Engineer Dennis Moody On The Latest Inner Circle Podcast

We celebrate the one year anniversary of the Inner Circle podcast with my very first guest, engineer Dennis Moody.

Dennis is unique in that he does both live sound as well as works in the studio, and he does both extremely well.

In fact, he's a favorite engineer of the some of the best drummers in the world, including Steve Gadd, Dave Weckl, Michael White and the late Ricky Lawson, among others. When these drum gods want their drums recorded right, they call Dennis.

On Inner Circle #1 I spoke to Dennis primarily about concert sound, but this time around we focus on the studio, especially his method for getting drum sounds.

In the intro I talk about the possible breakup of Google+ and the spinoff of Photos, as well as the 6 elements of every great mix.

Remember that you can find the podcast at BobbyOInnerCircle.com, or either on iTunes or Stitcher. 

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Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

38 Special "Hold On Loosely" Isolated Vocals

Some artists and bands are lucky enough to get one iconic song that will continue to be played on the radio even decades after it was popular. 38 Special's "Hold On Loosely" from the bands Wild Eyed Southern Boys album (their 4rth) is just such a song, and today we'll take a listen inside to the isolated lead vocal. Here's what to listen for.

1. Take a listen to the reverb. There's a lot of it on the vocal (which you don't hear in the mix), and it's pretty short and delayed. Reader Bruce Coffman wrote in that it sounds a lot like a gated reverb from a Lexicon 224 with the diffusion maxed out to give it a sort of cloud at the end, hence the name "cloud delay."

2. Most of the song has the lead vocal doubled. The exceptions are in the beginning of the first verse and the ad libs on the outro.

3. The double is pretty close but not perfect. In fact, on some phrases one of the parts is dipped out, presumably because of the performance. Don't forget this song was recording in 1981 in the days before DAWs so you'd be lucky to get one perfect performance, let alone two.

4. Listen to the "Don't tell me" section of the pre-chorus. It's dry and spread out left and right, where the other doubles are up the center.

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The New AES 3D Audio Standard

You may not be aware of it yet, but 3D audio may be the next big thing. What is 3D audio, you might be asking yourself?

It's what will accompany the graphics in the new virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift, the Microsoft HoloLens or Sony Project Morpheus. In an immersive graphics world our normal 2D audio just isn't enough, so that world has to be expanded to 3D to keep up with the visuals.

In staying on top of the trend, the Audio Engineering Society has introduced a new standard called AES69-2015 which provides a framework for binaural and 3D personal audio products. This format describes both the format and exchange of spatial acoustics files.

3D audio isn't just for virtual reality headsets, as everything from smartphones to tablets to anything that employs a headphone system will soon be employing it in some fashion.

The lack of a standard protocol meant that binaual sound data, expressed as a head-related transfer function (HRTF), made it difficult for developers to exchange algorithms, thus slowing the development of the sector and keeping those algorithms proprietary.

Among the things that AES69-2015 supports include:

• a description of the HRTF measurement setup
• consistent definitions of the metadata
• the ability to describe multiple conditions like the number of listeners and distances in a single file
• predefined descriptions for the common measurement setups, which are now called "conditions"

3D audio may not be something that touches you now, but it's a growing sector of the industry and one to keep an eye on as virtual reality grows. It very well become be a new source of work for audio professionals in the future.

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Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

9 Reasons A Guitar Pickup Sounds The Way It Does

As any electric string instrument player knows, there are a number of different types of pickups, and within each category there's a tremendous variation in possible tone.

This excerpt from The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook explains the 9 factors that affect how a pickup sounds. The next time you're in the market for one, keep these in mind so you can better tailor the pickup to your needs.

"Just like most things in life, something that seems so simple on the outside is very intricate on the inside and a pickup is no exception. Here are the numerous factors that contribute to a pickup’s sound.

1. The number of turns or winding. This is the number of turns of wire around the bobbin of the pickup. The more turns, the louder the pickup, but the worse the high-frequency response becomes. The number of turns is measured by the electronic resistance of the wire, which is measured in ohms. The higher the ohms value, the hotter the pickup but the less high-frequency response you’ll have. Humbucking pickups have more resistance than a single coil because there are more turns of wire, which is why they’re hotter and have less high end. 

