The posts on audio production tech topics I’ve put together here are tips drawn from various reputable resources and from personal experiences.
1.1.06
Sample Rates
You can probably remember this from science lessons.
> Something vibrates, - it makes the air vibrate, - the air vibrates the sensitive bones in your ear, - and this sensation is registered in your brain as sound.
> Things that vibrate fast are sensed as being high-pitched, and things that vibrate slowly are low-pitched. Things that make big vibrations are loud, and so on. These vibrations can be graphically represented by a waveform.
If you heard this sound, it would be a clear solid note like that made by a tuning fork. A higher pitched note would have more cycles in the same amount of time etc.
When sound is digitised, the waveform is reconstructed by measuring the voltage (the y axis) thousands of times a second and storing this reading in computer binary. When you record audio on your pc or when you save or listen to audio files, you may notice that the audio has two properties: bits and sample rate. The most common of these is 16bit 44.1Khz audio as found on CDs. But what do these numbers actually mean?
Bits (or Binary digits). In audio, it's very similar to your monitor display settings, as it's the amount of different voltages (amplitudes) that can be sampled. So, just as 8bit video only has 256 colours, 8bit audio only has 256 different amplitudes it can sample.
16-bit sample means that for one snapshot of audio, 16 bits (or 2 bytes of memory) are used to record the data.
A "sample" is supposed to tell you how "high" or "low" the volume of a wave is at that instant. Mathematically, a 16-bit sample allows you to read that volume level with a choice over 65,000 different values. That's a lot. But the human ear's ability goes beyond that.
24-bits (3 bytes of memory) can read/record nearly 17 million values. This is more in the neighborhood of the human ear's capability.
In other words, with 24-bit samples at 44kHz sampling rates, you can pretty much reproduce a sound so accurately that the human ear can't tell the difference.
Sample Rate is very simple as it's the amount of times every second that the audio is sampled or given a binary number. CDs are sampled at 44.1KHz or 44,100 times a second. The sampling rate tells how often a digital "snapshot" is taken of audio. Just like resolution in a photo, the more "dots per inch", the more dots you have representing that inch of photo, thus higher resolution. The computer is taking 44,100 snapshots of your audio per second.
Make a decision
A lot of sound cards can operate at 96kHz, 32 Bit. So we have to consider the load on your CPU & hard drive.
Now where do we find the balance in choosing a sample rate?
A sample rate of 44kHz allows you to record frequencies up to 22kHz, and that is the top of human hearing range. So 48 KHz, 24bit is just fine for most home studio recordings.
Now the choice is up to you, according to the standard you're trying to attain, and the capabilities of your PC.
Secondly, the frequency responses of most mics and musical instruments roll off at around 20 kHz. Thus, anything recorded above 20 kHz is probably junk anyway, just noise.
> Something vibrates, - it makes the air vibrate, - the air vibrates the sensitive bones in your ear, - and this sensation is registered in your brain as sound.
> Things that vibrate fast are sensed as being high-pitched, and things that vibrate slowly are low-pitched. Things that make big vibrations are loud, and so on. These vibrations can be graphically represented by a waveform.
If you heard this sound, it would be a clear solid note like that made by a tuning fork. A higher pitched note would have more cycles in the same amount of time etc.
When sound is digitised, the waveform is reconstructed by measuring the voltage (the y axis) thousands of times a second and storing this reading in computer binary. When you record audio on your pc or when you save or listen to audio files, you may notice that the audio has two properties: bits and sample rate. The most common of these is 16bit 44.1Khz audio as found on CDs. But what do these numbers actually mean?
Bits (or Binary digits). In audio, it's very similar to your monitor display settings, as it's the amount of different voltages (amplitudes) that can be sampled. So, just as 8bit video only has 256 colours, 8bit audio only has 256 different amplitudes it can sample.
16-bit sample means that for one snapshot of audio, 16 bits (or 2 bytes of memory) are used to record the data.
