Monthly Archives: January 2012

Turning to the Scopes: A mixers delight

Posted on by
Reply

You always hear this.. “mix with your ears, not your eyes.”

But I found myself in a situation.

My mix was going through a master buss compressor.. which is followed by a limiter.. which is a bit of a no no.. but whatever.. and.. I have this area in my production where I want.. to drive stuff harder.. on certain beats.. and do certain things… and playing it by ear… just wasn’t working.

So I throw a Motu Master Works EQ on my master buss.. which will gave me a visualization of the spectrum… turned out to be a brilliant thing to do…

What I found was.. well I found the sorta gaps in the frequency space.. there wasn’t really much in the way of gaps.. for the most part.. the frequencies were pretty well balanced… but I saw two opportunities to create the musical effect I was shooting for.

Opportunity 1

The first.. and “duhhh” thing was the sub bass frequencies. I say “Duhhh” because.. I had kinda spent a lot of time trying to keep the sub bass area empty accept for a synthesizer playing that roll.. and indeed the kick drum wasn’t really getting into those sub frequencies… This section of the track… in effect.. was still an intro.. still a.. we’re moving towards something… kinda part…

So you have a situation where everything’s been set up to clear up some frequency space.. and you got nothing in that space.. so there’s an opportunity for you….

Now my first reaction to this was to throw some basses in.. in that sub range.. see what happens.. and low and behold.. it worked.

But then I began to think… “hmm.. how am I EQing that Kick?” Like maybe what I should do is somehow set up the kick so that if I’m shaping it to work with the bass.. in the sections leading up to the entrance of the bass.. I should not be shaping the kick in that way.

But then I thought “wait.. the composition at this point is in part about the gradual increase of intensity, and so if the kick is already taking up all that space.. and then I take away from it as the bass comes in.. that might work against the compositional framework stuff.”

So I haven’t touched that element yet.. but I am thinking about it.. it may just be a question of how I balance these issues.

The second opertunity I found was actually in the higher frequencies.. probably starting around 1K… and really becoming more so around 2-5K…and in the 10-20k region.. there was a tun of empty space…

If you don’t mix regularly.. this probably all sounds like greek.. and so allow me to give some explanation of the implications and what nots.. of what I’m talking about.

Bass / Low Frequencies

Where I’m at with mixing right now.. I think of the real bass frequencies of being about 100Hz down.. and the sub bass as somewhere above 20Hz and down.

For both the bass and sub bass areas.. you gotta be kinda careful.. You want your stuff panned centrally.. you’ll very often need to be cutting stuff in there.. to add clarity.. you can’t really have over lapping elements in there… or over lapping elements represent a challenge.. of course most every bit of music you hear.. at least… will have the issue of the kick and the bass.

With the kick and the bass you really have two choices.. which is.. one of those elements will take up the sub bass area.. and the other will be cut before hand.. and you gotta do something so you can hear both elements together.. should they play at the same time.. and there’s.. well a lot to talk about with this.. but that’s not the issue I’m fighting with today.

So… this sub bass region.. the thing here.. well there’s basically 2 things here.. #1 the sub bass is felt more then it’s heard.. and #2.. whatever’s going on in the sub bass area.. it’s the nature of the sub bass frequency space.. that you can’t really have stuff going on super fast.. if you want a super fast kick drum, for instance.. it’s going to have less sub.. and there will be some kind of upward extension to give you that click…

The 1K and up range

There’s a lot to talk about here!!!

Our Ears

The first thing is.. the human ear.. is really able to get the most details.. really.. in this here 1k and up range.. that’s where the ears really do well… so this is usually where you want most of the production / focus / whatever… to take place in a mix.

So.. that my mix is sorta starting to be a little less loud around here… is kinda odd… and probably the ideal thing would be to change that.

20k… and maybe 10k to 20k.. but really 20k.. is the theoretically highest frequencies we can hear.. although ears do vary… and we tend to loos are ability to hear up this high as we age.

Analog Vs Digital

Now.. analog based mixing, recording, and production.. the nature of tape.. and how an analog works.. well one of the things about it.. is it’s always gradually taking off a bit of the high end frequencies.. and this is one of the reason people sometimes think of digital as sound harsh relative to analog.. and it’s a complaint among some critics.. lets call them.. that mixes really need to push this area less then they currently are.

There for.. there’s some reason to.. put a low pas filter.. around here.. and make it so there’s not really anything going on.. or not much going on.. which happens to be about what is happening in this production..

The Depth Issue

Now.. the other thing I’ll say.. is that when we are dealing with these higher frequencies.. these are frequencies that play a big roll in how you create depth in a mix: As sounds get further away from you.. they loose top end frequencies… One way to make something sound more in your face is to just add a little of these higher frequencies.

