Thinking out loud...

[wub]

Great two part Metalheadz History documentary up;

Metalheadz History Sessions 2014 - Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiT4s1EC ... e=youtu.be
Metalheadz History Sessions 2014 - Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdcJhQef6RU

[wub]

7 Obscure Mixing Techniques Used by the Pros

Most of the time there is an obvious choice. Need more mid-range? Grab an EQ and boost the midrange. Need more control of the source? Volume automation or compression. Easy. But sometimes we face strange challenges — like how to get more bass in the kick without running out of headroom. Or how to make something sound brighter that doesn’t have much harmonic content above 7 kHz except hiss. Well, where there’s a will there’s a way. Sometimes the way is just a little less predictable.

So with that said, here are seven counterintuitive mixing techniques pros regularly use to solve unconventional problems:

1. Using a low-pass filter for brightness

What? How can using a low-pass filter make something brighter? Well, let’s say you have a distorted guitar. It’s power goes up to about 5-6 kHz, but after that it’s just noise. A treble boost will bring out that noise, clog up your mix, and make the guitar harsh. Instead, use a low-pass filter with a very steep slope. This does two things: first, it cuts out noise and distortion. Second, it actually accentuates the tone at the corner frequency — so while you might be attenuating everything above say 6 kHz (for example), you’re actually boosting the 6 kHz region. This happens because the EQ generates resonance right at the corner of the pass band — and it’s actually pretty clean and clear!

2. Adding mid-range for bigger bass

When we want to hear more bass in a bass guitar, kick drum, or other low-end element, the obvious solution is to boost the low end. However, sometimes what we really want to do is just draw more attention to that bass element. We can do this by adding mid-range: pulling up the thud of a kick or the gnarly overtones of a bass. This pulls our ear to that element, telling us there’s more of it there — even if it’s actually just more mid-range. This can be extremely valuable when you don’t have much headroom, or there’s something else competing for attention in the low end.

3. Using compression to increase dynamics

But wait, doesn’t a compressor restrict dynamic range? Not necessarily It attenuates a signal that exceeds an amplitude threshold. In most cases that will restrict the dynamic range. However, if the attack is long enough, and the threshold is low enough, a compressor can actually exaggerate the attack. This happens because the compressor allows the front of the signal to pass mostly unaltered, while still pulling down the sustain of the signal and making the attack more prominent relative to the sustain. This can be very useful when trying to bring an already over-compressed signal to life (over compressed … compress it some more!) — or for injecting some serious snap into a dull drum sound.

4. Sharpening transients before a limiter on the master buss

If you’re using a brickwall limiter on your master buss, chances are you’re doing so to make something loud. And to do that, you want the maximum amount of headroom available. So why on earth would you use a transient designer in front of a limiter? Wouldn’t exaggerating the attacks use up your headroom faster?

Well, yes and no. Technically yes, but remember that these things are perfectly mathematical. Sharpening the transients can do two things: first, you can legitimately get more transient through the limiter and still retain loudness because a transient designer is boosting in a different way than the limiter is cutting. Second, the limiter is pulling down everything in the mix. That means while your kick hits harder for that 10ms, your bass gets attenuated for that 10ms as well. The attacks will poke out clearer in the mix, thus exaggerating the dynamic perception. Warning: sometimes this sounds like crap, so use it when it works and don’t use it when it doesn’t.

5. Using distortion to make something sound cleaner

Now that really doesn’t make sense. In what way could distortion possibly make something sound “cleaner”? If we define clean by clarity of tone rather than by purity of the original sound, we can use harmonic distortion to make something sound more “polished.” Light amounts of harmonic distortion will exaggerate the overtones of a source. Our brain uses these harmonics to tell us what exactly we’re hearing. It’s kind of like saying we’re going to make this clarinet more “clarinet-y” by emphasizing its partials. [editor's note: clarinet??]
6. Using reverb for intimacy

Remember that reverb is used to create a sense of space. Without reverb, it’s hard to define the front-to-back relationship of elements in a mix. Contrasting wet elements with room sound to the elements that are almost entirely dry can actually create a more “in your face” effect than simply leaving a sound 100% dry. The key to doing this is to keep your forward elements sent to a reverb that is a) primarily early reflections, and b) has a long pre-delay. The other benefit to using this kind of “ambiance” reverb is that it reinforces the tone of the dry signal a bit, which often makes it pop forward as well.

