Deep Purple On "Democratic Mixing"

Every engineer or producer has gone through a session where the entire band is present, and each wants to hear "more me" in the mix. The result usually takes a well-balanced mix and turns it into a sonic goo that just doesn't work any more. While we usually associate this kind of action with young bands with little studio experience, it can happen to well-established hit makers as well.

Here's a quick video that shows what famed metal producer Martin Birch went through with Deep Purple during the making of their breakout mega-seller Machine Head.

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Depeche Mode "Never Let Me Down Again" Song Analysis

Reader Ron West asked for a little bit of Depeche Mode for a song analysis, so here's "Never Let Me Down Again," a fan favorite. The 1987 release was the band's 19th UK single, and was top 10 throughout Europe. The song is from their Music For The Masses album, Depeche Mode's 6th release.

As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song itself, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song
"Never Let Me Down Again" is another one of those songs with a song form that just a little different than the norm. The form looks like this:

Intro, Verse, Interlude, B section, Interlude, Verse, Interlude, B section, Chorus, Outro

A number of things jump out. First, there are a lot of interludes in the song, but they never feel like wasted space. Second is that the B sections can easily be classified as choruses, with a 2nd chorus at the end. However you want to describe the sections, they work well in the song.

The Arrangement
The arrangement of "Never Let Me Down Again" is pretty thick, although it doesn't seem that way on a casual listen. As with most hits, different parts enter with each new section, and every repeating section is slightly different from the previous one. The arrangement elements look like this:

  * The Foundation: The drums and the bass synth.

  * The Pad: The bass synth does double duty as the primary pad, although it's augmented during the chorus and outro by higher synth strings.

  * The Rhythm: A trademark of Depeche Mode is some of the background synth lines that occur throughout the song that add motion. You can hear the main one easily here because it starts the song.

  * The Lead: The lead and harmony vocals. The piano during the interludes.

  * The Fills: Synth lines between the vocal phrase.

The Sound
The sound of the song is pretty good, but unremarkable. This happens frequently with songs built around synths or heavily effected drums like you'll find here. Even though it may be well recorded, it doesn't jump out as such.

The drums sound a little dated with the gated short room sound (especially the snare), but it does really work here. What is cool is the way the drum reverb is timed to the track. Listen to how the snare verb just about dies out before the next snare hit.

The vocal has a nice short timed delay but it's really sibilant. It's unusual for this not to be caught during recording, but you'd think they'd fix it for sure in mastering.

The Production
What makes the production of this track so good is the layering of the instruments. Everything has it's own space, and you can almost imagine each instrument sitting in front or behind the others. The arrangement is also excellent, especially how each section slightly changes and gradually builds to the big end

Send me your song analysis requests.

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George Massenburg On The History Of The Parametric EQ

We take an everyday mixing tool like the parametric equalizer for granted, but it's actually a relatively new device, making its debut in 1972. The inventor of the first practical parametric was audio and electronic engineer par excellence George Massenburg. In this video, George takes us through the history of the parametric.

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Pat Travers On Mutt Lange

Mutt Lange is an interesting guy not just because of his excellent production skills, but because there's so little known about him. He's publicity shy, and there's only one old picture of him available anywhere, so not many people know what he even looks like. That said, this video interview of the most excellent Pat Travers (remember "Boom Boom, Out Goes The Lights"?) gives a little insight of what it's like to work with Mutt.

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Apple Gets An Audio Boost

It's being reported that audio guru (at least to me) Tomlinson Holman has been hired by Apple to oversee it's audio development. This is fabulous news for musicians, engineers, film makers, and all Apple hardware users since you couldn't get a better, more knowledgeable guy for the job.

For those of you who don't know who Tom is, you certainly know a few of his creations. The famous THX standard that you see in most movie theaters today is his brainchild, and stands for Tom Holman eXperiment. Tom was the corporate technical director for LucasFilm when George Lucas asked him to create a spec to make the sound in theaters not only higher fidelity, but more consistent from theater to theater as well. You can thank him for the great sound we have the movies today as a result.

