshold so
that the gain-reduction meter just registers a decibel or two on average-level parts. (you might get 10-15db on the loud bits)
Compression: go for RMS instead of peak on vocal parts
In voice less eq is always better (we can hear it to easy)
EQ: cut or boost 100-300Hz to add warmth or reduce chestiness, nasal sound tweaking at 1k. add prescence at 4-6k. add air at 14-16k. always use eq bypass to make sure your not fucking it.
Autotune: split the out of tune phrases on a separate track. Use slow attack so you cant hear it working.
Reverb: traditionally its plate or room reverbs. However, most vst reverbs suck and muddy it up. If so, turn the tail down 6db on these bitches, keep the early reflections.
Once your vox mix is down, listen to it from the next room. If it sounds pasted on or not loud enough adjust. If it sounds shit, then you got a bad vocal take (likely). Do not pas go
cheers
-zv
1. Buying Equipment
Never sell, never upgrade. Buy middle of top of the range (brand new or second hand) first time around and keep it for life. It will become a classic, and if you look after it, it will last forever.
2. Sampling
Repeat after me... The sampler is simply the most versatile instrument ever invented and it is limited only by the sounds you can find to put in it.
Sample everything: aerosol hihats, pingpong snares, press record, flick the radio channels for a couple of minutes, edit what you get into discrete hits and autotune the fuck out of it.
Hit salvos and get some records to rip. Go for the non musical ones (spoken word et)
Grab the syllables Sebastian style to colour songs without adding words
Record your studio session and sample it. Youll gets lots of clicks and stuff
With stereo samples of ambient or melodic sounds, try reversing one channel for a more unusual stereo image. Then fuck with panning
Make a loop slowly go out of time over 4 bars, be careful! Taste required.
Have a melody play at normal speed, then put a pitched up and sped up 1 otve copy over the top. Edit both copies for crazy appregiator style madness.
3. Panning
first of all, get your mix sounding great in mono
The lower the frequency, the less you should pan it
Pan from 9 till 3 only
To reduce blurring of the stereo image: use a prepanned mono reverb on a sound. Will sound solid in the mix
Faking stereo: Split the audio file, apply chorus to one side. Also a better way to chorus any sound you still want up the front of teh mix
Or, Pan before you mix your levels because panning can cause a drop in db. Might be better
In techno, the only panning seems to be channel delay or fxs panned around. All the drums and bass are at centre.
Bass kick and snare in the middle. Check out some hard panning on a shaker sometime.
4. Reverb
Basically, Reverb is 2 processes: short delay like reflections and a cloudy tail. Eq plays a big part: all real life sound reflections are eqd.usually the tops are cut. Having said that, each company has a different way to achieve this.
Look into ambience: reverb but only the early reflections not the tail, keeps mixes clean. The best bet is to get some decent IRs for 80s lexicon units. Ambience rocks on artificial and close micd sounds, make them sit nicely in the mix
The spacing between initial reflections is a dominant factor in perceived room size
The main paramaters to tweak are early reflection pattern (ambience), pre-delay time (longer = larger room), overall decay time (helps reinforce the idea of large areas) and high-frequency damping (more you add, the less the reverb sounds like a prison cell and more like a forest). And Reverb density: sorta means the amount of voices in the tail of the reverb. Low density tails are a little grainy and good for vox and long sounds but bad on percussion. High density tails are good for percussion. Sometime you also get the diffusion parameter. Its like attack how long the reverb takes to build/gather momentum. prison cells are diffused.sound.
If early reflections are a discrete echo, the room walls are flat, if the reflections are more hazy and midrangey, the surface is stuff like trees.
A characteristic of plate reverbs is a ring in the tail of the sound. This is due to the architechure of the plate. Other reverbs
will (should? ) not have this ring.
Psychoaoustics: changing reverb will get out attention. So leave out of some passages.
Using tricky reverb: Gated Reverb: snare -> reverb -> compressor -> gate. (fastest release, open for half a second)
Using tricky reverb: Reverse reverb: voice, cymbals, chords or stabs
Using tricky reverb: Movement: set a bpm syncd autopanner after the reverb to move it around or delay one channel by a second using a delay, no feedback. Put 2 different reverbs in each stereo channel (maybe one that is a reverse reverb!)