A "sample" is supposed to tell you how "high" or "low" the volume of a wave is at that instant. Mathematically, a 16-bit sample allows you to read that volume level with a choice over 65,000 different values. That's a lot. But the human ear's ability goes beyond that.
24-bits (3 bytes of memory) can read/record nearly 17 million values. This is more in the neighborhood of the human ear's capability.
In other words, with 24-bit samples at 44kHz sampling rates, you can pretty much reproduce a sound so accurately that the human ear can't tell the difference.
Sample Rate is very simple as it's the amount of times every second that the audio is sampled or given a binary number. CDs are sampled at 44.1KHz or 44,100 times a second. The sampling rate tells how often a digital "snapshot" is taken of audio. Just like resolution in a photo, the more "dots per inch", the more dots you have representing that inch of photo, thus higher resolution. The computer is taking 44,100 snapshots of your audio per second.
Make a decision
A lot of sound cards can operate at 96kHz, 32 Bit. So we have to consider the load on your CPU & hard drive.
Now where do we find the balance in choosing a sample rate?
A sample rate of 44kHz allows you to record frequencies up to 22kHz, and that is the top of human hearing range. So 48 KHz, 24bit is just fine for most home studio recordings.
Now the choice is up to you, according to the standard you're trying to attain, and the capabilities of your PC.
Secondly, the frequency responses of most mics and musical instruments roll off at around 20 kHz. Thus, anything recorded above 20 kHz is probably junk anyway, just noise.
Singing Tips
This is not a complete singing guide, but some tips which can be helpful. This is directed to singers and to you who record singers.
Who can Sing?
There are so many myths about singing. Many people believe that only "special" people can sing, you have to be "born" with it, it is "too late", etc, etc.
Anyone can learn to sing! Extremely talented people can go nowhere and moderately talented people can practice and go far. If you are willing to face your fears, commit to regular practice, you can sing.
However, that does not mean that you can sing anything. Not every voice is suited for all kinds of music.
Sometimes people wonder if they can learn to sing without a teacher.
Well...yes and no. A lot of voice training is actually "unlearning" all the habits we have picked up over the years. This can be extremely difficult to determine by yourself, so it’s helpful to have another pair of trained ears.
Coaching
The most important thing to remember is that relaxation is the key to a good vocal performance. Be aware that a singer may feel a lot of pressure. Keeping anxiety out of the vocal booth is one of the producer's and engineer's more important jobs. Any time you can fix a problem without ruffling the feathers of your songbird, you're doing everyone a favor.
Your singer's comfort and confidence levels are other factors that will affect the quality of the performance. Get off to a good start by having comfortable headphones, appropriate lighting, something to hold the lyric sheets, and a lot of hospitality to put them at ease.
If and when the going gets rough, it's wise to diffuse tension by suggesting a break.
Consistently Off pitch.
Intonation is a major issue for all vocalists, regardless of their ability, experience, and training. When a singer is off pitch, it can be because he or she is not hearing enough voice in the headphones or monitors if on stage. Therefore, a good headphone mix and stage monitors is essential. On the flip side, it's also possible that their hearing too much of one's voice and need to hear some more note defining music. Ask the singer's opinion on the balance and overall level of the headphone or stage monitor mix.
It may also help to turn down instruments that don't contribute to vocal delivery, like drums, percussion & bass.
The most important thing you can do as an engineer is be supportive and try to keep your recording session moving and enjoy the time. If your not getting a certain line, move on and get back to that line later on.
If the singer is not familiar with the song you will be recording, make sure to get a demo of the song to the singer well ahead of the recording time, so that they will have time to learn the song and get comfortable with it.
Off pitch here and there
It's usually easier to fix a few off-pitch notes or phrases than it is to redo an entire vocal performance. That’s why we punch in on single vocal tracks or record alternate phrases on another track and then compile them for the final mix.