7. Mixing quietly towards loudness

Not that I feel loudness is absolutely paramount to a successful mix, but in today’s climate of iPods, noise-ridden listening environments, and DJ controlled playlists, it’s important that the record lives within the same general vicinity of apparent loudness. Or to say it another way: the record shouldn’t sound out of place amongst the other records being played shoulder to shoulder with it in the same genre.

Getting a mix to sound loud without losing tone, dimension, or punch can be tricky — especially when the references of today’s mixes are as loud as they are. So I’ll say two things: first, trends are showing that the loudness wars are easing off in pretty much every genre except EDM — so aim to make your mix maybe a little quieter than your references. You’ll have a much easier time getting the mix to hang together. Second, mix your record at low monitoring levels. The reason this works is because it forces you to create energy and excitement when loudness is not an option. This will force you to be more selective about EQ and compression settings, as well as general levels and imaging.

When all said is done, you’ll find that a record that creates the impression of a big sound at low levels, will sound absolutely huge when it’s cranked.

Taken from here - http://theproaudiofiles.com/7-obscure-m ... echniques/

[wub]

[wub]

A Month of Supercharged Doing: Aftermath

At the end of December I decided to challenge myself. I wanted to make January the most productive month of my life so far. To give myself a push I announced it publicly here on the blog, and many of you guys decided to join in. I was (and am) so happy to see that so many of you were willing to put yourself to the test too.

Now that a month has passed it’s time to look at how it all panned out.

Although my superproductive month was far from smooth sailing, and things didn’t always go as I had envisioned, I am happy to say that I made my goals:

1. I finished the writing process of my mixing ebook.
2. I also finished 3 tracks that will be get getting a release soon.

I also worked on many other music and writing duties on the side. Besides that I started working on my live set (this was not included in the original plan, but I felt so inspired to get to it so I let myself drift a little).

So I did get a good amount of stuff done, but the really important thing here is the question… What did I learn from this?

Here are a few thoughts that stand out for me as I think back of the past month.


The Importance of Planning and Prioritizing

Planning time is a cornerstone thing for me these days. I can’t stress how important this is for reaching goals. Making notes of your goals and all of the individual tasks that you need to do to get closer to them has many benefits.

• It relieves stress as you are not relying on your brain to remember everything (which then makes you able to use your thinking capacity to work on the tasks at hand better).
• It keeps you on the right track toward your goals. You will still drift, but if you have created a roadmap then it’s easy to steer back.
• Breaking up goals into single tasks makes things much more manageable and removes mental barriers. You don’t need to take big leaps. It’s all about small steps – every little thing you do takes you closer to the goal. And to realize that is a very comforting feeling, which helps you keep going.
• Most of us have a lot of things going in life and managing things in this way allows you to prioritize and work on what’s most important at any given moment.

I have been working on my planning habit for a while now, falling off the wagon periodially and trying different things. But I think I am finally coming up with a system that isn’t too much hassle and seems to work for me. It’s loosely based on the famous GTD system by David Allen and inspired by ZTD by Leo Babauta (as a side note, I like these systems because the guys who created them really seem to understand how our mind works and where it needs help). Now that would be a topic of a different post altogether (and I do think everyone just needs to figure out what works for them), but here is a quick nutshell version of my planning method for those who may want to know:

• Every sunday (or at least once a week) I aim to plan my most important activities for the upcoming week and map them out on my calendar. I look at all the action items (tasks) I have collected and pick the things I really need to get done that week.
• Every day when I get a moment (often in the evening) I review my progress, change what I have to and plan the next day accordingly.
• All the time I keep collecting action items (or tasks) as they keep popping in my head. I use my phone to make a note of them.

What’s important I think is to keep reviewing and editing daily. Unexpected things always happen and it’s impossible to make perfect plans. Thus the system has to be flexible and live in the moment. Otherwise you’re guaranteed to fall of the wagon – happened to me loads of times. The good thing is with a system like this it’s easy to hop back on anytime.

I also just have to reiterate that I am far from perfect in planning and prioritizing. I mess up and there are times I just feel like doing something completely different to what I had planned, and I will. So yeah – things fall apart at times but just the fact of having a system and trying to keep up with it has made a huge difference to me.


Life Will Interrupt Your Plans

Like I said, it is impossible to make perfect plans. Life brings unexpected things and you have to be able to adjust.