In how I’ve been mixing for.. I don’t know how long.. my technique for creating space.. involves sounds moving around in space.. including from far away to close up.. and very often nearly all the sounds in my mixing will move around in this depth plain.. there for nearly every sound.. just to make it easier for me.. will have a low pass filter on it.. that I’ll automate..

A low pas filter means that the frequencies below your target frequencies pass through.. the above frequencies get cut…  I probably should have explained that earlier.

So.. even when I have the low pass filter’s frequencies set to as high as it’ll go.. it’ll cut off a bit of the top end.. which isn’t a negative.. because you probably want to cut that a bit anyway… just to keep stuff from sounding harsh, right?

So this probably the reason why the frequency balance of the track has the frequencies getting a bit quieter post 1K…. because so many of the sound get cut in order to create depth… and for the most part I never book anything as a part of all this…

Well.. times are a changing.. and how I work is in flux so…

The implications

Basically.. there’s a limited amount I can do with the sub frequencies.. but when I put in the sub bass… and had it more or less playing quarter notes.. what I was going for.. well it really worked.. but.. I couldn’t use speeding up the pace.. terribly well.. as a means of increasing the energy still further..

The high frequencies.. I took a look through all the synth patches I had recently added to the production.. looking for ones with a whole lot of high end.. and there was really only one that was really harsh that way..

But my thought was… that I’d have these sorta high frequency sounds.. coming from far way.. and then getting super in you’re face.. in the area where I was trying to really hit things hard.. and they would hopefully fix my problems…

So this would really have to be thought out.. in terms of the composition.. in a more complex way then the bass stuff.

Also.. it turned out that these were my Absynth patches that I had recently programmed.. and I had them set up so they all went through a kind of master Absynth channel.. and I was thinking of adding some high frequencies in there.. to help the cause little,

Artist’s Depression Journal.. thing, err. confession?

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t know how to fucking write.

I mean I don’t know how to write something that I’ll actually post.

I’m staring in to my head.. its 7 26 AM.. I haven’t gone to bed yet.. and I’m in a kinda dark place.

I haven’t really been able to put my finger on it.. on what’s wrong.. and still.. Jesus, wtf is wrong anyway? Maybe it’s just some kinda brain chemistry strangeness… I’m not sure that it has anything to do with outward material reality.. to be perfectly honest.. I think it’s just those inward demons.

Often when people talk about Demons it’s vice related.. this isn’t that kinda demon.. Maybe that kinda demon is one you don’t wrestle with well enough.. and so it manifests in your material reality.. confronting you that way.. but this… this is more of an inward thing that.. I wrestle with too hard for it… to materialize totally.

As I say that.. I realize.. who the hell am I kidding.. what is my life if not a materialization of the demonic! I mean lets gets serious.. my life sucks.

Hmmm…

And why does it suck? I mean.. not the surface explanations.. I mean the really deep truth, what is that? Maybe I should just sit down and pray.. maybe that would reveal it to me.

Hell.. I don’t even care what the reason is.. I’d just like to get to a better place!

Anyway… so this is what I’m feeling right now.. the thoughts that are going through my head right now.. it’s.. my sense of things right now…  Accept that to explain it by writing is to be forced into some sorta of linear path to creating an image.. and I’m having a hard time expressing it really.

So.. I’m in bed.. sitting up… my cat by my site.. me sitting here with laptop in hand.. and down stairs.. that’s where the studio is.. that’s where the real shit takes place… or where the real shit should take place.. where it would take place if I could just muster the courage.

Or find the inspiration.

I’m working on a music project.. but mostly I procrastinate working on the music project.

I can’t even tell if I’m moving forward on it at all right now.. to tell you the truth.

I’m not sure about my judgement on it… I’ll tell you. Sometimes I’ll take a listen.. and I’ll think “holy crap, listen to that!!!” It’s like some amazing sonic experience.. something very special that I’ve crafted.. and some times I feel like some master artist.. making magick happen.

Other times? Yeah.. total fucking crap.. or not crap.. just.. just how do I find my way through this problem.

That’s the real gist of it.. all art seems that way to me.. .and epic battle.. you go and try and make something.. and what you make is crap.. and you go “oh shit, that’s crap” and you wonder.. what can you do to transmute it into something less crappy.. or.. why is it crap?

It’s like this puzzle you puzzle over.. and slowly you push through it.. you just keep at it.. and over time.. by a process of confronting the problems.. you eventually remove the problems.

