Hello one and all. Sorry for being a bit late with this, I am trying!
This week I’d like to talk a little about a subject that is often overlooked and ignored by musicians (and often engineers) in the recording process and leads to a lot of wasted time in the mix and worse, a lot of unnecessary compromises. I’m referring to the art of knowing what you sound like. Before any session I talk to the band I’ll be working with and discuss what direction and overall sound they want to aim for. Invariably they will have a strong, definite vision of who they would like to sound like, but when they actually start loading the kit in it becomes obvious that they have no idea how to achieve that goal. The guitarist will want to sound like Hetfield but will only have a Strat and a Fender Princeton amp, and the keyboard player will want to sound like he’s playing a Steinway with a £30 Casio.
I believe that a lot of this comes from a lack of understanding of what The Studio is for. Yes, most studios will have an array of preamps, equalisers, compressors and the like with which you can beat your particular sound waves until they submit to your will, but wouldn’t it be better to use said tools to enhance your sound rather than mangle it into something it didn’t want to be? I’m starting the movement now - getting your sound at source is the new black!!!
For now I’m just going to be talking about electric instruments, as I think setting up acoustic instruments for your individual needs is something to be talked about separately another day.
The problem that I see most is when a musician wants a sound he’s heard produced by a hugely expensive pro rig. Invariably the penniless musician will only have the instruments and amps that he can afford, and usually these are nothing like what is required to get the aforementioned ‘expensive’ sound. What I propose is that you (the musician) should give in to fate, accept the equipment you have and it’s limitations and use it to your advantage. Sure you may never sound like The Edge or Jack White, but you will hopefully start to carve out something that sounds like you and nobody else!
The most important thing here is to not get frustrated. Frustration will lead to gear lust which will lead to spending money on kit you can’t afford, debts, jobs delivering pizza, and broken marriages, all to chase a sound that belongs to someone else. What you need to do is to sit down with the equipment you have and learn how to use it! I cannot stress this enough. Learn the sounds that your rig is capable of.
Guitarists - go through each pick up setting on your guitar. Roll the tone pot back and then up again. Roll the volume pot back and then up again. Try different combinations and take note what effect each change of setting has. Set the equaliser on your amp to zero and listen to what each knob does as you turn it up. Then try different combinations of eq, more bass less treble, more treble less bass. Crank the gain up, see how distorted a signal you can get from the amp. Is there a sweet spot for the gain? Listen loud, and (very important) listen quietly. What sounds good loud might sounds terrible quiet and vice versa.
You are now learning what your rig can do, what it is capable of. Forget what anyone else sounds like; just keep experimenting until you get something that you like. Certain combinations of settings will sound better to you than others and this will be the beginnings of your very own sound produced by your very own rig.
Keyboard players – learn what every setting on your keyboard does. Read the damn manual!!! Synthesisers often have hundreds of settings and you are going to have to learn them all. Sorry. What do the filters do? What do the oscillators do? Can you set the portamento rate? Can you assign settings to the mod wheel? Can you turn effects on and off quickly? If you are using a sampling keyboard do you know how assign and edit new samples? Most will have a display with menu functions, so learn what is buried within each sub menu of this. What does the sine wave sound like? The square wave? The sawtooth?
So now you should have a pretty good idea of what you can do with your rig, and what you sound like playing through it. Hopefully you will also have found a unique combination of settings that you feel good about. This, my friend, is what you sound like!
And as you now have an expert knowledge of what each component of your equipment does tweaking it should be a breeze. Does your guitar amp sound a bit dull in a particular room? You should know whether it’s the treble or the presence knob that needs turning up right? Are your synths oscillators slightly out of tune with the track? That’s ok because you know how to alter the tuning right?