My january started pretty bad as on the 2nd day I got into a life threatening accident and ended up in the emergency room. Shook me up properly for a bit but I’m fine now – anyway that just goes to show that making perfect plans is impossible. Life tends to intervene, sometimes in a big way, sometimes small. How do you cope with that when planning?

It’s important to leave some “wiggle room” in your schedule. Plenty of it, in my case at least. Finishing a task often tends to take more time than what is estimated originally. And then there are all kinds of other things that get in the way. And that’s fine! Just take that into account – don’t make your schedules too tight and keep your system flexible by reviewing it daily, so that when you wake up in the morning you are always on top of what you really need to do today.


Find Your Productive Time

This was probably the biggest lesson for me and a huge reason that contributed in meeting my goals – especially finishing the writing of my mixing ebook. And it’s such a simple thing.

I started thinking about what would be the best time of the day for me to do my work. I decided that every morning I would just sit down and start writing. I would close the web browser and all other programs, with nothing but my text editor in full screen mode. This was my productive time of the day, and I made it my little holy ritual.

There were times I would write in the evenings or whenever I could, but the morning session was where the bulk of all my work got done.

I even put my phone in silent mode so there are as few distractions as possible. My two hyperactive attention-seeking cats are always doing their best to ruin things though, but nothing ever is perfect is it!

So find a time that works for you. Dedicate that time for advancing your goals and make it a habit. Look for a time in your day with least distractions. I suggest trying the morning if you can (even if that means waking up earlier), because that is when we are still fresh and able to focus well. As the day progresses, all kinds of things start to eat up our mental and physical reserves. For a long time I used to think I was an evening/night person but turns out I perform far better in the mornings. I get more done and the quality is better – try it out.


Let Yourself Drift and Relax Too

To drift is not always a bad thing. Especially when making music. You need to relax and let things flow too and see where that takes you. There is a time for everything. It’s all about learning to listen to yourself and finding a good balance. There are times you feel like doing something completely different than what you had planned, and if it serves your cause then maybe you need to change the plan for a bit. As long as you have a foundation that works, you can always steer back later if needed. Ultimately I am trying to aim for a position where I can smoothly flow from being methodical to a state of “freestyle” and back.


How Was Your Month? What Did You Learn?

A lot of you guys joined in on the challenge. I would love to hear about your experiences – even (and especially) if things went wrong. How did it go for you? What are some of the lessons you learned?

Taken from here - http://www.resoundsound.com/month-of-su ... aftermath/

[paradigm_x]

http://mnmlssg.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/r ... again.html

I've always felt that there was a strong correlation between techno and punk music. Punk music arrived with a particular sound but also with philosophies and ideologies which were probably even more important than the sound itself (rebellion, anti-authoritarianism, individualism and so on...) Punk music at its peak was dangerous, unpredictable, unique and challenged its audience. The music was able to carry the core messages of the punk music movement which is what drove the scene. However, the music soon became formulaic, institutionalised and predictable. This resulted in the emergence of post punk.

Post punk took the punk music template and took it in new directions. Some of these directions were more subtle refinements of the punk sound (such as The Clash and Wire) while others were more drastic departures (Public Image Limited, Suicide) but the one common theme was a movement away from the core sound in order to either maintain or upgrade the original punk philosophies and ideologies. This transition from punk to post punk is well documented by Simon Reynolds in his book Rip It Up and Start Again and is well worth a read.

Techno, like punk, has ideologies and philosophies as well as a sound. Many people may not agree with me but i feel that the principle drive of techno is the relationship between man and machine as they work together to create new sounds. If i were to simplify techno history you can see the relationship between technology and man in two primary ways: Extracting the human from machines (Detroit) and extracting the machine from humans (Kraftwerk). Yes that's simplifying things quite a lot but you get the idea...

People continued to learn to extract more sounds from machines as well as create new machines (and software) as technology progressed. This kept techno progressing and developing which is why, save for a few lulls along the way, techno remained relevant and interesting for a prolonged period of time compared to other genres. As a core ideology of techno has always been man's relationship with machines and technology, techno would always progress as technology progressed.

This progression came to a halt in the mid 00s. By that time it was the laptop which was the tool of choice for techno producers... However, technology was starting to lose its relationship with people in a creative sense... Software had advanced to such a state where many of the processes that people would need to do in the production process was being performed by the machines themselves. New software had created a wedge between man and machine, thereby resulting in the core techno sound no longer serving its initial ideologies and philosophies. The man/machine was replaced with man/software/machine. I could no longer hear the human expressed through machines or the machine expressed humans... all I could hear was software.