What I do is record 4 to 8 tracks of the lead vocalist, one verse or even 1 or 2 lines at a time, and then compile the best takes later on. Take note though that you get al least 1 noticeably good take of every word. Take mental note, or take note on a lyric sheet what line you need to get a good take on, and record those lines till you have it.
Mind you, if your recording, you can always go back afterwards and pitch fix the vocal here and there, either manually or using Antares Autotune. I’d caution you doing that too heavily, as you will ruin the natural voice and make them sound computer-ish. Also, you can only really fix up to half a note sharp or flat, otherwise the vocal will start to sound Donald duck ish.
Key
First, before even working on your track, determine what is a good key for the intended singer, and get them to agree on a key with you. If you’re unable to work that out beforehand, then I go ahead and work on the tracks drums and midi performances in the general key range, but I don’t do any analog recordings as otherwise you will very likely have to redo them.
Tone
Often singers don’t want to sound screechy and will not give it their all due to that concern. However, screechy’ ness can be tamed at the mix stage, and the important thing is to get a powerful vocal. When recording back up vocals, singers should be put at ease that sounding screechy is of no concern really. Because when you blend multiple voices together, you need the power for one, and 2 you won’t hear this “screechy’ ness” in your vocal mix, as they will blend with each other and smooth themselves out. This is very important, because if you want powerful back up vocal parts, they will need to sing powerful (loud).
When the vocalist is too nasal. A solution is to have the singer pinch his or her nose shut and sing the melody of the song, substituting the syllable “we” for the lyrics. That exercise works best when repeated a few times, with awareness on keeping the tone in the mouth and not letting it go up into the nose.
When recording you will need to be exaggerative & almost overdo on the emotion a bit. Because in real life you get the physical emotion, but on a recording all you hear is the voice without any of the theatre and facial expressions. This is especially applicable to recording narrations and drama.
Breathing
Breathing for singing is like breathing out a slow stream of very warm, moist air on your fingers placed close to your lips.
The diaphragm is the muscle singers use to CONTROL the breath on the exhale.
Singing from your diaphragm, breath support & breath control are all commonly used terms among singers. Of course, what do these terms mean?
In this particular case, your diaphragm is what we normally call the stomach.
Definition for diaphragm:
Primary muscle used for respiration, located just below the lung bases.
No diaphragm is weak. It cannot be. Every living person uses it every minute of every day to breath, to stay alive. It is one of the most used muscles in the body. Sit ups do not strengthen it. Overweight people, thin people, average people all have strong diaphragms.
But, singers must learn to control their diaphragm on exhaling because it is the control of the breath that makes good singing possible.
When inhaling, the chest should be raised very little. The pressure of breath against the chest must be maintained for as long as you are sustaining a tone or sing a phrase.
Breathing exercise.
Inhale deeply and exhale completely. Again inhale and exhale.
Now try it again, only this time inhale for four counts, hold your breath for four counts, exhale over four counts and then wait four counts before repeating. Remember to inhale deeply and properly for singing.
Inhale 2 3 4, Hold 2 3 4, Exhale 2 3 4, Wait 2 3 4. (repeat)
This basic exercise is an easy one you can do every day. Plain fact, the more you exercise your breathing, the more control you will have over your voice. As you make progress, challenge yourself to increase the breathing count to 8, 12 or 16.
For best results mix and match the numbers. The size of singing phrase is never the same, so practicing all different airflow situations is ideal.
Breathing correctly needs to be a habit, meaning you need to do it correctly without thinking about it. So in the beginning you really want to concentrate on the proper technique.
Breathing technique:
Start by taking a deep breath, filling your lungs all the way down to the abdomen (not just the top half of your lungs). Then let it out very slowly in a constant stream. Imagine that you're exhaling through a very thin straw.
Do this ten times.
Next, do five more, but on these, pick a nice comfortable note and hold it through the entire breath. Don't let it change in pitch or volume. Use a different pitch for each breath.
