Techniques of 408 4

This week in 408, we learned how to comp tracks using the playlists function and multiply ways to apply compression.

Playlist Comping

• Under Preferences, go to the operations tab of the setup menu. Select: automatically create a new playlist when loop recording, latch record enable buttons, link record and play faders.
• After creating and naming a new track for loop record pass, enable loop record via operations, loop record or use the shortcut option, 'option L.'
• Highlight a section to define the loop recording area.
• Add a bit of pre-roll if need be.
• Record takes!
• You can then select the 'playlists' tab and bring up all the takes.
• 'Promote' the best takes up to the top enabled track by selecting the area wanted, and pressing the arrow button on the left hand side of each track.

This is a very useful tool when you want to record a bunch of passes without stopping. Makes recording faster as well as being a lot easier to work with when editing.

There are 3 main types of multiply compression uses: Serial, Parallel, and Two Stage.

Parallel

• Used as a technique to achieve a 'fatter' drum sound, while preserving the natural attack of the drums.
• You could approach this technique by duplicating tracks and adding compression, but it's a lot easier by using busses.
• Start by creating a new stereo bus send, to a stereo aux track (summed drums)
• Create a second stereo aux track that has the same input as the previous aux track. Add a compressor to this track and adjust settings to taste.
• This second compressed track should be used to act as 'glue.' Creating a stronger image of the drums. Bring fader up to an appropriate level. It can also be useful to put this aux mix panned center to create a punchier and more full presence.

Serial

• Serial compression is essentially two or more compressors in a row.
• It is typically applied to run lower ratios to achieve more compression with less of the negative sounding effects that one compressor using high setting might contain.
• To start, set the first compressor to a 6:1 ratio, fast release (aggressive), a high threshold and little gain. Set the second compressor to a 3:1 ratio, normal release (smooth), a lower threshold and have this compressor handle all the make up gain.

Two Stage

• Start by taking the original signal and splitting it into two sends.
• The first signal bus goes to compressor 1. The second signal bus heads to compressor 2.
• Finally, send the compressor 1 channel to the compressor 2 channel.
• Adjust both section to taste. Remember that Compressor 2 channel now has the master output of the signal.
• Something to remember: send the source using the audio output path for compressor 1 and the sends section to send the signal to compressor 2.

Extra things that I learned...

• In the I/O section of protools, you can name the busses (verb, compression, headphones). This is useful for being able to visually follow a signal path.
• Plug-ins should be placed in the following order when working with kick/snare/toms: EQ, Compression, Gate.
• Plug-ins should be placed in the following order when working with gated verb: verb, EQ, compression, gate.
• Don't mix through a master fader!
• Making individual Kick and snare aux sums can be done even before going to the drum sum. Use serial compression: have a compressor on the actual kick channel, then put a second compressor on the kick sum channel.
• On the drum sum, you can place an EQ plug-in and boost the lows and highs to bring about more 'simmer' and more 'umph.'

Hot Keys!

• Change between active playlist track - control, P or Control, ;
• Promoting Playlist Section - control, option, V
• New Track Menu Options - control, command, up, down, left, right
• Toggle 'shuffle, spot, slip, grid' - tilda key
• Solo a track - shift, S
• Enable/Disable track - control, command, click
• Consolidate - shift, option, 3 (name the track afterwards so you know what it is)

408 Production Synopsis 5

This week Group C was able to finish guitar track for two and half songs. All we have left is one and a half songs for guitar! For Tuesday's session Chad's second song was tracked using the Fender 212R guitar amp in room 100. Baffling was again placed in a V formation around the amp. A Royer R122 was place about 4 feet away in the little section of the V. Also, a Josephson e22 was used as a close mic on the cab. I also tracked a few lead parts on this song as well as a lead part on the other song that Chad wrote, 'Lover's Tree.' Earlier today, I arrive at 10am to get in a few extra hours of guitar tracking. Because Wineglass was having his class in room 100, the amp was set up with close baffling in the midilab. A sm57 and a R122 was used, both as close mics on either side of the two speaker cones. I was only able to get through a song and half. I was proud of my performance, though I do wish I would have gotten a little more accomplished. The song that I did finish, is around six minutes long and has around four separate guitar parts as well as many embellishments. Over break I am planning on doing all the bass guitar and electric guitar 'comp-ing.' That way we can quickly finish up guitar parts and continue onto vocals.