If the reverb appears to add sibilance to a vocal track, dampen the high frequencies
If adding reverb in post, put an eq before it and remove anything below 150hz
Put a flanger/chorus before the reverb in the fx channel to give it movement
Try heavily effecting the sound before it hits the reverb: pitch bend an octave or a 5th, distortion, multitap delay with loads of feedback
If adding more reverb to a sound muddies the mix, shorten the tail of the reverb, and roll off some bottom end if you havent so already
Put shit right up the back of the mix by only using reverb mix
Midi gate the reverb to compliment or copy the rhythm.
Only ambient reverb on drums.
Adding some pre-delay (between 50 and 100mS) will produce a subtle doubling effect that helps beef up weaker voices.
Reverb for drums and percussion: ambient settings only. Early reflections will beef up sound. Go the gated reverb, but use on diff perc then they did in the 80s for l less iconic sound. You can reverb the snare the most: try a plate reverb for its sizzly sound. use a heavy dose of short, bright plate or tiled-room ambience to add life to a dull snare sound. Toms have their own tail so don need reverb, unless your making hair metal inspired tunes. For a bigger sound, pick a short hall setting and experiment by adding a little pre-delay to give the drum hits something of a slap-back feel. Hats: short ambience or plate setting What you're after is a sense of space and high-frequency detail, without a tail. Roll off the bass on your
reverbs.
Use different reverb types in different sections of the mix, we are finely tuned to notice this and it will keep attention.
Trashy reverb rocks on dance music, dont forget it.
Vocals: To make a vocal sound up-front and intimate use quite a short setting. another popular trick: add between 50 and 80mS of pre-delay to the reverb: put a little space between the dry vocal and the reverb that follows. If you want that reverb tail to add shimmer to the sound, use a room, chamber or hall program, but increase the early reflections balance so that the reverb decay doesn't dominate.
Long decays only work if you leave space for them. Use them in breakdowns only perhaps.
To use long decays on vox/instruments:duck the reverb output when the dry vocal part is sounding. allow it to swell back to its normal level between words. You only need 3dB of ducking. Make sure the A & R is sympathetic to the sound.
Guitar: its all about spring reverb. (historically anyway)
Put a chorus before a reverb to get strings and backup vox. The reverb will distort the chorus modulation to a sizzley sound
Also, err on the side of adding too little reverb rather than too much
5. Making your track sound big
Each layer takes up more headroom, instead of adding a layer, why not make your existing layers more interesting. You cant have big kick and bass sounds combined with big vocal and guitar sounds, you need small sounds also
Make sure individual sounds in your arrangement occupy distinct, and separate, regions of the audible frequency spectrum. Try transposing parts till you get better balance
Bass sounds need harmonic activity above the fundamental (sawtooth, square) but keep in mind you might not wa to much activity so filter if needs be
Put distortion on bass and experiment. Try quadrafuzz also, its like multiband distortion, keeps the mix clean.
Make sure your drums and bass sound big to start with, Check out the envelope, keep a sustain on the sound for at least 30ms to give it punch, and compress shorter transient sounds to give them that sustain.
The more harmonics in a sound, the bigger it sounds. If you like pure sine bass then distort it a little to introduce sounds.
If you use chorus on bass, use it on an effect send and filter out the bass of the send
For delays: attach it as a send and really limit the bandwidth of the delay
Maybe chuck a whole mix through an ambience plug
Remember for a radio mix get rid of all of the bass.
To make drums sound big, put them through an ambience plugin with some careful post compression. The early reflections will lengthen the drum sound and make them bigger. You can only do this so much tho!
Sounds with a massive transient sound weak because their RMS is low. Use a fast attack comp, 10:1 and up release 10-50ms.
Instead of a limiter or compressor to remove large transients, why not try distortion? It can make sounds sound bigger and brighter is used delicately.
When compressing a whole mix, go for 3-4db gain reduction, start with a 5ms attack and a 50ms release. Its ok that transients get through, the limited will sort these out
After comp but before limitor get the saturation device happening
Limit now, aim for 6db reduction, watch out for squashing tho.
Clipping is ok as long as its under 1ms. Use your ears, if you cant hear it happen, its fair game.