Next, do five more of these, gradually CHANGING the volume for each note from zero up to a medium volume and back to zero over the entire duration of the breath.
For the last set of five breaths do everything you just did in the previous five, but change the vowels: a,e,i,o,u. Make the change gradual in any order you wish.
It sound like a Buddhist chant, so maybe don’t do it when you have visitors.
Vibrato
Some alternative singers may not always use much vibrato, but singers often suffer when they don't have vibrato, because they sing a little flat, or without much dynamics, force, or expression. So try to eventually develop a nice vibrato.
Some singers do have vibrato, but it's naturally kind of fast or quivery. That's OK for some kinds of music, like country music. But learning to control it or use it differently, will expand the range of styles of songs you can sing & record well.
(Exercise: Blow on your finger in a steady stream, as if singing a note. Alter your breath to form a stronger and softer stream of air.)
At this point I should mention that you can find a lot of vocal exercises on line if you do a search for them. Often different peoples opinions will conflict, but you can still find a lot of helpful information.
TIMING
Singers with timing problems tend to err toward one extreme or the other. Most tend to rush, often out of nervousness. As a singer, try to keep that in mind. Singing a little late if a bit more comfortable then singing rushed. Course, the ideal is to sing on time.
Try moving a part of your body in time with the beat if that helps. Preferably not something to noticeable. (Tap your foot, or tap yourself with your finger.)
If your recording someone on a song, make sure you have a metronome of some kind playing for a rhythm reference.
POPPED Ps, Bs, AND Ts
Remember that there are many causes of popped plosives on the vocal mic and that the singer is not always to blame. Nylon-mesh filters should be standard equipment for any vocal recording, not only to eliminate popping but also to protect the delicate diaphragms of your microphones.
Most of the time I’ve just used a coat hanger, circle shaped, with a pair of women’s stocking pulled over it.
Although a foam-rubber windscreen may be more effective as a preventive measure, foam can cut high-frequency information, making the vocal track sound muffled or dull.
Sometimes, moving the mic up or down an inch or two will get it out of the blast zone.
The singer can also experiment with moving the head slightly to either side of the mic, in effect aiming the plosives away from the diaphragm.
SIBILANCE
Sing clearly. Take note not to drop sibilance’s, such as ss’s, t’s etc.
Extended phrases
Overly sustained phrases are a problem when the dwindling supply of air results in strained or off-pitch notes at phrase ends.
A thing to watch out for that a lot of singers do is to let their voice peter out at the end of a line. To deliver a convincing vocal you should try to hold out your notes with power and give them definite endings. (Not fade out and weaken)
Do’s and Don’ts
Quick fixes for tired voices such as hot sauce or alcohol are to be avoided.
Singing while sick or when the vocal cords are tired or swollen should also be discouraged.
Be aware that stress, a busy schedule, allergies, and lack of sleep can also take their toll on a singer's stamina.
DO’s:
• Get plenty of sleep before.
• Drink water during sessions.
• Drink warm tea with honey (not sugar) to soothe and moisten the throat and clear congestion.
• Try deep-breathing exercises during sessions.
• Gargle with hot salt water to reduce swelling of the vocal cords.
DON'Ts:
• Don’t push the endurance by continuing to sing once your voice becomes uncomfortable or painful.
• Don’t drink alcohol or orange juice. Caffeine and dairy products should also be avoided before and during sessions.
• Don’t talk excessively.
• Don’t whisper to save the voice. (It is actually worse for the voice than talking.)
• Don’t cough or clear the throat loudly, because that is abrasive to the vocal cords.
Singing pointers:
Place your feet flat on the floor and stand with "good posture".
Don't do anything that will hurt your voice.
No ice-cold drinks. Reason: It tightens up your vocal cords. They must be warm and loose in order for you to sing properly.
Don't sing your loudest for extended periods of time.
Keep away from air conditioning for at least two hours before a performance.