All of this hard work will make your life so much easier both in the studio and live. You will be able to adapt your unique sound quickly and easily to fit in with other instruments and to be heard in a mix without having to be kicked through with a steel toe capped boot. And now all of the dark arts of the studio can be used to make you sound as good as you possibly can. No longer will microphones be placed with damage limitation in mind, they will now capture every facet of your dynamic performance! Equalisers will be used to sweeten rather than chop huge chunks of offending frequencies out. And compressors will help you to bounce along in the mix instead of keeping you in your place with a sledge hammer. Happy days and good times for all!
Kev.
30 June 2009
19 June 2009
BLESSAY 02: Mastering
After a long pause in proceedings, due to the fact that everyone seems to want to make records during a credit crunch, I'm back to writing my blessays and with popular demand this one is about Audio Mastering. It would appear to be the part of the process of making a record, that everyone knows of it's importance and yet don't know what actually goes on in the 'mastering suite'. Now as mastering techniques vary from engineer to engineer and between genres of music, I won't go into what a mastering engineer does specifically, but what you would expect to be done in mastering and what you should be listening out for.
1. The Definition.
Basically Mastering is making your collection of songs into an album. It's more than likely that, on their own each of your mixes sounds pretty good, but you'll notice that when you put them together on a CD and listen in the car or at home, you'll notice one sounds a bit dull in comparison to the next and you have to turn the volume up for some of them, or the whole thing is just a little quiet compared to the CD you had on before hand.
Mastering is the process used to make each song roll into the next, EQing where necessary, making the tracks the same loudness (perceptual volume rather than actual volume) and making sure the gaps between the songs gives you the right movement. The treatment you give each track will vary depending on running order. It's the audio equivalent to cutting the edges of your photos so that they fit in the photo book properly and organising them so that you're not jumping from wedding to christening to the photos your mum really shouldn’t have seen.
2. As Much Or As Little As You Like... Or Can Afford.
The Mastering process can start at various places in the album making timeline, but it all depends on money. The more you give your mastering engineer to do the more expensive it gets, but it may well help you to see the bigger picture if you start piecing things together early on. Test mastering allows you to see everything put together and processed as a master so that you can see what you need to change and at the same time see what you thought you needed to change but actually don't. Whenever you start to master, there are a few things that you can expect your mastering engineer to do... and some you can't.
3. Getting The Right Source.
It's important to give the mastering engineer the right material. This all depends on your mastering engineer so talk to them about it. For example, if you're mixing in the box at 96kHz 24bit, your mastering engineer may prefer to have the mixes at full quality and for them to sample rate convert and truncate. On the other hand they may just want 44.1kHz 24bit files from you. If you've recorded to analogue tape, they may be best set up to be able to digitise the tapes via analogue outboard gear and expensive high quality converters.
You may, due to cost, have to digitse them yourself. In this case take advice from your mix or mastering engineer, but the fewer the number of times that your material is converted from analogue to digital and back, the better. Also if you can get around not sample rate converting then your music will sound better too. Analogue tape is the best option in my opinion.
4. Editing
Depending on how you mix and how decisive you are, you may wish to do some editing in mastering. When mixing to tape you may put down a couple of versions per mix to see which you prefer in the real world (e.g. with or without backing vocals). You can then edit between these two mixes. You may need a few bars taking out to make the song move along quicker or make a ‘single’ edit, but you don't want to, or can’t, go back and recall the mix. All this can easily be done in mastering.
If you digitise the tapes yourself, or you're mixing to a digital format, you may wish to edit the takes together yourself. This will save you money, but depending on the takes/mixes you're editing together, they may need to process the mixes differently, which might be more smoothly done in mastering. Also your mastering engineer might be able to add a fresh opinion to mixes and advice on some edits that you can't quite decide on, allowing you to step back and be more objective.
5. Running Order
This is probably one of the most important things when compiling your album.. There are no rules for this really. It's all personal preference and how you perceive your music and album to be. The idea is to take the listener on a journey, not just a random fleet round the houses. In the similar way that an artiste will organise their artwork round the room so as you progress, you are taken seamlessly from idea to idea. You should take your time over this and make sure you're happy with it. The way an album moves can really affect whether someone listens to the whole thing or just picks a couple of tracks to slot into their shuffle playlist.