6. Multiband compression:
When I'm mastering dance music for clients, I'll often use a multi-band compressor to apply very low-ratio compression to all three frequency bands (no more than 1.25:1 usually), but with a threshold of around -30dB. I normally aim for no more than about 6dB of overall gain reduction, and this tightens up the sound considerably without destroying the impression of dynamic range.
7. Adding Warmth and Air
Warmth is low to mid range distortion, a cut to the highs, and a slight harmonic phaseshift. Commonly associated with valves.
Fake your own warmth: A subtle combination of compression and EQ can come surprisingly close if you first compress the signal using a fairly low ratio (less than 1.5:1), then adjust the threshold to produce a gain reduction of around 5dB on peaks. Follow this with equalisation and add a decibel or two of broad boost over the 50 to 150Hz region using a parametric or sweep equaliser. Sometimes you can clean up the mid-range by combining this boost with a gentle dip at around 200 to 250Hz to prevent the bass boost affecting the mid-range.
Air is adding a hig frequency boost without overemphasising any harmonics up there.
8. Equalisation
Rule number 1 get a good sound before it hits your mixer. Eq is like a circular saw, you wouldnt use it to cut up some nice sashimi.
Don't attempt better instrument separation by applying lots of EQ boost to everything, the overall effect will sound unnatural and harsh. If you must use EQ, cutting always sounds more natural.
Rethink: equalizers are tone control
Shelving: boost sounds above or below a freq
Bandpass: allows a freq spectrum to pass and cuts the rest, or boost the band only. Some have only a gain control, some have a freq control (sweep bandpass eq)
Parametric: like a sweep bandpass eq but with also a q function to determine the width of the band. The bandwidth places are identified by the place the gain has already fallen by 3db in 2 parts of the spectrum
Graphic EQ: high and lowest is shelving filter, the rest is a bunch of bandpass eqs for each part of the freq range.
EQ is making sounds more or less upfront. When you have several sounds they need to be put some upfront, some behind that and some in the distance, like sounds in nature.
To bring a sound to the front, consider boosting its fundamental harmonic first.
Listen to your mix and decide a packing order of leaders and supporting sounds. Eq accordingy
It is worth listening to the kick and bass parts at the same time when you are EQ'ing, as you need them to work together. If you find that they are competing, you can EQ them around eachother. A slight, narrow peak in one and a correlating dip on the other can help to achieve this.
Highpass eq everything else in the mix to allow the bass to breathe.
Pass your mids to allow the bass to breathe
Equalisation provides an opportunity to clean up mixes by understand which part of the frequency spectrum belongs to a timbre of the instrument. E.g. if a guitar sounds boxy, where can you cut most effectively?
to emphasise pitched elements in percussive instruments -- some producers find that this can lend these sounds greater punch. decide what pitch the instrument suggests most strongly, and then to array a set of very narrow peaking filters to boost the fundamental and harmonics of this note.
To emphasise certain timbres in pitched sounds, make a sharp eq boost and move around the frequency to identify sounds to boost and which to cut
Digital or analogue eq? Because good analogue equalisers induce musically useful phase changes in the audio passing through them, they can cause a significant tonal change even with less than a decibel of boost applied. On the other hand, digital equalisers can be designed to leave phase relationships almost unchanged, so large gain settings can be made less noticeably..
Boosting should be broad frequency, low db, cutting should be small frequency, high db
If you find your cuts are affecting the surrounding are too much, apply a narrow boost on the same area, and put the cut in the middle of it
When eqing, always check the bypass to see if your fucking the sound.
When equing at the end of a mix, notice what affect it has on the whole mix
Psychoacoustics: Equalisation or enhancement? If no top end exists in an audio track, eqing it will jsut add more noise. Try a harmonic enhancer, it makes harmonics of the fundamental, out ear accepts it as real. Be gente tho, they can be very abrasive
If working with specific instrument check: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Aug01/articles/usingeq.asp to see what you need
Highpass everything that isnt bass quite high. The harmonically richer, the higher
Psychoacoustics: Roll off the highs of anything that dosent need to be up front
Psychoacoustics : because we perceive midrange and higher levels than highs or lows, Setting up a smile curve during mastering can give an impression of loudness
Cut or boost??? The human ear prefers cut. So dont boost the lyrics to make them stand out, hp cut everything else
If 2 sounds are fighing in a mix, give each a little boost at different frequencies and connespondingly cut the other.