Don't exert yourself the day before a singing performance.
Keep the tip of your tongue below your teeth.
Don’t sing and dance at the same time. (Lip sync)
Learning how to sing well takes time. There are no shortcuts.
Breathing properly for singing requires the shoulders to remain down and relaxed, not rise with the breath intake. A singer will gain power to their voice by strengthening the muscles in their ribcage and back.
Communicate the music's message. During performance it is very important to communicate the message of the song.
If you make a "mistake" don't point it out to your audience, even with body language. It is likely they did not even notice.
And even if they did notice, pretend you didn’t notice.
Diaphragm support. Develop the strength and coordination of the diaphragm and become a pro at controlling the speed of the airflow released, the quantity of the airflow released and the consistency of the airflow released.
Free your natural voice. Don't be a slave to any music style -- even your favorite one. Learn to sing with your full and natural voice by developing your vocal strength and coordination. Then add style to achieve any singing style you desire.
Never guess the pitch you are about to sing. Hear the note in your head before you open your mouth.
High notes require consistent and steady airflow. Many students tend to hold their breath as they sing higher. Let the air flow.
Increase your breathing capacity and control by doing breathing exercises every day.
If you are having trouble getting your body completely involved with singing, try doing some jumping jacks for a few minutes before getting started again.
Know your limits. Don't sing too high or too low. Never strain or push your voice. Doing so will not result in a higher or lower singing range, or a stronger voice, only a voice that has suffered undue stress.
Low notes are often sung with too much airflow. Try decreasing your airflow to achieve a more natural, more relaxed tone.
Don’t sing if it hurts to swallow.
Open your mouth wider. Nine times out of ten this will help you achieve a stronger, more defined vocal tone.
Exercise your voice daily by singing along with songs of various styles.
Singing Exercises & Scales
• Stand with your shoulders relaxed, arms by your side.
• Breath in slowly.
• Sing overly accented scales using: Baa Bee Bii Boo Buu. (Example)
• Sing one note, holding the note for as long as you can without becoming short of breath.
• Try singing up and down a scale using “do, re mi…”.
• Sing short notes (known as Staccato) as well as long ones - Practice to Staccato.
• Record your efforts, notice the notes that do not sound right and concentrate on those until they do!
Body position points:
Good posture .
Keep your chin level.
Keep your knees loose.
Keep your head up.
Keep your shoulders sloping and relaxed.
Keep your toes pointed forward with your weight on heels and soles.
Keep the front of your neck loose - don't stretch it.
Keep your back muscles relaxed.
Avoid holding your shoulders lifted and puffed out.
Stand with your shoulders relaxed, arms by your side.
Breath in slowly.
Relax and SMILE.
Claim the keys.
Who can Sing?
There are so many myths about singing. Many people believe that only "special" people can sing, you have to be "born" with it, it is "too late", etc, etc.
Anyone can learn to sing! Extremely talented people can go nowhere and moderately talented people can practice and go far. If you are willing to face your fears, commit to regular practice, you can sing.
However, that does not mean that you can sing anything. Not every voice is suited for all kinds of music.
Sometimes people wonder if they can learn to sing without a teacher.
Well...yes and no. A lot of voice training is actually "unlearning" all the habits we have picked up over the years. This can be extremely difficult to determine by yourself, so it’s helpful to have another pair of trained ears.
Coaching
The most important thing to remember is that relaxation is the key to a good vocal performance. Be aware that a singer may feel a lot of pressure. Keeping anxiety out of the vocal booth is one of the producer's and engineer's more important jobs. Any time you can fix a problem without ruffling the feathers of your songbird, you're doing everyone a favor.
Your singer's comfort and confidence levels are other factors that will affect the quality of the performance. Get off to a good start by having comfortable headphones, appropriate lighting, something to hold the lyric sheets, and a lot of hospitality to put them at ease.
If and when the going gets rough, it's wise to diffuse tension by suggesting a break.