Techniques of 408 4

This week during class, time was spent by each group getting some practice in the studio for mid terms. While this was happening, I was able to start diving into the world on Digital Audio, which is the topic of my mid term presentation. I have a long list of available sources and a rough outline of the topics that I will be covering. The area's of concentration that I will be focusing on are: The History of Digital Audio, Analog-to-Digital and Digital-to-Audio Conversion, Sample Rates, Bit Depth and Resolution, Digital's Subjective sound quality, Word Clock and Jitter, Storage Formats, and Digital Consoles.

Since most of the time in class was spent reviewing this week, I feel it's necessary to touch on a few key points of the presentation given by Alan Silvestri earlier today. When listening to Alan speak, it is clear that Alan loves what he does and he is very grateful to have 'fell' into the practice of creating movie scores. Because I don't necessarily want to write music for movies, when he was giving advice on how to approach working with movie directors I tried to apply his theories instead to audio production skills.

One thing he mentioned was 'when a scene can carry itself, you have a world of possibilities, you can go in any experimental direction (or theme) that you might highlight a feeling and be most appropriate.' I thought this statement to be really interesting. If a song is great, maybe the production possibilities are greater. You might considering adding more instrumentation, or adding a lot of auxiliary noises that compliment the song.

Alan said that 'if you are asked to do it, you are ready.' I think this is great a way to look at opportunity. It can also let an individual know if they are doing a good enough time putting there name out into the community and striving for something that can be recognized.

Alan was asked, 'what creates and how do you find a creative flow in a partnership?' It is important to be able to communicate clearly and effectively. He mentioned how sometimes it is not so important to talk technically as it is important to talk conceptually. An example would be; this part needs to be bigger and have more impact, rather than saying, have strings come in at this point and have a percussion break there.

A few times Alan has worked on a movie where the director has said, 'I need you to make a big sounding score because I don't have any big shots.' I think this can apply to music where a songwriter has songs, but nothing more. A producer's job should be to know how a song can grow and formulate from a rather small seed to a gigantic tree.

Someone asked Alan how he approached movie scores of sequels. Alan said that he approaches them similarly as any movie, but that he also takes into consideration the previous musical ideas. I think this can apply to recording a group that has already put out an album and is looking to improve upon there sound with a second record. Alan said that he feels its important to revisit what was good about the music of a previous project and how it can be either reinvented or completely redone to better a specific purpose. Expand on the good and continue to create your own vision of what it can be.

408 Production Synopsis 5

This week group C ventured into recording guitars. On Tuesday's night session, both guitar tracks were recorded for Joe's songs. For setup we positioned Joe's small fender 60 watt, 1 cone guitar amp on top of some foam to decouple it from the ground in the middle of the stage area of room 100. Two walls from the whisper room were positioned in a 'V' format enclosing the area around the amp. As a close mic on the amp, we used a 421 pointed slightly off axis, about an inch away. A few feet further back, and nestled into the smallest part of the 'V,' we placed a 122. The wall baffling provided a lot of sound rejection for the back of the Royer. We decided to place the 122 a few feet back in order to give the amp's signal a little space to mature and allow a little room ambiance and character. Both mics were put through the Neve pres to give a very clean and present sound. When tracking, things went rather smoothly, though it was hard to get a great high gain distortion coming from the amp. We were able to get an acceptable and useable sound, but we wanted to get a little more out of it. To insure we would be able to recreate the sound that we were imagining in our heads, we double track all the distorted parts in Joe's song twice as well as recording a clean take. The clean take will serve as a 'back up' recording in case the distortion won't mix right with the song. We played around with the re-amping plugin in pro tools and we were able to get a respectable sound. A lot more full and punchy compared to what we were hearing from the amp.