If your mix sounds 'muddy', boost the main frequency range of each of the principal instruments. Boost 'decorative' sounds even more and pull the faders right down.
If you can't get your tracks to blend together in the mix, cut the main frequency range of the principal instruments
9. Eqing Instruments:
Bass Drum EQ: meat is 80-100hz, warmth is in 200-300hz, 2.5-6khz for click
Snare: fat is at 120-400 hz, boxy gunners snare sound 800hz 1.2 khz, ringing timbre (reggae) 2-4 khz, attack 4-8 khz,
Hi hats: sizzle 8-12k, ringing 1-6k
Acoustic Guitar: 80-120 for weight, boom 200-300, clarity 2-5, 5-10 sparkle
Electric Guitar: can vary a lot! Hp 80 always, warmth 125-250, crisp 3-5 and to get ultra crisp slash style, get a harmonic enhancer out.
Bass Guitar: weight 80-100 warmth 100-300 attack (boxy) 500-1500, jangly :2-5k boost, airy tone 2k high shelf
Vocals: boomy when boost around fundamental frequency, cut below 100hz to reduce noise, nasality 1-3, prescence 4-5, cut highs and lows for telephone sound, 7-12 sibilance & breath noise, 16-18, or psychoacoustic enhancement for crispness
Psychoacoustics: To put lead vocals infront of backing vocals: just roll off the high freq a little but.
Because electric guitars and synths dont have a strong acoustical image, you can eq the fuck out of them without freaking people out.
apply an overall boost of just one or two dBs at around 15kHz with a wide bandwidth setting. This is what people mean when they talk about 'air EQ', 'sheen' or 'gloss'.
adding a gentle dip at around 180-250Hz may help clarify a muddy lower mid-range, while a boost at 70-90Hz will firm up a weak bass end
10. Bass
Most home systems roll off at 60-80hz so your mixes are gonna need a lot of energy in the 70-90hz range. So for instance, high pass at 50hz and boost around 80 to compensate.
Sine and triangle waves have strong fundamental harmonics are are for bass you can mostly feel. If you are using this, distort it, then use a blend of a fx send speaker simulator to round off the less mucisal higher frequencies generated. And maybe a little post eq. distortion also makes sounds louder
Try a second osc an octave above the bass osc. Try a percussive sound instead. Have the filter envelope on the top sound shut off more quickly than the lower sound, reminiscent of strings
Waves Rbass is for smaller systems, while DBX 120xp boombox is more for large systems
Try adding a little more sustain to the bass note
When using 2 bass sounds, detune them 3% or so a la trance
Human ear can be fooled into perceiving a non existant fundamental if there is sufficient harmonic information.
To understand the nature of bass, you must understand how a string works: when a string is it, it vibrates at the fundamental plus simple harmonics.You need to pay attention to both.
TB303 only offers square (odd integers) and sawtooth (odd and even integers) because triangle and sine are not harmonically rich and therefore useless unless you want some serious subbass. You also cant filter sine and triangle you just get a reduction in volume. Also to hear the sounds in a mix you gotta raise the level which means you miss out on a lot of headroom
Sometimes harmonic exciting the bass in a mix is more effective then eqing. Try waves maxxbass or renaissance bass (which is a synth but stil serves the same purpose) try crysonics newb also, or waves trans x. They generate new harmonic content and allow you to reduce or remove the original fundamental frequency content of the signal, which makes them particularly effective at adapting material with deep bass for use on limited-range systems such as televisions, and
cheap consumer systems such as those people use to listen to your Myspace tunes which tend to roll off somewhere around 80Hz. They work because the brain tends to 'imagine' the missing fundamental if the upper harmonics are present, so these processors can create the impression of more bass while actually reducing the level of very low bass.
Psychoacoustics: freq response is not flat, so when your playing a bassnote up the chart check if it needs to be a bit quieter
Psychoacoustics: a snappy sound can appear quieter then a sustained sound. So make sustain happen on bass (30ms might be a good starting point)
Psychoacoustics: the strongest impression of timbre from a bass sound is from its attack portion. So dont squash it with
compression. Also think about what this attach portion is. Try a percussive attach sample for a woody bass
Psychoacoustics: if we can hear all the harmonics but the fundamental is removed, we imagine it. So you can make some wicked radiomixes and shit I you use harmonically rich bass but remove the fundamental so it can be played on shitty systems (then make a club mi offcourse!