Tom was also the originator of the "5.1" surround sound concept and even coined the phrase (he later went on to 10.2). He was somewhat of a mentor to me during my years in surround sound. I can remember discussing some of the problems in surround calibration that I was having at a Grammy seminar during the early days when we were all searching for answers and tools, and generally being put down as not knowing what I was talking about. Tom was the only one who understood my problem, which lead to a number of standardized calibration test tapes that were vital in the early days of the medium.

Tom is truly an audio scientist (he's a professor at the film school at USC) and he's forgotten more than most people in the business have ever known. There are a few giants in the pro audio business (Rupert Neve and George Massenburg come to mind), but Tom stands shoulder to shoulder with them. We're all going to be better off with his association with Apple.
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Tinie Tempah "Written In The Stars" Song Analysis

Today we'll so a song analysis of a song that's number 12 on the Ultimate Chart and a former number one in Britain. It's British rapper Tinie Tempah's "Written In The Stars" featuring Eric Turner. The song is from his debut album Disc-Overy. Like every song analysis, we look at the song itself, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song
"Written In The Stars" features a fairly straight-ahead form with nothing much fancy about it. It looks like:

 Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Interlude, Verse, Chorus, Interlude, Chorus

Two slightly different features is the songs begins with the chorus, and the interlude is vocal instead of the usual instrumental.

The Arrangement
What's cool about this song is the development, which is certainly needed for a song with a simple form. It builds and releases, builds and releases, just like most hits.

  * The Foundation: Primarily the drums, or drum-like track

  * The Pad: The low octaves on the piano during the second verse, low bass synth during the chorus

  * The Rhythm: All the way through the song there's a delayed, arpeggiated synth

  * The Lead: The melody vocal, which is doubled by the piano in the chorus, and rap.

  * The Fills: Synth during the verse.

The Sound
The sound of "Written In The Stars" isn't what I'd call "state of the art." The vocals are a bit spitting because of the compression, and there's a hint of distortion on everything, although that may have been intentional.

One of the things that's common to most rap songs is the huge kick sound, which can be found here. The snare sounds like a distorted sample that has a long envelope thanks to the compression and reverb.

One of the things that I cool was the tape echo, which you can hear on the repeats of the vocal as the song fades out. You can tell it's a tape echo (or at least a simulator) by the poor frequency response and the distortion on the repeats.

The Production
The production by iSHi is really good as you hear a lot of subtle parts that add to the development of the song as it goes along. Parts are brought in and taken out in an effort to add some tension and release, which happens between the beginning of the verses and the rest of the song. The interludes are different because they're vocal in nature instead of instrumental like more songs, which adds a nice bridge between the chorus and verse. The second one also adds a harmony for development.

Send me your song analysis requests.

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The Curse Of Low Ceilings

It's time for another book excerpt, this time from The Studio Builder's Handbook. This time it's regarding a problem that most home studios have - low ceilings. What most musicians and engineers don't know is why they're usually bad for sound and hopefully this article will offer an explanation.

As a bonus, I've included a section on studio floors as well, since a frequent question is whether it's better to cover it with rug or leave it hard.
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"Low ceilings are another frequently encountered factor in a room. While a low ceiling (8 or 9 feet) isn’t that much of a problem in a control room, it’s a different story when it comes to a tracking room for a couple reasons. First of all, the sound from most of the drum kit (especially the cymbals) projects upwards and will splash off the ceiling (especially if it’s a hard surface) back down towards the drums, causing some frequency cancellation and altering the sound of the drums as a result.

Secondly, a low ceiling is the sworn enemy of overhead mics. This is because with an eight foot ceiling (for example), you frequently can’t get the mics up high enough to capture enough of the kit. As a result, the overhead drum kit mics are relegated to being cymbal mics (although this may be OK under the right circumstances). If you raise the mics up near the low ceiling, you may capture some of those unwanted reflections, thereby altering the sound of the kit. Higher ceilings of at least 10 feet (12 to 15 are best) eliminates these problems, which is why everyone likes recording in studios that have them. If you’re locked into a room with a low ceiling, the only choice you have is to treat it to either deaden the reflections, or at least make them sound as good as possible.

