AES 2012 Report - Part 3: Software

Here's the last part of my 2012 AES report, this time built around recording software and hardware.




The first thing I saw at the show was something that I liked the best. It's the Forte interface by Focusrite. Not only does it have a couple of Red mic amps on board, but it has a number of nifty software control features as well. And it sounds great, with a lot of attention given to the audio signal path. I'll cover this more in an upcoming post.












Focusrite also showed their new iTrac Solo interface, one of the first designed just for the iPad, although it can be used as a normal USB interface as well. What I liked best is that it came with regular Apple-style connector for a direct connection to the iPad or iPhone without any messy adaptors.













Eventide showed its H3000 Harmonizer Factory plugin. For those of us who grew up with this hardware piece, it's nice to finally have the software version.









Speaking of plugins, Soundtoys had a couple of cool ones. Instead of following the leader on all the typical ones, they went for emulating some devices with lots of color but mostly overlooked by other plugin manufacturers: the Shure Level-Loc compressor and a copy of the the Altec 1567 mixer, with it's own distinct color. At $129 each, very inexpensive as well.









Publisher Hal Leonard had a nice display of my books front and center. Thanks guys!














Surround sound was back in the news at AES. Here's the ISOSTEM, one of the best surround upmixers and downmixers that I've seen from Nugen Audio. I believe this was a prototype of the hardware and software, but it has great promise.













Speaking of surround, Auro 3D had an interesting new surround encoder/decoder where the surround signal sits on top of a normal PCM signal. It seemed to sound pretty good, from what I could tell on the floor. I think they'll face an up-hill battle getting adoption though.











Nugen Audio also showed their excellent mastering plugins for broadcast, complete with an intersample multichannel peak limiter, a cool dialog analyzer, and a broadcast level controller. These are musts if you're doing audio for broadcast where staying within a network spec is imperative.










iZ showed the latest version of the 24 channel Radar dedicated recorder, which now retails for about $10k, as well as their stand-along A/D and D/A convertor.

Finally, here's a bit of the future of analog hardware, distributed by Trans Audio Group. It's basically a digitally controlled analog version of a Tube-Tech Pultec.

Here's the software control. Very cool.

That's it for this years AES report. The next one is 2013 NAMM.

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AES 2012 Report - Part 2: Hardware

Yesterday we looked at the big hit of AES 2012, today we'll look at some of the hardware that I found interesting. Keep in mind that when I attend a trade show, I only usually stop at a booth that immediately catches my eye or that I've previously determined will have something new to see. I do miss some cool new things this way, but I feel that if an exhibitor can't get his marketing together enough to make it clear that he has something new and groovy, that's on him.

The legendary George Augsburger has been making his own monitors for the studios he designs for decades, and now they're commercially available from Pro Audio Distribution. The GA-215VS-A3 (that's a mouthful) are 3-way monitors complete with DSP.

For an audio world that's more and more in-the-box, there sure were a lot of analog consoles at the show, even if they were small. Here's a Neve-like sidecar from former Neve guy Geoff Tanner and his Aurora Audio.

Here's another small desk from UT Audio.

Of all the small boutique consoles, this might be the coolest. It's a tube console built around the original Universal Audio model of yore from Tree Audio, only with a solid state output stage for greater headroom. It's called The Roots.















Fairlight used to be a company based around music machines but now they're clearly in the post world. Here's their new Quantum.











I just love this piano mic array from DPA Microphones. They were like this for a comparison, of course, but wouldn't you like to try them all on a session?

Here's a MicroTech Gefell microphone diaphragm that's been converted into a watch. They had some cool mics as well. A very understated company.












I loved the look of these U47 and 251 clones by TAB Funkenwork. The story was that these were made from the original Telefunken designs. Don't know if it's true or not, since everyone in this game seems to have a different story, but I liked the workmanship.












TAB Funkenwork also made some very nice looking VT72, 77 and 78 clones, complete with NOS Telefunken tubes and the original transformers.












I love these Golden Age Project Pre-73's. Sort of a Neve sound for not so much money. On the bottom was a new 4 channel version.















Some new 500 series compressor and EQ models from Daking Audio.

And finally, this mic isolation booth that looked kinda cool but honestly sounded awful. I don't know how something that's supposed to deaden the sound can be so boingy.

Part 3 on software tomorrow.