See.. it’s all about your perception as the artist.. your aesthetic reaction.. if you hear it and think it’s great… you keep it, if you think it sucks, you change it.. for every element you work with… unless you get lazy or something..  so what happens is that you’re basically imprinting you’re aesthetic reaction onto the sonic canvas.

Now the surrealism of it is.. the way what sounds you’re attracted to, what you’re repulsed by.. has to do with your mood, your psychology.. and so in this way the music becomes like a confession of your experience… and confession that is not necessarily just the confession of the conscious mind.

And so the problems you struggle with in the work.. those are your demons.

But also interesting.. it might be slightly peculiar to music.. especially when the mix engineering bit is a part of the art it’s self.. that there are multiple paths your ear can take through the sonic experience.. and this is really one of the huge challenges in the production.

What happens is you can loose the big picture focus and dwell on these details.. that may or may not matter at all. Hell.. you might be ruining it as a result…

It’s like there’s this giant multiplicity of potential sonic experiences.. at every moment in the music.. and what happens as you’re working is.. you just get stuck on this one… spot. One pathway through the sonic art.

Err, I’ll get more specific in talking about what I’m doing now.

Basically I started out trying to do a drum and bass track.. but got lost somewhere around the way.. in any event I roughed out part of an arrangement… and now I’m going through and.. creating like.. the next level of polish… But it’s really a whole lot more then polish.

I think… I have these first kinda section nailed down pretty well.. and there needs to be a few more sections kinda worked up a little better.. and I think I need to do something with delays in a few points.. like really huge delay where it sounds like… just some giant space or explosion.

Or at least that’s the solution that comes to me.

But I’m also not sure of what’s going on in the bass frequencies.. or if the snare is hitting through hard enough.. and every time I add a detail.. I get really afraid that I’m muck something up.

So what I’ve started to do is the old “lets make each element tiny so that we can have this lush huge experience,” this is an engineering thing.. if in a given moment in the mix.. there’s just one single acoustic guitar playing.. that acoustic guitar can take up all of the frequency space of the mix.. but as soon as you start adding elements.. you have to take away frequencies from that guitar.. and give it to other stuff.. so the guitar becomes smaller and smaller…

And then.. via automation… what you’ll do is.. make that guitar sound bigger, maybe.. when there’s less stuff playing, and smaller when there’s more stuff playing.. and it’s really just a way of crafting the focus.. you don’t really experience it as getting bigger or smaller if you’re the typical music listener.

The album example I always think of for this is Slayer’s Seasons of the Abyss.. the way the drums.. when they are alone get huge.. or the guitars when they are alone get huge.. and the whole thing is like some giant brilliant symphony.. the way the elements play with one another and the way the music flows…

The Next Night:

I woke up at 7 PM “this morning.” It’s 11 40 AM, and I plan to go unconscious soon.. with any luck anyway.

Today I really didn’t get shit done… DP.. my production environment crashed a few times.. work was lost.. and I worked  to bring in a whole bunch of Absynth patches.. into the project.. but kept running up against this memory limitation.. and it was around this time that I learned that my version of DP… the current version…. doesn’t support 64-bit.. it’s 32-bit.. meaning much of my ram it can’t access.. thus the memory problem.

That pissed me off.. cause it’s like hitting you’re head against a wall.. you realize.. you can’t go any further really.. or you cant go far or.. you’re going to have to fucking figure some shit out.. or wait till the next version comes out and you’ve somehow managed to get the money together for it…

Anyway.. I eventually gave up on the project and went to start a new project… and then sorta drifted back to the old project.. to take another look…

I don’t know.. I don’t if the project’s any good or not.. I don’t if it’s just ok, if it’s great.. if it’s a steaming turd.. I just don’t know.. and I guess I have to live with that.

Whats up in my land.. story of passion and art.

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been a long time since I posted.. have a bunch of crap on deck to post.. but it hasn’t been posted yet, so it might just never get posted… and anyway.. I got about 15 minutes till I gotta leave for my therapist appointment.. so I figured… Why not try and spit out something.

I guess the biggest theme that strikes my fancy.. or just seems important for me to hear and hold onto is “believe.” Believe in the stuff of.. well I don’t know what to call it and don’t have enough time to get into it.. but dreams.. and.. passions.. and who you are in the deepest sense and that feeling of purpose you have about life…  about your ability to get where you need to go.. in order to actualize..

So.. that’s maybe one of the biggest themes.

Another big thing is this whole box of philosophical whatever… I think of it as a kind of toy box.. for the intellectual kids.. right? It’s this kind of complex way of understanding stuff that gets beneath surface phenomenology. It’s some badd ass shit.. and its sorta structured into this kind of critique of society.. including stuff like how we run business and whatever.. like critiques of management theory…. good stuff.