The Floor
Regardless of the space you’re dealing with and its ultimate use, the question of what to do with the floor always comes up. Should it be soft with carpet or hard and reflective with wood or cement. If you have a choice, you’d rather make the ceiling soft and the floor reflective for several reasons.

First of all, you can always put a throw or area rug down on a hard floor as needed, but an even bigger reason is the psychological aspect. Having a hard surface below our ears gives us a reference point that’s familiar and always consistent, which inherently feels more comfortable to us. The ceiling doesn’t have to all be soft. You can hang sound panels from the ceiling (sometimes called “clouds”) at the same ratio of placement as on the walls. Just make sure they’re extra secure so no one gets beaned in the middle of a session if one works loose.

For the tracking room, you usually want to keep the floor reflective, so wood or cement is fine. Just put a light carpet under the drums or other acoustic instrument to keep them from moving and also keep the reflections down. That being said, the smaller the tracking room, the more you want to contain the ambience. That’s because the reflections of a small room usually aren’t that great sounding because of the room modes (as we just saw), and we actually start to hear the smallness of the room. The more we keep them under control, the better everything in the room will sound."
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U2 "Two Hearts Beat As One" Song Analysis

Reader David Pigman had a number of requests for song analysis, but one was particularly interesting and that's U2's "Two Hearts Beat As One." This was the 2nd single from the bands massive breakthrough album War that became an international hit and pushed the band to stardom. As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song itself, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song
"Two Hearts Beat As One" has an unconventional form, as do a lot of U2's songs, and looks like this:

Intro, Verse, Chorus, B Section, Chorus, Interlude, Verse, Chorus, Interlude, B section

What's interesting is that most songs use the B section as sort of a bridge between the verse and chorus, but this one has the B section coming after the chorus, and then uses it as an out-chorus as well. Interesting.

The Arrangement
U2 normally has some interesting arrangements, but this one is pretty straight ahead. For the most part they stay within the power trio format of guitar, bass and drums, but add just enough extra elements to keep it interesting. In this case it's the use of Edge's harmonics in the chorus against his quarter note chunks. Both compliment each other well.

  * The Foundation - Bass and drums, although Adam Clayton's bass pushes the song.

  * The Pad - Edge's guitar harmonics during the chorus, but they're not played like a traditional pad.

  * The Rhythm - Larry Mullen's disco high-hat during the verse.

  * The Lead - Bono's lead vocal.

  * The Fills - The background vocals against the lead in the chorus.

The Sound
A number of things jump out about the sound. The first thing is how little low end there is on this record. Second is the short room sound on the drums, especially the snare. It almost sounds like a double. Third is the amount of reverb on the lead vocal, which is a lot. The top end is rolled off so it doesn't get in the way, and it's slightly delayed, but there's a lot of it and it's pretty long.

The Production
Steve Lillywhite does a good job here just capturing the feel of the band yet not getting too heavy handed with sweetening and layers. There are a few, but not many. Plus the energy of a live U2 show is captured, which is the ultimate goal of every producer in the first place.

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The Wrecking Crew Movie Redux

I've written about the great Wrecking Crew movie before, but here's something different about it. It's an interview with producer Denny Tedesco along with some great clips from the movie. Unfortunately, it hasn't been released yet due to the fact that there are so many hit songs in it that the music licensing is enormous. It has won awards quite a few film festivals though.

Even if you don't know who the Wrecking Crew is, you've heard them before - a lot. They were the studio band for every hit that came out of LA in 60's and some of the 70's. The group played on almost every style of recording, including television theme songs, film scores, advertising jingles and almost every genre of music, with artists that included The Monkees, Bing Crosby, Nancy Sinatra, Bobby Vee, The Partridge Family, The Mamas & the Papas, The Carpenters, John Denver, Simon & Garfunkel and many more.

Enjoy this great clip. Find out more about the movie at Wrecking Crew Film.com.

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Rhianna "S&M" Song Analysis

Reader Clayton Felt asked for an analysis of Rhianna's "S&M," so here it is. This is a song from her fifth album Loud that charted top 10 in twelve countries. As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song itself, the arrangement, the sound and the production.