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

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AES 2012 Report - Part 1: The Big Hit

Conventions/exhibitions in the musical instrument and audio space have been a bit of a bummer lately in that there are no surprises or must-see items any more. The Audio Engineering Society's 133rd convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco proved to be a bit different in that respect because finally there was a product that had the whole show talking. Before we get to that, here are a few generalities about the show.

In General

AES is supposed to be the biggest audio show in the land, yet it was missing at least three highly influential manufacturers this year: Avid (Pro Tools), Manley and Universal Audio. This is an on-going trend where many manufacturers now believe that AES is no longer the must-not-miss sales opportunity that it once was. Exhibiting at AES is expensive, especially in San Francisco, and the fact of the matter is that the San Fran show feels pretty local as people don't fly in from around the world for the show like they once did.

As a result, we're seeing the incredible shrinking show, as it was a lot smaller than in recent years. Of the booths that were there, most were considerably downsized from the show's peak, and there were a lot of empty spaces where a manufacturer didn't bother to show. Where once upon a time there were demo rooms everywhere, this year there might have been only enough to count on one hand.

That said, the attendance was pretty good, with traffic on Friday for the presentations beyond my expectations, and pretty strong on Saturday as well. Not only that, the vibe was particularly good. People in the business are making money, although everyone seems to agree that they work a lot harder for a little less than they were used to before. That's now the norm.

Another thing about AES this year that's been similar to other recent shows is the overabundance of new boutique speaker, microphone and mic preamp/compressor manufacturers. These companies spring up like crazy, each with the idea that they can somehow reinvent the wheel (for speaker manufacturers) or that the world somehow needs a new version of a U47, Neve mic pre, or Fairchild compressor. What's even crazier is that many spend big dollars to exhibit so they can just show a prototype that they can't even ship. I just can't believe that the marketplace is big enough for that many also-rans with that little business sense (sorry to be so harsh, but someone has to say it).

Moscone Water Refill Station

Say what you want about the show, the Moscone Center is a pretty good place for a convention for an attendee. The free Wifi was very much appreciated, and the filtered water refill station were great.

Social Media For Musicians And Engineers

On Friday I gave a presentation that's become quite popular at colleges around the country regarding social media and how the musician, engineer, producer or musician can use it as a promotional tool. Even though my session was up against one across the hall with the legendary Al Schmitt, it was still very well attended, as we went through two hours of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, website and email newsletter promotional tips and tricks. 

Every time I give this presentation I'm always surprised at some of the answers that I get when I ask the question, "Have you seen this site (or app) before?" as I mention what seems to be a well-known online tool. Even in the heart of the hippest technical community in the world, many of the online promotional technology tools are still not fully understood by many of the attendees, or they're not even aware of them. It's something I see all over the world though, so nothing new here.

The surprising part is that if you listen to the media, every kid and young adult from 13 to 30 is a computer whiz and knows about everything that happens online. That's far from the truth though. We're all in this together, regardless what your age is, as we all learn as we go along. That's one of the reasons I love doing this presentation. I'm really pleased that people seem to get so much from it (or so they tell me).

The Big Hit

By far the biggest hit of not only this show but in recent memory is the Raven MTX production console by Slate Audio. There was a buzz on the floor everywhere you went about it, and when you did finally see it, there was always a crowd about 5 or 6 deep around it. Here's what was revealed while I was at the demo. 

Raven Mix Window

The Raven is basically a big controller for Pro Tools (for now) and other DAWs that supplies it's own monitor section based upon the outputs from your D/A convertor. If you have enough outputs, it can configure to a 7.1 monitor complete with up to 5 headphone sends and more.

The massive 46 inch touchscreen is custom designed so that you can work for long hours looking at it from a short distance, and the angle was precisely calculated by a ergonomics consultant. Everyone who looks at it seems to thing that the angle is somehow off, but it seems about right when you sit behind it in that you can easily touch everything you have to pretty easily; much easier than a traditional console in fact. The screen is large so that a plugin is the size of a normal 19 inch rack hardware device, which means that the controls are about the same size as the knobs would be. The screen is also infrared controlled rather than capacitive like most touch screens, mostly because there wasn't a touchscreen that large easily available. That said, I spoke with someone who used it for a second who said that the movement of the onscreen controls didn't feel all that precise.

Raven Extension Monitor

But that may be a moot point. The unit at the show was only a prototype, which is why the frame looked a little cheesy. That's also why they didn't have a price yet. It's just too early in the development cycle to know, although software-wise everything seemed to work just fine. As a mixer, it looked and worked great, as it did in the standard Pro Tools edit window.