And then there’s the art… which is almost like applied philosophy… Like that’s the best way of putting it… Or its as if the philosophy was the theory and the art the practice.

I’m jumping of a giant cliff into the unknown with my art.. It’s pretty scary stuff in a lot of ways.. but.. I’m starting to see certain things emerge… that are like signs of things to come.. where all this jumping into the unknown is heading…  basically it’s heading to… knowing a whole bunch of new shit.. I mean that’s probably what it comes down to…

But it turns my music into something wholly new…. It totally changes the game.. and there’s a larger integration with the media stuff… I see a really kick ass potential here.

Ok.. so lets move onto points of anxiety….. about the art.

The main thing is i gotta keep at it.. and keep at it strong.. and work and work and work.. and find a way of making this stuff.. a lot of it really is coming down to craft..

Craft is like.. well some art is all about craft.. It’s like genera conventions and its about how well you do that genera.. not what concepts you bring to the table… you can roughly divide up artists, and other types for that matter, into the conceptualist’s and the crafts folk…. and in a lot of ways my work really rocks it on the craft level.. that’s always been a big part of my shtick.. but the concepts.. yeah.. that stuff is strong to I think…

But anyway.. .the craft is the thing I’m worrying about now.

I’ve been looking at a whole lot of dance music production.. the techniques.. how you do it..all the little pieces.. and sorta integrating that stuff into my work.. and trying to move my work in a more dance friendly direction.. but it’s not totally been working out.

And then I guess it’s like bringing the mix engineering stuff to the next level.

And really.. more then a lot of all this.. I’ve been focusing on sound synthesis.. Absynth, Kontakt, Massive, Omnisphere.. those have been my main virtual instruments that I’ve been busy programming..  and really the heart of the craft issue for me is.. gaining some real mastery over these instruments.

What else?

Oh.. there’s the subjects of words.. and they can do.. little captured bits of audio.. of life of people talking of whatever.. cut into the music to tell a story.. and all that goes into that kind of story telling and how it integrates into the music and everything.. that’s big stuff… anyway, lets edit and post.

 

Late night, early morning, time for a visit to the hospital

Posted on by
2

Its about 5 30 AM and I haven’t made it to sleep yet. I’ve been having some trouble sleeping now for a while.. last week or so I would guess… and that’s not a real issue for me accept that I gotta appointment at the hospital at 8 30 tomorrow morning, or this morning… which means I have to wake up in like.. a couple hours.. and I doubt I’ll have fallen asleep by then which means.. its going to be a rough time.. particularly given that I’m not to drink anything but water till my appointment.. meaning no caffeine to help me stay awake.

It’s already bad enough that the day before the appointment I’m not to eat any kind of fatty foods… and well.. I didn’t discover this, or that my appointment was today.. till pretty late in the day.. so… I’m not sure how that might effect things.

And right now I’m just freaking tired.

Some of what’s going on musically in my world at the moment

Posted on by
Reply

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted on here.

It’s now 1:19 and I have to get to the food pantry… probably.. ought to leave in… well 10 or 15 minutes I guess.. so as to not be late for my therapist appointment.. which means not much time for a post.

So.. I guess I’ll just give a kinda journal-ish update on what’s up…

I’ve been uber focused on music making.. music production.. the tools, thinking about music composition and song writing.. dance music….

I’ve been doing these tutorials for creating the drums and bass for various dance genres. It’s really a kind of paint by numbers approach.. but you end up with a new perspective or it adds something to your current perspective. So right now my goal is to finish all the tutorials in this magazine and then… well listen to music from those genres and try and make finished music out of them that sorta fits there genres.

After that my goal is to see if I can get it so I can more or less create a finished track inside of a day. These tracks might not be totally 100% finished.. in terms of polish and what not.. but the idea is to get so I can create a lot of work fast and then go back and see what I have, what I like.. and then maybe bring the good ones to fruition.

Other then that I have a remix I’m meaning to work on… a contest.

I guess what I find myself focusing on, or what I think will be my focus.. are these really subtle details. It’s like.. barely audible things.. the kind of game where it’s a game of inches.. and now is the time to work on those final inches.. that that’s where my focus ought to be.

I also have tun of unfinished works.. in progress.. and I’m thinking of taking a look at them.. and even some finished work.. .and think about brining those inches to those works.. because.. I have some stuff that I think is really great work.. but has these big parts that I’m not happy with on one level or another.

There’s other ideas worth talking about, but I gotta proof read this post once over and then post.. and get out of here…