Consistently Off pitch.
Intonation is a major issue for all vocalists, regardless of their ability, experience, and training. When a singer is off pitch, it can be because he or she is not hearing enough voice in the headphones or monitors if on stage. Therefore, a good headphone mix and stage monitors is essential. On the flip side, it's also possible that their hearing too much of one's voice and need to hear some more note defining music. Ask the singer's opinion on the balance and overall level of the headphone or stage monitor mix.
It may also help to turn down instruments that don't contribute to vocal delivery, like drums, percussion & bass.
The most important thing you can do as an engineer is be supportive and try to keep your recording session moving and enjoy the time. If your not getting a certain line, move on and get back to that line later on.
If the singer is not familiar with the song you will be recording, make sure to get a demo of the song to the singer well ahead of the recording time, so that they will have time to learn the song and get comfortable with it.
Off pitch here and there
It's usually easier to fix a few off-pitch notes or phrases than it is to redo an entire vocal performance. That’s why we punch in on single vocal tracks or record alternate phrases on another track and then compile them for the final mix.
What I do is record 4 to 8 tracks of the lead vocalist, one verse or even 1 or 2 lines at a time, and then compile the best takes later on. Take note though that you get al least 1 noticeably good take of every word. Take mental note, or take note on a lyric sheet what line you need to get a good take on, and record those lines till you have it.
Mind you, if your recording, you can always go back afterwards and pitch fix the vocal here and there, either manually or using Antares Autotune. I’d caution you doing that too heavily, as you will ruin the natural voice and make them sound computer-ish. Also, you can only really fix up to half a note sharp or flat, otherwise the vocal will start to sound Donald duck ish.
Key
First, before even working on your track, determine what is a good key for the intended singer, and get them to agree on a key with you. If you’re unable to work that out beforehand, then I go ahead and work on the tracks drums and midi performances in the general key range, but I don’t do any analog recordings as otherwise you will very likely have to redo them.
Tone
Often singers don’t want to sound screechy and will not give it their all due to that concern. However, screechy’ ness can be tamed at the mix stage, and the important thing is to get a powerful vocal. When recording back up vocals, singers should be put at ease that sounding screechy is of no concern really. Because when you blend multiple voices together, you need the power for one, and 2 you won’t hear this “screechy’ ness” in your vocal mix, as they will blend with each other and smooth themselves out. This is very important, because if you want powerful back up vocal parts, they will need to sing powerful (loud).
When the vocalist is too nasal. A solution is to have the singer pinch his or her nose shut and sing the melody of the song, substituting the syllable “we” for the lyrics. That exercise works best when repeated a few times, with awareness on keeping the tone in the mouth and not letting it go up into the nose.
When recording you will need to be exaggerative & almost overdo on the emotion a bit. Because in real life you get the physical emotion, but on a recording all you hear is the voice without any of the theatre and facial expressions. This is especially applicable to recording narrations and drama.
Breathing
Breathing for singing is like breathing out a slow stream of very warm, moist air on your fingers placed close to your lips.
The diaphragm is the muscle singers use to CONTROL the breath on the exhale.
Singing from your diaphragm, breath support & breath control are all commonly used terms among singers. Of course, what do these terms mean?
In this particular case, your diaphragm is what we normally call the stomach.
Definition for diaphragm:
Primary muscle used for respiration, located just below the lung bases.
No diaphragm is weak. It cannot be. Every living person uses it every minute of every day to breath, to stay alive. It is one of the most used muscles in the body. Sit ups do not strengthen it. Overweight people, thin people, average people all have strong diaphragms.
But, singers must learn to control their diaphragm on exhaling because it is the control of the breath that makes good singing possible.
When inhaling, the chest should be raised very little. The pressure of breath against the chest must be maintained for as long as you are sustaining a tone or sing a phrase.
Breathing exercise.
Inhale deeply and exhale completely. Again inhale and exhale.