Earlier today guitar was recorded for one of Chad's song. It took longer than we expected because the song has a prevalent finger picking part as well as a strumming part. The set up was the same as before, though we changed out the 421 in favor of the e22 as a close mic and the everything was done in the midilab. We recorded the finger picking and strumming to different tracks because the volumes of each were very dynamic. So were had to adjust the pre amp levels for each section depending on the part that was being performed. Next week we plan to finish the rest of rhythm guitar tracking.

Tom Dowd and the Language of Music Summery and Reflection

Tom Dowd stepped into a New York studio for the first time in 1947 when recording techniques were quite different compared to todays standards. Records were made by tracking and mixing straight to a vinyl disk which could only have between 2 to 3 minutes of audio sketched into it. The longer the song (those days, 3 minute was pushing it) the lower the audio quality would be because smaller groves presented the potential for skips. Also, stereo recording weren't invented yet.

Tom created a personal and inventive microphone technique by using his ear to hear and place mics in positions where quieter instruments were featured (acoustic bass) and louder instruments (drums) were more in the background. This gave Tom the ability to use the natural bleed from the mics on quieter instruments and pick up the drums in an already mixed manner. This was particularly important when you only have a few mics at your disposal to begin with and everything was tracked in a live environment. In this period, it was usual to record 4 songs in 3 hours and have a whole album completed in 9 hours.

After building a reputation for producing hit songs, Tom was picked up by Atlantic Records to improve on the innovative sounds that the record label was striving for. Working alongside his partner at Atlantic, Al Schmidt, Tom was able to use his skill to produce a wide range of popular artists. These

famous artists of the period included Ray Charles, The Drifters, The Coasters, Ruth Brown

and Bobby Darin. He also produced jazz acts, such as John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Parker.

It was during this time at Atlantic that Tom started to discover tape recording. Tape was introduced sometime in 1948/49, but it wasn't for a few years later that Tom started to use tape and begin to use 2, 4, and 8 track tape machines. Tom started recording to stereo and invented stereo micing techniques before stereo records were even available. Another contribution to popular recording that we still use today is linear channel faders. At the time, these 'faders' were just actual knobs that you would turn and they wouldn't fit snug under your fingertips like faders do today.

During the early years, while Tom was venturing into recording, he was also a student and in the military, where he was part of the task force that created the atomic bomb. I am sure that this placed a vital part of Tom's approach to recording. Tom was always playing an inventive part in pushing the limits of engineering forward and taking this approach to his artists in the studio. Tom mentioned in the movie that if he hadn't fell in love with music, he was well on his way to becoming a nuclear physicist. He was also very musically gifted. Tom's main instrument were the piano, tuba, violin and bass. Because he was so musically involved in his personal life, it gave a relaxed sense of reassurance to his artists that he was a respectable musician and someone that they could trust.

One of Toms most personnel relationships was with Ray charles. Tom was called in to record Ray and Tom brought along his 8 track. Ray had never heard an 8 track before and when the audio was played back, Ray was shocked when he heard the ability to change the level of individual instruments. Ray said in the movie that 'you need to hear in order to hear what you want the song to sound like.' I think what he meant by this, is that it is important to only focus on what you are hearing and all the nuances and not concentrate on what you see. This is an obvious realization for Ray as he is blind, but I do not think most engineers record with this thought, especially with all the visually appealing software that we record with today. Tom went on to build Ray first multitrack tape machine.

Some of the artists that Tom worked with were interviewed in the movies and shared their thoughts on what made Tom so great to be around and record with. Tom would always put the musicians at ease and had a great sense of musical direction. This also gave Tom the ability to hear when something wasn't quite right. When working with Aretha Franklin, Tom payed attention to her strengths and was able to create a personal micing approach to fully capture the nuances of Aretha's vocals. One of the artists also talked about how you have to 'become a couch' when working with a group. This happens over time and only after great trust and respect between the artist and producer is made. Another unusual thing that Tom would do was to go around the room and listen to each member practicing though a song in order to understand how the instrument reacted in the environment and also to the rest of the instruments in the group. He would then go into the control room and aim to make it sound exactly like it did when he was listening in the live room. Tom stated that microphones are there to capture and not to interfere. An artist mentioned that Tom was able to bring a quality out of the performer that the performer didn't even know they had to begin with. When commenting on how to mix or approach an instrument Tom said that 'touch' is what mattered and not the volume or the knobs involved.