6. Mind The Gaps
Gaps are very important. Don't underestimate them. They make everything flow together properly. Like the old musician's saying "it's not the notes that you play, it's the notes you don't play". If your gaps are too short it can make the album seem relentless and tiring on the ears. If they are too long then you can loose the all important "suspension of disbelief" and so people don't get lost in the record. The length of gaps all depends on the running order as well, whether you want to keep things up and pumping or slow things down and relax your listener more.
7. EQ and Level
This is running order dependent. The idea is to bring the best out of each track and make sure that each sounds great ,but also to make sure that each feels right following the track before. You may have a really bright track which needs to be nice and bright to make it feel right, but then the track after it might be duller. On it's own it feels the duller track feels bright enough, but after a bright track it might need to be brightened to balance it out. It may not. You ears may be glad of the rest from all the top end. Listen and see how you feel.
The level of the track is very much the same idea. You don't want to have a track that comes in too loud after a nice quiet track. You may need to change the level of different sections of a track to make it feel right after processing. For example the intro of the following track might feel a little quiet after a loud track, but the main body of the song is loud enough, so raising the level of the intro will make everything balance a little more.
9. Compression
Now this one is the Holy Grail, the thing that everyone asks me about, when talking about mastering. Many people seem to think that Mastering compression is more magic than mix compression. I hate to say... it's pretty much the same. It doesn't make you play more in time or sound like Hendrix. It is very important however, and can be so easily over done. At first the extra compression can feel nice, but if you compare the old mixes and listen to the record as a whole, it may become tiring. You obviously want you record to sound loud and compete with other records, but don't kill the dynamics of your album and all that hard work you put into playing in the first place.
Radio's will compress the hell out of it anyway so don't worry about that, and people are always going to turn it up or down as they please. Too much compression at a low level can still feel tiring. It can make you feel like your ears are compressing naturally (read more here) even when they aren't.
10. All in All.
Make sure you work with someone that has been recommended or you know their work and make sure to compare what they've done to the material that you started with. Like mixing you may not get it right first time so don't be concerned about going back and making tweaks (if you can afford). Make sure you take just as much care over this as any other part of the recording process and have fun in the process. Good mastering really can make you hear a record like you're not the one who's made it... and so it feels much better. Believe me. It helps.
Sonny
1. The Definition.
Basically Mastering is making your collection of songs into an album. It's more than likely that, on their own each of your mixes sounds pretty good, but you'll notice that when you put them together on a CD and listen in the car or at home, you'll notice one sounds a bit dull in comparison to the next and you have to turn the volume up for some of them, or the whole thing is just a little quiet compared to the CD you had on before hand.
Mastering is the process used to make each song roll into the next, EQing where necessary, making the tracks the same loudness (perceptual volume rather than actual volume) and making sure the gaps between the songs gives you the right movement. The treatment you give each track will vary depending on running order. It's the audio equivalent to cutting the edges of your photos so that they fit in the photo book properly and organising them so that you're not jumping from wedding to christening to the photos your mum really shouldn’t have seen.
2. As Much Or As Little As You Like... Or Can Afford.
The Mastering process can start at various places in the album making timeline, but it all depends on money. The more you give your mastering engineer to do the more expensive it gets, but it may well help you to see the bigger picture if you start piecing things together early on. Test mastering allows you to see everything put together and processed as a master so that you can see what you need to change and at the same time see what you thought you needed to change but actually don't. Whenever you start to master, there are a few things that you can expect your mastering engineer to do... and some you can't.