Now try it again, only this time inhale for four counts, hold your breath for four counts, exhale over four counts and then wait four counts before repeating. Remember to inhale deeply and properly for singing.
Inhale 2 3 4, Hold 2 3 4, Exhale 2 3 4, Wait 2 3 4. (repeat)
This basic exercise is an easy one you can do every day. Plain fact, the more you exercise your breathing, the more control you will have over your voice. As you make progress, challenge yourself to increase the breathing count to 8, 12 or 16.
For best results mix and match the numbers. The size of singing phrase is never the same, so practicing all different airflow situations is ideal.
Breathing correctly needs to be a habit, meaning you need to do it correctly without thinking about it. So in the beginning you really want to concentrate on the proper technique.
Breathing technique:
Start by taking a deep breath, filling your lungs all the way down to the abdomen (not just the top half of your lungs). Then let it out very slowly in a constant stream. Imagine that you're exhaling through a very thin straw.
Do this ten times.
Next, do five more, but on these, pick a nice comfortable note and hold it through the entire breath. Don't let it change in pitch or volume. Use a different pitch for each breath.
Next, do five more of these, gradually CHANGING the volume for each note from zero up to a medium volume and back to zero over the entire duration of the breath.
For the last set of five breaths do everything you just did in the previous five, but change the vowels: a,e,i,o,u. Make the change gradual in any order you wish.
It sound like a Buddhist chant, so maybe don’t do it when you have visitors.
Vibrato
Some alternative singers may not always use much vibrato, but singers often suffer when they don't have vibrato, because they sing a little flat, or without much dynamics, force, or expression. So try to eventually develop a nice vibrato.
Some singers do have vibrato, but it's naturally kind of fast or quivery. That's OK for some kinds of music, like country music. But learning to control it or use it differently, will expand the range of styles of songs you can sing & record well.
(Exercise: Blow on your finger in a steady stream, as if singing a note. Alter your breath to form a stronger and softer stream of air.)
At this point I should mention that you can find a lot of vocal exercises on line if you do a search for them. Often different peoples opinions will conflict, but you can still find a lot of helpful information.
TIMING
Singers with timing problems tend to err toward one extreme or the other. Most tend to rush, often out of nervousness. As a singer, try to keep that in mind. Singing a little late if a bit more comfortable then singing rushed. Course, the ideal is to sing on time.
Try moving a part of your body in time with the beat if that helps. Preferably not something to noticeable. (Tap your foot, or tap yourself with your finger.)
If your recording someone on a song, make sure you have a metronome of some kind playing for a rhythm reference.
POPPED Ps, Bs, AND Ts
Remember that there are many causes of popped plosives on the vocal mic and that the singer is not always to blame. Nylon-mesh filters should be standard equipment for any vocal recording, not only to eliminate popping but also to protect the delicate diaphragms of your microphones.
Most of the time I’ve just used a coat hanger, circle shaped, with a pair of women’s stocking pulled over it.
Although a foam-rubber windscreen may be more effective as a preventive measure, foam can cut high-frequency information, making the vocal track sound muffled or dull.
Sometimes, moving the mic up or down an inch or two will get it out of the blast zone.
The singer can also experiment with moving the head slightly to either side of the mic, in effect aiming the plosives away from the diaphragm.
SIBILANCE
Sing clearly. Take note not to drop sibilance’s, such as ss’s, t’s etc.
Extended phrases
Overly sustained phrases are a problem when the dwindling supply of air results in strained or off-pitch notes at phrase ends.
A thing to watch out for that a lot of singers do is to let their voice peter out at the end of a line. To deliver a convincing vocal you should try to hold out your notes with power and give them definite endings. (Not fade out and weaken)
Do’s and Don’ts
Quick fixes for tired voices such as hot sauce or alcohol are to be avoided.
Singing while sick or when the vocal cords are tired or swollen should also be discouraged.