There are a lot of other nice features too. An built-in iPhone dock, top-mounted USB ports for flash drives, dongles and hard drives, and multiple talkback buttons. You can tell it's built by a console user rather than an electronics engineer.

The Raven Edit Window

I wasn't too happy that my questions where either blown off or treated dismissively, but I'll chalk that up to show fatigue for now (although it was pretty early on the first day). Maybe my questions where pretty basic (like "How much does it cost?"), but that's no reason to be disrespectful to anyone.

All that aside, I think this might be a hit if the price isn't too outrageous. The Raven might be that missing piece in the studio between some of the smaller dedicated controllers and the large analog consoles that we so love.

Tomorrow, some other cools stuff I spotted in Part 2.

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The Audio Recording Techniques Video Course

I'm excited to announce that my latest video course for lynda.com called Audio Recoding Techniques has just been released. It's a crash course on recording covering the fundamentals starting from initial mic selection all the way through tracking a band, recording overdubs, and doing a rough mix. You'll not only see how you'll do it, you'll learn why as well.

The series is beautifully shot, edited and and animated by a crack team of pros at lynda.com, which is noted for their high-production value courses. Since this course grew out of the Recording Engineer's Handbook, it's gone way beyond what I ever envisioned. The animations and illustrations are fantastic, and they really help convey the concepts in an easy to understand way.

My many thanks to David Franz, the audio content manager at lynda.com, for seeing the possibilites before I ever did. Thanks to Todd Howard for being a great producer and for keeping so many things organized, and to director Ben Nilsson for capturing the essence of the sessions. The team of Bryce Poole doing the video editing, Will Frazier for the great animation, and Steven Spencer for his audio skills get my everlasting thanks. There are a lot more people at lynda that were involved and please forgive me for not mentioning you, buy you all have my sincere appreciation.

Many thanks to the musicians used throughout the course; drummer Mark Ohrenberger, bassist Paul ILL, guitar/dobro player Randy Mitchell, keyboard player extraordinaire Jeff Young, string players Robbie Anderson and Jacob Szekely, Elizabeth Franscia, Glen Berger, and Jamie Havorka  on the horns, and singers Holly O'Hair and Keith England. And of course, the wonderful artist Iyeoka, who has such a great vibe that it's hard not to make great music when she's involved.

You can get a sense of what the course is all about from the following video. About 30 movies from the first four chapters will also be available for free. You can go here for a free 7 day trial to lynda.com where you can watch my Audio Mixing Bootcamp course as well.

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The Making Of Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

Here's a great video about the making of Thriller, Michael Jackson's seminal album that's claimed to have sold 100 million units. There's some great behind the scenes stuff here, like Eddie Van Halen's solo on "Beat It" catching the monitors on fire, and how depressed everyone was after how how bad the first test pressing was. Great interviews with Bruce Swedien, Quincy Jones, Steve Lukather and lots more!

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Equalizing The Bass

There's been such a great response to my new book The Audio Mixing Bootcamp that I thought I'd share another excerpt. This one is about EQing the bass, a process that many beginning mixers get wrong, then have their mix turn out too boomy as a result.

Once again, The Audio Mixing Bootcamp was specifically designed for beginning mixers, or musicians with home studios who just can't make their mixes sound right. It's filled with exercises that guide you throughout the process to help you develop both your ear and your mixes. If you're more advanced, the Mixing Engineer's Handbook is the one for you.

Here's the exercise for EQing the bass.
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"The bass provides the power to the mix, but it’s the relationship between it and drums that really makes a mix sound big and fat. That’s why some mixers will spend hours just trying to fine tune this balance, because if the relationship isn’t correct, then the song will just never sound big and punchy. 

At its simplest, EQing the bass at a higher frequency (like 100Hz) and the kick at a lower one (like 60 or 80Hz) or vice-verse can work, however it’s usually a matter of using the frequency juggling method of EQing to find the frequencies that work the best.

The most common frequencies for bass guitar are anywhere from 50 to 100Hz for bottom, attack at 700Hz, and finger snap at 2.5kHz.

Exercise Pod - EQing The Bass

E7.8: A) Solo the bass and drums and raise the monitor level so it’s a little louder than what you’d usually listen at. Can you hear the bass well? Does it mask the kick? Can you hear each note distinctly? 

B) Solo the kick and the bass. Can you hear the bass well? Does it mask the kick? Can you hear each note distinctly? Does the bass mask the kick?