3. Getting The Right Source.
It's important to give the mastering engineer the right material. This all depends on your mastering engineer so talk to them about it. For example, if you're mixing in the box at 96kHz 24bit, your mastering engineer may prefer to have the mixes at full quality and for them to sample rate convert and truncate. On the other hand they may just want 44.1kHz 24bit files from you. If you've recorded to analogue tape, they may be best set up to be able to digitise the tapes via analogue outboard gear and expensive high quality converters.
You may, due to cost, have to digitse them yourself. In this case take advice from your mix or mastering engineer, but the fewer the number of times that your material is converted from analogue to digital and back, the better. Also if you can get around not sample rate converting then your music will sound better too. Analogue tape is the best option in my opinion.
4. Editing
Depending on how you mix and how decisive you are, you may wish to do some editing in mastering. When mixing to tape you may put down a couple of versions per mix to see which you prefer in the real world (e.g. with or without backing vocals). You can then edit between these two mixes. You may need a few bars taking out to make the song move along quicker or make a ‘single’ edit, but you don't want to, or can’t, go back and recall the mix. All this can easily be done in mastering.
If you digitise the tapes yourself, or you're mixing to a digital format, you may wish to edit the takes together yourself. This will save you money, but depending on the takes/mixes you're editing together, they may need to process the mixes differently, which might be more smoothly done in mastering. Also your mastering engineer might be able to add a fresh opinion to mixes and advice on some edits that you can't quite decide on, allowing you to step back and be more objective.
5. Running Order
This is probably one of the most important things when compiling your album.. There are no rules for this really. It's all personal preference and how you perceive your music and album to be. The idea is to take the listener on a journey, not just a random fleet round the houses. In the similar way that an artiste will organise their artwork round the room so as you progress, you are taken seamlessly from idea to idea. You should take your time over this and make sure you're happy with it. The way an album moves can really affect whether someone listens to the whole thing or just picks a couple of tracks to slot into their shuffle playlist.
6. Mind The Gaps
Gaps are very important. Don't underestimate them. They make everything flow together properly. Like the old musician's saying "it's not the notes that you play, it's the notes you don't play". If your gaps are too short it can make the album seem relentless and tiring on the ears. If they are too long then you can loose the all important "suspension of disbelief" and so people don't get lost in the record. The length of gaps all depends on the running order as well, whether you want to keep things up and pumping or slow things down and relax your listener more.
7. EQ and Level
This is running order dependent. The idea is to bring the best out of each track and make sure that each sounds great ,but also to make sure that each feels right following the track before. You may have a really bright track which needs to be nice and bright to make it feel right, but then the track after it might be duller. On it's own it feels the duller track feels bright enough, but after a bright track it might need to be brightened to balance it out. It may not. You ears may be glad of the rest from all the top end. Listen and see how you feel.
The level of the track is very much the same idea. You don't want to have a track that comes in too loud after a nice quiet track. You may need to change the level of different sections of a track to make it feel right after processing. For example the intro of the following track might feel a little quiet after a loud track, but the main body of the song is loud enough, so raising the level of the intro will make everything balance a little more.
9. Compression
Now this one is the Holy Grail, the thing that everyone asks me about, when talking about mastering. Many people seem to think that Mastering compression is more magic than mix compression. I hate to say... it's pretty much the same. It doesn't make you play more in time or sound like Hendrix. It is very important however, and can be so easily over done. At first the extra compression can feel nice, but if you compare the old mixes and listen to the record as a whole, it may become tiring. You obviously want you record to sound loud and compete with other records, but don't kill the dynamics of your album and all that hard work you put into playing in the first place.
Radio's will compress the hell out of it anyway so don't worry about that, and people are always going to turn it up or down as they please. Too much compression at a low level can still feel tiring. It can make you feel like your ears are compressing naturally (read more here) even when they aren't.