I should point out that I'm not saying the laptop killed techno. A lot of the laptop driven minimal techno that came out initially is my favourite techno sound... Then there's the 90s IDM and early 00s Mego sounds which to this day remain probably my most loved eras of music. I am, however, suggesting that techno had for a long time failed to progress beyond its laptop love affair... which, for me at least, lead to its downfall. I good example of this, I feel, is Richie Hawtin's development. Initially, Richie's use of software was fascinating... He was expressing himself through the software, using technology to develop his sound and express his vision. However, around the time the Transitions mix came out, his sets started to lose any human quality at all. The software consumed Richie and we were left with hearing a relationship between Richie's software and machine, rather than Richie himself. It was a logical progression for him to make, and one i feel he shouldn't be criticized for making. However, a soon as this progression was made, his music was no longer serving the ideologies of techno. It was techno in form, but not in spirit.

So, what is this post techno sound I'm talking about? Like post punk, it's a return to the core ideologies of techno: man/machine music. Much of this music isn't for the club, and a lot of it isn't being produced by people within the techno scene. It's not always loyal to the traditional structures (or bpms) of techno, however, much like was the case in post punk, sometimes traditional sounds need to be either refined or torn up and thrown away to ensure the original core values of the genre are maintained.

[wub]

Great piece, agree especially with the Hawtin comments. Dex, EFX & 909 will always be infinitely more entertaining to me than Transitions ever was.

[paradigm_x]

Yeah, he put into words something ive been trying to explain a lot about the hardware stuff.

Theres a direct connection thats lost with software. When you tweak a knob, theres a direct feedback path; shizzle sounds good, leave, sounds crap; turn back.

At this stage, some 2 years down the line of computer free, its intuitive and normal, but still potential for riding the fuckups. So to speak.

Ta

[nowaysj]

Well, I think you take a particularly hard line px. I think you can still be making techno while printing to tape so to speak. And doing further edits there. It is a trinity, after, all right, man machine and MUSIC. To much man and machine and music gets left out.

[hubb]

early 00s Mego sounds

What is this? care to link?

[hubb]

I don't buy the notion with software being that big a distraction from a former relationship... But if I did, I would see it as an opportunity to then incoporate both principles. Dildo jell ?

I feel like the first music being made with technology (techno) was like humans cutting up prey and taken the first steps onto something similar to anatomy.
And to carry on using that metaphore, then the next bit using software, could be viewed as psychology or something similar in nature to behavioural conditioning.
We should at least carry on expanding and bring in all the available notions of science until we get to a point where you can effectively pork a bassline.

[hubb]

Sidechaining is SO Pavlovian

[nowaysj]

Sidechaining is lazy automation.

[hubb]

It's the holy grail of designing dynamics in sound itb imo, but not in the sence of mere compression, but in ghosting (the ability to use different carrier signals and thereby controlling both dynamics and frequency directly). The most transparent, gate, eq, comp or envelope we can imagine.

[hubb]

Here's an example of what I mean. Track is a bit rough atm, but you will notice there are a lot of layers and how I've tried to control them on top of each other with different sidechain principles.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/8nuyi ... xample.mp3

[therapist]

I thought I'd post this in here, it's a bit different, but to me this is basically just 'the inspiration thread' and I love this guys music so much. The moment at 3 minutes ish is what it's all about.

[SunkLo]

Hey does reaper have folder tracks, or some function that can wrap up and hide a bunch of sub tracks?

Sure does, nestable group tracks.

[nowaysj]

Have they figured out how to have dashes and numbers on their meters?

I remember when I asked for that they were like, wtf are you talking about? Who would want that, but it is reaper so you can go in and code it yourself. I was like, thanks no thanks.

[SunkLo]

Dashes and numbers? U wot?
If you haven't used it since the V4 update just go download it right now. The GUI used to be utter garbage.

[nowaysj]

How is apdc in reaper now? Like if I'm 3 busses deep, will reaper still apdc? Like a hat buss, into drum buss, into a premaster buss?

[SunkLo]

Would be pretty useless if it didn't, wouldn't it? Auto PDC just finds the track with the most latency and delays all tracks by that amount minus their own latency. You might get into fucky territory if you start routing tracks back into themselves and all sorts of insane feedback routing, but for the usual buss tree scheme it should work fine.