The Song
"S&M" is a bit different from most pop songs in that it has two choruses. The form looks like this:

Chorus, Verse, B Section, Chorus, Verse, B Section, Chorus, Chorus 2, Bridge, B Section, B Section, Chorus, Chorus 2

The Arrangement
The arrangement is a pretty good study in song dynamics. The choruses are loud, as are the B sections, but the verse and the bridge are somewhat mellow. For the most part, there's a big dance kick and claps instead of drums in the chorus and verses, but the song gets smaller with a drum kit during the B sections.

  * The Foundation - The huge kick and claps, synth bass line.

  * The Pad - Electric piano-like pad in the verses, and a synth pad in the bridge.

  * The Rhythm - A very subtle high hat sound

  * The Lead - The lead vocal

  * The Fills - The background vocal loops and answers

The Sound
The sound is really quite excellent. It's huge sounding, and compressed without sounding too much so. This where the depth is created with different timed delays, some of which have a touch of reverb added to the trail.

The Production
Excellent pop production, especially with the layered vocals and the song dynamics. There are not a lot of instruments (at least it doesn't sound that way), yet it sounds huge, with each section sounding distinctly different.

Send me your song requests.

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George Massenburg Demonstrates His Parametric Equalizer

Here's a great video of audio and recording great George Massenburg demonstrating his famous GML8200 parametric equalizer. The 8200 is revered for its lack of color and clean transparent sound and that's certainly in evidence here.

It may not be obvious in the video exactly what George is doing so let me outline a couple of EQ methods that he's touching on.

The first that he's showing is subtractive EQ, where he's turning up the gain of a band, then sweeping around the frequencies until he finds one that really sticks out. That's the frequency that needs to be attenuated.

The second is a technique called frequency juggling, where a frequency of one instrument (in this case the piano) is attenuated so that it leaves room so you can hear another better (in this case it's the vocal).

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Shania Twain "Any Man Of Mine" Song Analysis

A number of readers have asked for song analysis of more country music and Mutt Lange productions. Here's both in one song with Shania Twain's "Any Man Of Mine." This was the first #1 for Shania as well as her first crossover into Top 40 radio. The song was the second single from her 1995 breakthrough album The Women In Me.  As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song itself, the arrangement, the sound and the performance.

The Song
"Any Man Of Mine" is a pretty formula pop song wrapped in country instruments like fiddle and steel guitar. The form is simple, yet the arrangement makes it interesting and different. The song form looks like this:

Intro, Verse, B Section, Chorus, Half-intro, Verse, B Section, Chorus, Solo, Chorus, Outro

The solo is taken over half a chorus while the outro is just the intro repeated over and over.

The Arrangement
The arrangement is what really makes this song go, and it's a Mutt Lange trademark. His productions are always dense and you can bet if there's a hole between vocal lines he'll find something to tastefully fill it with. As far as song development is concerned, listen to how the verse starts out sparse and gradually gets larger as it goes along and instruments are introduced. Also, listen to how the 2nd verse develops so it's different from the first.


  * The Foundation: Bass and drums

  * The Pad: The steel guitar, but it's subtle.

  * The Rhythm: The fiddle actually serves dual duty with the lead by pushing the motion of the song along.

  * The Lead: Lead vocal and fiddle in intro and outro.

  * The Fills: In the chorus it switches between guitar, fiddle and steel.
 
The Sound
This album was one of the first batch of "new country" contemporary sounding records that used serious rock and pop techniques combined with traditional country instruments. When have you ever heard a John Bonham-like kick on a country record before? Well there's one here. And in the verse the snare is doubled with claps with a nice long reverb, which is far from traditional country.

Another of Mutt's trademarks is sonic layering, which you'll find everywhere in this song. First of all there's a good amount of reverb on the vocal but it blends so well into the track that you don't hear it, but listen to the guitar slides and fills during the first verse - dry as a bone so they seem like they're right in front of you. The background vocals also go from Shania singing a harmony with herself to big Def Leopard-like answer vocals. You can learn a lot about production from this record for sure.

The Performance
While all of the performances here are top flight, Shania's vocal does stand out, especially the ad libs. Everything is just great and disciplined playing.

Send me your requests for song analysis.

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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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