C) Wherever you cut a frequency on the kick, boost that frequency on the bass. In other words, if you cut at 400Hz, boost the bass by 2 dB increments in this spot. Can you hear the bass and kick distinctly? Do they reinforce one another?

D) If the kick is boosted at 80Hz, boost the bass at 100 or 120Hz. Can you hear the bass and kick distinctly? Do they reinforce one another?

E) What happens if you switch these frequencies? In other words, if you boost the kick at 100 and the bass at 80Hz. Can you hear the bass and kick distinctly? Do they reinforce one another?

F) Does it sound fuller if you add 2 dB at 60Hz? Does it sound muddy? Does it mask the kick?

G) Insert the high pass filter and set it to 60Hz. Is the bass more distinct? What happens if you move the frequency to 80Hz?

H) Does the bass fit better with the kick if you boost it around 700Hz? Does it fit better if you add 2 dB at around 2.5kHz? Is it more distinct sounding?

I) Add the rest of the drum kit. Can you hear the bass distinctly? Does it mask any other drum? Does it reinforce the kick drum? If so, check where the offending drum is EQed. Cut the frequency on the bass wherever it’s boosted on the clashing drum and boost wherever it’s cut.

J) If the bass still isn’t heard distinctly, make sure that it’s not boosted at the same frequency as any of the drums."

To read additional excerpts from The Audio Mixing Bootcamp and my other books, go to bobbyowsinski.com. You can also find a complete video tutorial based on the book at Lynda.com. Here's a link to a free 7 day trial.

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

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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New Music Gear Monday: The Arduinome

Ever since the first sequencer first came on the scene back in the modular synthesizer days, players have been fascinated by the hypnotic melodies that can be built with one. Most software synths have at least a rudimentary sequencer built into them these days, but sometimes you just want something with a lot more control and flexibility. That's where the Arduinome comes in. And believe it or not, it's a DIY project.

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

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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U2 "Beautiful Day" Song Analysis

U2 song analysis have always been popular here, and I've done them for both "One" and "Two Hearts Beat As One" in the past, so when reader The Big Matthias asked for an analysis of the band's 2000 hit "Beautiful Day" from their 12 times platinum All That You Can't Leave Behind album, I was glad to oblige. The song won a Grammy for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and hit #1 in many parts of the world despite only making it to #21 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Like with all analysis, we'll look at the song form, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song

“Beautiful Day is like many U2 songs in that they don’t follow what might be considered a standard song form. In this case, there are two bridges, and sometimes the chorus changes melody and arrangement-wise to almost seem like another section. The song form looks like this:

intro ➞ verse ➞ chorus ➞ verse ➞ chorus ➞ bridge 1 ➞

intro ➞ bridge 2 ➞ chorus ➞ bridge 1 ➞ chorus/solo ➞ intro

The Arrangement

This is one of the few songs that has all five arrangement elements (and sometimes even more) simultaneously playing. There are a lot of different sounds that sneak in and out of the verses, but the chorus and bridges are about as dense as can be.

The song starts with a keyboard pad, electric piano and bass outlining the chords, and what sounds like a drum machine kick drum. When the vocal enters after 4 bars, so does a snare drum doubled with a tambourine. After 4 more bars, a guitar enters on the right channel and a keyboard pedal note on the left. On the last 2 bars of the verse, a heavily reverbed background vocal enters on the right.

 For the chorus the band cranks up the vocal with the drums entering in full with a power chord guitar on the left and the same reverbed background vocal on right.

The second verse changes in the bass is now playing 8^th notes, driving the beat, with different guitar fills on the right and keyboard fills on the left drifting in and out of the mix. During the second chorus, a new background vocal enters on the right, this time lower in pitch and drier, so it’s more up front.

The same primary instrumentation continues for bridge 1, only drummer Larry Mullen switches his snare pattern to toms. The song then drops in intensity to another 4 bar intro, this time with a modulated guitar on left, and then it’s into bridge 2. 

The first half of bridge 2 lowers in intensity with no drums, the bass playing whole notes, keyboard pads and the Edge playing a guitar arpeggio. The drums enter for the second half, building it up to a chorus, but it’s unusual in that it’s 4 bars of string and keyboard pads and background vocals.

Then we’re back to bridge 1 for a second time with exactly the same instrumentation as the first. It then goes back into a chorus, but only the first line is sung and a guitar solo enters on the right. The outro breaks down to only a tremolo guitar on the left and feedback that pans left to right.