Given that the harmonic content of bass and the attack portion of the envelope are so critical to our perception of the sound, it is important to make sure we capture these along with the deep bass we can always remove what we don't need using filtering at the mix stage.
Eq before compression so you can get the tone right, then eq after also if needed.
11. Mastering
Check out the SPL vitaliser
Soft bass setting is good for clubs or bass lacki mixes. Tight bass
setting is goot fo hifi
Maybe chuck on a final comp. but only 1.1-1.5:1 and maybe 5ms attack and 50 ms release but big threshold. Hot it up even more bro! use soft knee and rms setting also.
To master for vinyl check basslane for mono bass
12. Reverb
Spring reverb = a spring, transducer at one side and mic at the other. Has a nice 50s twang, check it out on vocals, guitar and organs
Plate reverb = a thin metal plate with mics on the plate and mechanical dampeners. No early reflections, reverb tail builds up unnaturally quickly. This artificialness is good tho. If you use a plate with a short delay you can get early reflections also
Digital Reverb = has predelay to simulate early reflections. The longer the predelay, the bigger the room
Early Digital reverb = quick multitap delay for early reflections. Then a mix of the original input plus some delays are fed into recirculating filters to create the tail.
Convolution reverb = processor hungry. Can emulate real spaces, but for music they can be a bit muddy. Emulating hardware delay boxes is the go. Put a mic in the middle of the room, make a 1 sample sound, record the reflactions, make an angorythm and put every sample in an audio signal through it. (there is a better way to do this now using sine waves)
Lexicon delay is the best
Which reverb is best: convo bright sounding present good for drums. Or if its a style of music the preset its naturally heard in is good e.g. choral in a cathedral. For pop music digital or plate (either real or convo sampled) is the best as its what we are used to. Remember to try using a reverb that is high in early reflections and low in tail to reduce clutter.
For drums go for ambience settings with early reflections only. Same with vox. Remember whatever gets lots of reverb is pushed back in the mix.
Flangers before reverb to make movement
13. Mixing
The biggest hump to overcome when mixing is that everything sounds better when it is louder, the crapper the mix, the louder you have top play it.
If you can change the level of an instrument in the mix by a tenth or two-tenths of a dB and you can hear the change that you made, the mix is getting pretty good. If you change an instrument by that much and nothing happens ..
Make a hat your mixing hat, and put it on when you mix and pretend youre a gay French sculptor working delicately and with empathy for the mix. Try and hear it for the first time. Forget the composer you were when you were making the track.
Think of any instrument as two separate components: the low end of the instrument and the high end of the instrument. If the balance between these two halves is not right, then you will never get it to sit in the track correctly. There will always be places where it seems too loud or too soft.
If you cant hear the low end of a sound in the mix, you dont need it.
If your eqing is making an instrument sound all over the place, maybe its due to too much dynamic range. Compress a 2:1 ratio, dont worry 2 much about a&r, get -3/-4 reduction. You probably cant even
hear the compression. Then retry the e.q.
Turn off all effects and processes you can and make it sound the best you can at that point.
Start with kick drum, bass and snare dynamic and go from there, but themix will usually end up a little hot. So maybe try starting with the lead sounds, and working down the mix pecking order. Remember once the full mix is in you will still probably have to go back and adjust your starting channels
Wth reverb, bring up the effect send to where you can hear it in the mix, then back it off by 5 db
Psychoacoustics: the louder the sound, the higher the perceived pitch. Monitor at reasonable levels (80db)
Bass is usually more heavily compressed or limited than other sounds. This irons out peaks, and helps the groove to feel solid, and to underpin the rest of the mix. The attack and release settings in particular are critical. Too short an attack, and you'll squash the important attack phase of the note. Too long a release time and you'll ruin the groove. If you let the attack phase of the note through, then it's also a good idea to place a limiter after the compressor, in order to catch any wild peaks, and leave you more room for make-up gain so you can increase the level without peaking.