10. All in All.
Make sure you work with someone that has been recommended or you know their work and make sure to compare what they've done to the material that you started with. Like mixing you may not get it right first time so don't be concerned about going back and making tweaks (if you can afford). Make sure you take just as much care over this as any other part of the recording process and have fun in the process. Good mastering really can make you hear a record like you're not the one who's made it... and so it feels much better. Believe me. It helps.
Sonny
18 June 2009
Getting it together
Hello world!
Haven't been on here for a while,which is mainly due to my inability to organise my life properly. But all that is in the past now, and I have a new system worked out that will help me to blog more regularly. I call it a 'Calendar'. That's right folks i've invented the 'Calendar'. Once i've ironed out the bugs I might let other people have a go on it.
So from now on you should expect to see a new blog every week on either Wednesday or Thursday. If I slack off please feel free to shout at me. I highly reccommend subscribing via the RSS feed so that you don't miss out on my spectacular ramblings. And if you want to follow me on Twitter you can do so here. And there's more!!! Have you often said to yourself, "I wish I could actually see what Kev gets up to, ideally in 12 second bursts"? Well fret no more! Get your self over to my 12seconds channel and your wish will be granted! For those of you who don't know what 12seconds is, just go there and have a look as it sounds really dumb when you try to describe it.
So that's enough self promotion for now I think.
In other news i've been working with Lydia Lunch again. Her new band is now officially called Big Sexy Noise and you can get hold of the first e.p. here. It's only available on vinyl but i'm guessing when the full album is released there will be other formats. I'll let you know when it's all done and dusted, we're mixing it in July so should be out fairly soon after one would hope.
Polar Bear have been back in to finish of the new album sessions. You should check out my amigo Sonny's blog for more on that as it was his gig and I was just helping out. Bloody good stuff though, it was a joy to listen to. Not sure when it's going to be out, but keep you eyes open people!
Talking of which we managed to catch Acoustic Ladyland (whos share two members with Polar Bear) live at the Southbank centre last Sunday. They too have a album coming out and from the new songs I heard in the live set I would say that it will be well worth taking a punt on it!
And on that note, good bye!
Haven't been on here for a while,which is mainly due to my inability to organise my life properly. But all that is in the past now, and I have a new system worked out that will help me to blog more regularly. I call it a 'Calendar'. That's right folks i've invented the 'Calendar'. Once i've ironed out the bugs I might let other people have a go on it.
So from now on you should expect to see a new blog every week on either Wednesday or Thursday. If I slack off please feel free to shout at me. I highly reccommend subscribing via the RSS feed so that you don't miss out on my spectacular ramblings. And if you want to follow me on Twitter you can do so here. And there's more!!! Have you often said to yourself, "I wish I could actually see what Kev gets up to, ideally in 12 second bursts"? Well fret no more! Get your self over to my 12seconds channel and your wish will be granted! For those of you who don't know what 12seconds is, just go there and have a look as it sounds really dumb when you try to describe it.
So that's enough self promotion for now I think.
In other news i've been working with Lydia Lunch again. Her new band is now officially called Big Sexy Noise and you can get hold of the first e.p. here. It's only available on vinyl but i'm guessing when the full album is released there will be other formats. I'll let you know when it's all done and dusted, we're mixing it in July so should be out fairly soon after one would hope.
Polar Bear have been back in to finish of the new album sessions. You should check out my amigo Sonny's blog for more on that as it was his gig and I was just helping out. Bloody good stuff though, it was a joy to listen to. Not sure when it's going to be out, but keep you eyes open people!
Talking of which we managed to catch Acoustic Ladyland (whos share two members with Polar Bear) live at the Southbank centre last Sunday. They too have a album coming out and from the new songs I heard in the live set I would say that it will be well worth taking a punt on it!
And on that note, good bye!
14 June 2009
What A Week: 08.06.09
What a week this has been. I must have been on about 5 sessions and all of them great fun.
Firstly started the week of with Outhouse, finishing off the mixes for the Outhouse Ruhabi album that Dave Smith & Robin Finker have been putting together. Then on the same day a mad dash over to the World Circuit offices to see Tony Allen as it was the release of the album, Secret Agent.