The arrangement elements look like this:

• The Foundation: bass, drums, drum machine kick, tambourine doubling the snare

• The Rhythm: Edge’s signature arpeggiated guitar

• The Pad: various synthesizers

• The Lead: lead vocal

• The Fills: back ground vocals, various keyboards and guitars

The Sound

“Beautiful Day” is a very dense mix with many different synth and guitar sounds appearing for short periods of time then disappearing, some never to be heard again. There’s a lot of sonic layering both with reverbs and delays. Edge has always been the master of delays on his guitars, but this song features deep dense reverbs on some of the synths and background vocals.

One of the cooler things is the panning during the song. The keyboards lean left and most of the guitars lean right except for the power chord guitar in the choruses, the arpeggiated guitar in the second bridge and the vibrato guitar at the very end, which is panned left. The background vocals are always on the right side (most unusually), and while Edge’s high vocal is bathed in reverb, Bono’s low vocal is drier and up front.

The drums are very small and tinny sounding (especially the snare), but this might be because that was the only way to fit everything together in such a dense mix with so many elements. The snare also has the tambourine doubling it on the verses, which makes it sound a little thinner than it really is.

Bono’s vocals are dry so he stays in front of the mix and the other song layers.

The Production

“Beautiful Day” has all the hallmarks of a song where overdub after overdub was tried in an effort to come up with something that works, then they decided to keep pieces of everything when it came to mixing. That’s the production trick here, where so many different tracks were able to blend together in the end and not fight one another. 

That said, one of the best things about this record is the dynamics. While most records use different elements entering and exiting to build momentum and dynamic tension and release, “Beautiful Day” uses the plentiful dynamic skills of the band to go from a whisper to a roar. U2 has never been afraid to play quietly, and when you hear the transition from the first verse to the first chorus here, you understand how valuable an asset that is. Since it’s release, “Beautiful Day” has been one of the band’s concert staples, and it’s easy to see why. 

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The Money Behind Fender

It's funny how the music economy works. In the 50's through the 70's Wall Street could care less about the music business, but when the CD came out in 1981 and the labels began to resell their catalogs at a big profit, every major label but one (BMG) was gobbled up by a conglomerate. The recorded music business hasn't been the same since.

The same thing sort of happened in the musical instrument business. When every kid bought a guitar through the 60's thanks to the popularity of the British Invasion, suddenly there was a great deal of money in that end of the business. Fender, who was the revenue leader at the time, attracted a buy-out from CBS in 1965, which eventually ended in disaster. In trying to streamline the business, Fender's quality took a dive and it took a long time for guitar players to regain confidence in the company.

What's not known is that Fender was almost out of business by 1980 and had a $10 million loss on only $40 mil of revenue, but then-president Bill Schulz organized a plan for CBS to inject some cash for a new five year product development plan. Three years later, CBS lost interest, and Schulz was able to organize a leveraged buyout for only $12.5 million, but the company was seriously bootstrapped, since it didn't even own a factory at this point. It was still a great brand though, and within 3 years, Fender was in black again.

In 2001 a private investment company, Weston Presidio, bought 50% of Fender, with the idea of eventually taking it public, which is the goal of any venture investor. That almost happened earlier this year, but it was cancelled on the eve of the initial public offering. The company was trying to raise almost $400 million, but there was so little interest from the investment community that the IPO would've looked even worse than the Facebook offering. When investors looked at the MI market, they saw it shrinking, with no room for growth and Fender's market segment saturated.

Fender isn't the only major MI company with a big venture investor though. Did you know that Mitt Romney's Bain Capitol owned Guitar Center until earlier this year? The interesting thing is that this had been a very bad investment for Bain, as they'd been losing money like crazy with GC since the buy-out. You know who owns it now? Weston Presidio! That means the same company owns both Fender and GC.

Here's the thing - the record industry was ruined by Wall Street investors, and it could happen again in the MI part of the business. The one good thing about the fact that the business is shrinking and that means it's less attractive to the Wall Street bunch now. This is a business where love of music and art comes first. It's a place where big money interests doesn't mix.

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

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The Robot Piano Player: Funny or Horror Show?

I can't decide whether this is cool or not. It's a combination of a robot and a hologram that plays the piano. You've got to admire the technology involved, but there's something spooky about it (perfect for Halloween though). The interesting thing is that the inventor, Matteo Suzzi, gave his robot Teotronica 19 fingers because he claims that's the perfect number to be able to play any song ever composed. What a shame for humans that we only have 10. That means there are so may songs that can never be played unless you're a robot :).