It was really inspiring to hear the story of such an inventive producer and how he got involved early on in his life and was able to establish himself enough in order to continue to do what he loved. I think the biggest reason for his successes was how open minded and optimistic about life he was in general. People enjoyed being around him, and more importantly, valued his opinion when it came to recording. I hope to follow in Dowd's footsteps and learn from his experiences so that I can help the artists that I work with to realize there full potential, and bring this concept to life though recordings.

Techniques of 408 3

In class this week we continued the discussion on useful eq parameters to apply to our mixes.

• 1.5 k - Either boost or cut to affect the 'head of the kick drum.' Boost to add clarity and pluck to electric bass. Cut to decrease dullness of some guitars.
• 3k k - Boost to hear more attack on pianos. Boost to increase clarity and hardness of vocals. Cut to increase 'breathy' sound of background vocals. Cut to decrease slightly out of tune vocals/guitars (masks the 'beats' of a pitch). Boost for more attack on snare. Around this frequency is the cut off point for telephone bandwidth (use steep high pass filter and low pass filter.)
• 5 k - Boost for more vocal presence. Boost for more attack(snare sound) on snare drum. Boost between 5-7 k for kick drum 'clicky' sound. Boost to increase attack of pianos and guitars. Cut to get rid of thin guitar sound.
• 7 k - Boost to add attack on percussion instruments. Boost to give a more polished sound to a dull singer. Boost for increased finger noise on acoustic guitar. Cut-off frequency for de-essing on vocals. Boost to add sharpness or attack to pianos, guitars and synths. Cut-off frequency for AM radio bandwidth.
• 10 k - Boost for more brightness in vocals, guitars, and pianos. Boost to increase hardness of cymbals. Continues the de-essing range (7-10 k).
• 15 k - Boost for a brighter, more aggressive vocal sound.

A few considerations to keep in mind when applying eq: If a frequency is exaggerated when boosted, lower the boost a little so that phase doesn't become an issue and the frequency doesn't 'jump out' at the listener. If you want a hard vocal sound, apply compression with fast attack and fast release. Edit out the breathes so that they don't overwhelm the mix. You can also apply an eq and then heavily compress, the newly eq'ed frequency becomes more exaggerated (use this to if you want to achieve an aggressive and in-your-face sound.)

408 Production Synopsis 4

Session Update

This week during recording lab, Group C was able to complete all electric bass tracks that we plan on having on the album. There are a few auxiliary bass sounds that we plan on recording later (possibly ebow and stand up bass parts), but all primary parts are fully complete. Joe did a wonderful job executing all the tunes, especially when working on the song, 'Lover's Tree,' which I though would be quite difficult considering there is no click on the track and many retards. We chose to record this particular song without the click to give a very organic sound and it definitely creates 'fresh air' when compared to the rest of the album. It just feels like its live and spacious. We used the same set up as the previous week for DI's and microphone choices, however, on the last few songs we just recorded the bass directly into Millennia DI. It just allowed us to save on set up time so we could get right to recording great bass takes.

For next week, the plan is to try and finish all rhythm guitar tracks. We have talked about recording all the guitars with the same amp, but we've agreed to try out both Joe's and my personal amp to try and find the best amp/guitar arrangement. We had a surprising find today when tracking some scratch/trail guitar parts because we found that Chad's guitar has a intonation issue. The high e string on his guitar either needs to be intonated or a tuner adjustment. We would get the guitar into tune with itself, and after a take it sounded as if it were out of tune once again. Chad is going to try and fiddle with the bridge and try and get it sounding better, and if that doesn't work he's going to take it into a repair shop.

The recording process is going rather smoothly and we feel that we are right on schedule to complete tracking in a timely manner.