Then recording with Polar Bear, finishing off the next album. Seb brought in a load of mics that he'd been buying off eBay, one of which was this RCA commentator's mic which we stuck up in the room on top of one of the acoustic screens and it sounded awesome. The downside being, that I completely forgot to record the thing for most of the tracks so it's only on two of them. Seb being the gentleman that he is, was very nice about it however (thanks Seb).
Then I've been mixing the Zascha Moktan album with Tommy D at his place, now he's got his lovely new Matrix console (there'a an interview with him in Resolution Mag last month I think) which was good fun as usual. Good food, good wine, good company and some being silly with his two daughters to make it all the easier... And from the sublime to the ridiculous (ridiculously good) after mixing Pop in the morning, I got to PINNA about 4pm Thursday to start a session with Seb Rochford, Pamelia Kursten and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, to record some random jamming. Awesome. I bought myself an SLR camera the same day which I christened on this session so you can have a look at some of the pics on my flickr stream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonnyengineer/
To finish the week off, Tony Allen was Launching Ornette Coleman's Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre on the Friday, as well as launching the new album, which is getting rave reviews. The gig was blinding. To say the man is in his mid 60's he can play better than anyone. Still amazes me. So all in all not a bad week really. To see us out, Kev and I will be having a spot of luncheon down by the Southbank before engaging in some light entertainment of the Acoustic Ladyland variety. Splendid.
Here's a bit of what I've been up to:
Firstly started the week of with Outhouse, finishing off the mixes for the Outhouse Ruhabi album that Dave Smith & Robin Finker have been putting together. Then on the same day a mad dash over to the World Circuit offices to see Tony Allen as it was the release of the album, Secret Agent.
Then recording with Polar Bear, finishing off the next album. Seb brought in a load of mics that he'd been buying off eBay, one of which was this RCA commentator's mic which we stuck up in the room on top of one of the acoustic screens and it sounded awesome. The downside being, that I completely forgot to record the thing for most of the tracks so it's only on two of them. Seb being the gentleman that he is, was very nice about it however (thanks Seb).
Then I've been mixing the Zascha Moktan album with Tommy D at his place, now he's got his lovely new Matrix console (there'a an interview with him in Resolution Mag last month I think) which was good fun as usual. Good food, good wine, good company and some being silly with his two daughters to make it all the easier... And from the sublime to the ridiculous (ridiculously good) after mixing Pop in the morning, I got to PINNA about 4pm Thursday to start a session with Seb Rochford, Pamelia Kursten and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, to record some random jamming. Awesome. I bought myself an SLR camera the same day which I christened on this session so you can have a look at some of the pics on my flickr stream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonnyengineer/
To finish the week off, Tony Allen was Launching Ornette Coleman's Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre on the Friday, as well as launching the new album, which is getting rave reviews. The gig was blinding. To say the man is in his mid 60's he can play better than anyone. Still amazes me. So all in all not a bad week really. To see us out, Kev and I will be having a spot of luncheon down by the Southbank before engaging in some light entertainment of the Acoustic Ladyland variety. Splendid.
Here's a bit of what I've been up to:
8 June 2009
Tony Allen Remix Competition: ALBUM OUT TODAY 08.06.09
The new Tony Allen record that I mixed for World Circuit is out today on CD and Download and keep your eyes peeled for the 12inch vinyl version, with the possible inclusion of Dubs from the Master, Dennis Bovell. There's an album Launch party in line with the launch of Ornette Coleman's Meltdown Festival this Friday 12th June 2009
http://meltdown.southbankcentre.co.uk/2009/meltdown-launch-party-with-tony-allen/
Also check out the remix contest that they are holding. You could win something pretty tasty. Enjoy.
http://tonyallenremixcontest.blogspot.com/
Sonnyengineer.com
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