2. Type of wire used. The diameter and insulation determines the number of windings that can fit on a bobbin, which will determine the resistance, which determines the output, etc. 

3. Type of winding method used. We’ll look at this a bit closer in a bit, but many of the pickups in the early days of the electric guitar were wound by hand, which meant that there were more or less than the required number of windings on the bobbin, and an uneven wind would also affect the capacitance of the pickup, which can cause a peak in the frequency response. This problem was virtually eliminated when manufacturers switched to machine winding (see above), but while every pickup was now the same, some of the magic that occasionally came from a hand-wound pickup also disappeared. 

4. The type of magnets used. Although Alnico (a blend of aluminum, nickel and cobalt) is the alloy of choice for most pickups, occasionally you’ll find pickups made of other materials such as ceramic or neodymium. This will affect the strength of the magnetic field which we’ll cover next. 

5. The strength of the magnets used. Magnets used for pickups are categorized by strength on a scale of two to five with five being the strongest. A stronger magnet will produce a louder and brighter sound  while a weaker one will produce one that’s warmer. 

6. The magnet height. How close the individual magnets are to the strings will determine how loud that string is. On pickups that have adjustable pole pieces that’s not so much of a problem, but on pickups with fixed pole pieces (like a Fender Strat or Tele) that could cause a slight imbalance in the string output. As an example, prior to the late 60’s, most guitarists used a wound G string, so the fixed height of the magnets on a Strat were different to compensate. 

7. Pickup Cover. Metal covers on humbuckers can cause a resonance that results in feedback problems at high volumes. That’s why many of the early rockers removed their pickup covers, and why many guitars and pickups are sold that way today. 

8. Pickup potting. Many pickups are sealed in wax to eliminate vibration induced signals that make a pickup microphonic. The heat from the hot wax can weaken the magnet though, thereby changing the pickup’s sound. 

9. Potentiometers. Although not exactly a part of the pickup itself, the volume and tone pots are part of the electronic circuit along with the pickup and can affect the sound. The higher the resistance of the pot, the more high end will pass. Fenders use 250k ohm pots, Gibson uses 500k, and many other manufacturers use 1 Meg pots.

There are other factors such as winding direction, magnetic polarity, and the type of bobbins used, but their contribution to the final sound is subtle at best."

You can read additional book excerpts from The Ultimate Guitar Tone Handbook and my other books at bobbyowsinski.com.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

Evidence That The Loudness Wars May Finally Be Over

For way too long mixers and mastering engineers alike have been forced to squash songs before their final release, first in an effort to sound louder than everyone else's (especially on radio), then to just keep up in level with what's already out there.

But squashing a song to within an inch of its life may finally be counterproductive, as most digital services are now each employing their own brand of normalization in an effort to make all songs the same volume level for a better listening experience.

Here's a great video from UK mastering engineer Ian Shepherd that explains how it all works using a number of hits from U2 as an example. You can check out Ian's blog for a lot of great audio information at productionadvice.co.uk.

Let's hope that this is the first step in the return to dynamics in music.

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Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.

New Music Gear Monday: Radial Reamp JCR Reverse DI

One of the cooler studio tricks is recording a clean signal from an electric guitar along with the amp sound, then using that later to change the sound by sending the recorded track to another amplifier.

This really helps both the player and the engineer in that you don't have to burn either out trying to get a great sound to fit the track while recording. Just get something that works for the moment and change it later to fit as needed.

The clever people at Radial Engineering have come up with a great way to do that with their Reamp JCR box, which has all the features needed to make the operation happen both quickly and easily.

The Reamp JCR is actually a reverse direct box in that it takes a signal from your recording device via an XLR cable, then sounds it out to the amp via a 1/4" jack. The box also features phase invert and ground lift switches on the input side, and a filter control switch, mute and level control pot on the output side.

While you'd think that you could just use a regular direct box to do this, you won't find this level of control on a normal DI and it won't sound as good because the impedance isn't optimized for an amp. The Reamp JCR features a custom wound transformer to take care of that.

The Radial Reamp JCR retails for $199 and is built like a tank (just like all the other radial gear). No studio should be without one.

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Don't forget to check out my Music 3.0 blog for tips and tricks on navigating social media and the new music business.