A common trick to increase the impact of the bass is to send the kick and bass to the same compressor and bring the compressed signal back in quite low, just to glue things together.
Kick, bass and snare in the middle. Other perc should be panned if it works to create space.
Once youve got a mix. Then turn up sound seprartely 1db. And ask: did that help or make it worse? Then turn it down 1db and ask the question. If both times it made the mix worse, you got it in the right position. Once youve done this for every sound, and gone through it a few times, and the answer is definently no for eveything, then you got your final mix.
14. Getting Audio into the digital domain.
A little bit of compression is always good to keep the audio in a good range for bit conversion
Voice channels are pretty kool for this because they include comp/limit/head phone preamp/and maybe a little eq. they might also have an instrument in. and have phamtom power also
15. Recording Vocals
Getting a well-recorded vocal part to sit in a track relies on it having an even level, the correct tonal and level balance, and the right reverberant ambience. (tonal balance is the hardest and concentrate on it at first, dampen room, move mic and change mic till you get it)
IIf the vocal take sux, all bets are off and dont even bother with anything till you get a good one.
Always try repositioning or replacing a microphone before reaching for the equaliser.
To turn on phantom power: turn everything off, then turn on the soundcard, then phantom, then turn on/up mixer/monitors
Any carpeted room will do
Put the mic away from the walls but not in the center of the room
Singer 6 to 9 inches from the mic
Pop shield
Boxiness results from 2 smaller room/mic 2 far from the singer, or in rooms where a lot of damping material has been applied, you'll often find that it only absorbs effectively down to around 250-300Hz.
Slightly compress the signal and a hint of reverb to flesh out the sound helps, but is the take isnt good then it isnt worth it. Get a good sounding take first
With the singers headphones, make it loud so they have to speak up, and also add reverbto help accurate pitching
Mics have different characteristics and are good for different voices. When buying mics, go for 1 neutral, 1 warm (low mids), one fizzy (high harmonic accentuation), and one tube
Chicks can be hard to get to sound good because of their smoother voices maybe. Some mics can bring out undesirable throatiness in female voices, might sound like distortion.
Fizzy mics might accentuate ugly voice characteristics, while for another singer struggling for clarity, they might be the better option.
Home studio: put singer close to a wall with her back to it and the mic within 2 feet of her. Place a big mattress behind her to reduce any reflection from the wall into the sides of the mic. Then put a rug on the floor and consider putting foam on the ceiling. Then put a chuck on furniture foam right behind the mic
You need a popshield!
Make the singer comfortable, offer them water, nice room temperature, subdued lighting and be encouraging and relaxed, but still get enough takes to comp together something good. Know when to make another take or take another break. Eye-contact between the producer, engineer and vocalist is very important -- it is surprising what encouragement can be passed in the wink of an eye or a well-timed smile. Also if shit hits the fan mid take, dont flinch and freak out the Singer
Watch out for siblance, the sound of wind whistling through teeth. This can be helped putting a pencil infront of the mic on a rubber band or placing the mic either above or below the singers mouth
The pop shield should be 3 from the mic and the singer 6-12 from the pop shield.
Compressing during singing: 4:1max 6dB gain reduction max. 25ms
If the Singer adopts different singing styles in a track, record them separately (or record one set of takes the whole way through and punch in where needed.
If your compressor dosent fix it, just automate the word thats out
you really want to add density to a voice, try upping the compression ratio to around 8:1 and then adjusting the threshold so
that the gain-reduction meter just registers a decibel or two on average-level parts. (you might get 10-15db on the loud bits)
Compression: go for RMS instead of peak on vocal parts
In voice less eq is always better (we can hear it to easy)
EQ: cut or boost 100-300Hz to add warmth or reduce chestiness, nasal sound tweaking at 1k. add prescence at 4-6k. add air at 14-16k. always use eq bypass to make sure your not fucking it.
Autotune: split the out of tune phrases on a separate track. Use slow attack so you cant hear it working.
Reverb: traditionally its plate or room reverbs. However, most vst reverbs suck and muddy it up. If so, turn the tail down 6db on these bitches, keep the early reflections.
Once your vox mix is down, listen to it from the next room. If it sounds pasted on or not loud enough adjust. If it sounds shit, then you got a bad vocal take (likely). Do not pas go