Check out Teotronica and let me know your take. The website for the company is here, but the text is in Italian.

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

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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How To Visualize Your Mix

As many of you know, my new Audio Mixing Bootcamp book was recently released. The book is different from The Mixing Engineer's Handbook in that it's aimed at the novice who's just starting to mix, or someone who can't seem to get their arms around the process. It's also completely different from other mixing books in that it's full of concise exercises to get your ears up to speed on what sounds good and what doesn't.

Here's an excerpt from Chapter 4: Balance that gives you some tips on how to visualize your mix even before you've moved the first fader. By the way, there's also a video version of the course that can be found at Lynda.com.
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"Most mixers can hear some version of the final product in their heads before they get too far into the mix. This is because they’ve heard rough mixes of the song many times before during production, but even if a mixer is brought in just for the mix, they listen to all the elements several times before they really get down to mixing.

If you’re just starting out mixing, you might think, “How can I hear the final product before I’ve even begin?” That’s a fair enough question. Until you have a certain amount of experience, you need a few questions to help mold your vision a bit, and the way to do that is to go back to the six mix elements and ask yourself:

How do I hear the final balance?

How do I hear the instruments EQed”

How do I hear everything panned?

How do I hear everything compressed?

How do I hear the ambience in the track?

What do I hear as the most interesting thing in the track?

If you can answer these questions, you may still not have a full picture of your final mix, but you’ll have at least a general idea, which is the first step to a great mix.

Keep in mind that the producer and musicians have a say in the mix as well, and your version of the mix can suddenly take a wide left turn with their input. That’s okay, because after you’ve gotten everything to the point where you hear it in your head (or even beyond), a left turn should be easy.

Exercise Pod: Visualize Your Mix

E4.1: Either listen to a rough mix of the song you’re working on, or quickly just push up all the faders for a rough balance to the song you’re about to mix. Let’s think about the balance.

A) How loud do you hear the drums in the final mix? The bass?

B) Do you hear the vocals out in front, or back in the track?

C) How loud do you hear the primary musical elements that carry the song?

D) How loud do you hear the secondary elements like percussion and background vocals?

E4.2: Now let’s think about the frequency response of the various instruments.

A) Is there an instrument or two that sounds particularly dull?

B) Is there an instrument or two that sounds overly bright?

C) Is there an instrument that has too much bottom end?

D) Is there an instrument that has no bottom end at all?

E4.3: Now let’s think about the panning.

A) How do you hear the drums panned? Wide or narrow?

B) How do you hear the panning of any instruments that were recorded in stereo?

C) Do you hear any instruments panned extreme wide left and right?

D) What instruments do you hear panned up the middle?

E4.4: Now let’s go to compression.

A) Is there an instrument or vocal that has wild dynamic shifts that needs compression?

B) Is there an instrument or vocal that you’d like to change the sound by using compression?

C) Is there an instrument or vocal that needs to sound a little more punchy?

E4.5: Let’s think about the ambience.

A) What instruments were recorded with room ambience or reverb?

B) Do you hear ambience on the drums or snare?

C) What instruments do you hear rather dry and in your face?

D) What instruments do you hear further away from you?

E4.6: Lastly, it’s time to think about the interest.

A) What’s the most important element in the mix?

B) If there isn’t one yet, how can I create one?

C) What’s the next most important element in the mix?

D) What’s the next most important element in the mix?

These aren’t all the questions that you can ask yourself about a mix, but you get the idea. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers. It’s as you visualize it in your head."

To read additional excerpts from The Audio Mixing Bootcamp or my other books, go to the excerpt section 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.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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: Brian Eno's "Scape"

Not only one of the coolest iPad apps, but one of the coolest sound generation tools that I've seen in a long time is Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers' Scape. What makes it unique is that not only how it allows a user to easily connect different software sound generators and modifiers, but how they interact with one another as well. This interaction means that each time a composition is played, it's unique, but has the same general personality as the original composition.

While Scape seems like the perfect compositional tool for atmospheric/ambient music like Eno's Music For Airports, Discreet Music or his new album Lux, I can see it being used as a pad element for other types of music as well. Regardless of the type of music you create, it's an exciting new way to compose, taking the visual element that table-top software synths have had for a while and elevating the idea to a new level.

Scape is available for $5.99 from the iTunes App Store. You can read more about Scape and other apps from Eno and Chilvers at generativemusic.com.

Here's a great introduction video to how Scape works.

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

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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