Be aware that stress, a busy schedule, allergies, and lack of sleep can also take their toll on a singer's stamina.
DO’s:
• Get plenty of sleep before.
• Drink water during sessions.
• Drink warm tea with honey (not sugar) to soothe and moisten the throat and clear congestion.
• Try deep-breathing exercises during sessions.
• Gargle with hot salt water to reduce swelling of the vocal cords.
DON'Ts:
• Don’t push the endurance by continuing to sing once your voice becomes uncomfortable or painful.
• Don’t drink alcohol or orange juice. Caffeine and dairy products should also be avoided before and during sessions.
• Don’t talk excessively.
• Don’t whisper to save the voice. (It is actually worse for the voice than talking.)
• Don’t cough or clear the throat loudly, because that is abrasive to the vocal cords.
Singing pointers:
Place your feet flat on the floor and stand with "good posture".
Don't do anything that will hurt your voice.
No ice-cold drinks. Reason: It tightens up your vocal cords. They must be warm and loose in order for you to sing properly.
Don't sing your loudest for extended periods of time.
Keep away from air conditioning for at least two hours before a performance.
Don't exert yourself the day before a singing performance.
Keep the tip of your tongue below your teeth.
Don’t sing and dance at the same time. (Lip sync)
Learning how to sing well takes time. There are no shortcuts.
Breathing properly for singing requires the shoulders to remain down and relaxed, not rise with the breath intake. A singer will gain power to their voice by strengthening the muscles in their ribcage and back.
Communicate the music's message. During performance it is very important to communicate the message of the song.
If you make a "mistake" don't point it out to your audience, even with body language. It is likely they did not even notice.
And even if they did notice, pretend you didn’t notice.
Diaphragm support. Develop the strength and coordination of the diaphragm and become a pro at controlling the speed of the airflow released, the quantity of the airflow released and the consistency of the airflow released.
Free your natural voice. Don't be a slave to any music style -- even your favorite one. Learn to sing with your full and natural voice by developing your vocal strength and coordination. Then add style to achieve any singing style you desire.
Never guess the pitch you are about to sing. Hear the note in your head before you open your mouth.
High notes require consistent and steady airflow. Many students tend to hold their breath as they sing higher. Let the air flow.
Increase your breathing capacity and control by doing breathing exercises every day.
If you are having trouble getting your body completely involved with singing, try doing some jumping jacks for a few minutes before getting started again.
Know your limits. Don't sing too high or too low. Never strain or push your voice. Doing so will not result in a higher or lower singing range, or a stronger voice, only a voice that has suffered undue stress.
Low notes are often sung with too much airflow. Try decreasing your airflow to achieve a more natural, more relaxed tone.
Don’t sing if it hurts to swallow.
Open your mouth wider. Nine times out of ten this will help you achieve a stronger, more defined vocal tone.
Exercise your voice daily by singing along with songs of various styles.
Singing Exercises & Scales
• Stand with your shoulders relaxed, arms by your side.
• Breath in slowly.
• Sing overly accented scales using: Baa Bee Bii Boo Buu. (Example)
• Sing one note, holding the note for as long as you can without becoming short of breath.
• Try singing up and down a scale using “do, re mi…”.
• Sing short notes (known as Staccato) as well as long ones - Practice to Staccato.
• Record your efforts, notice the notes that do not sound right and concentrate on those until they do!
Body position points:
Good posture .
Keep your chin level.
Keep your knees loose.
Keep your head up.
Keep your shoulders sloping and relaxed.
Keep your toes pointed forward with your weight on heels and soles.
Keep the front of your neck loose - don't stretch it.
Keep your back muscles relaxed.
Avoid holding your shoulders lifted and puffed out.
Stand with your shoulders relaxed, arms by your side.
Breath in slowly.
Relax and SMILE.
Claim the keys.
Mixing basics
Here we’ll talk live stage band mixing and primarioly mixing your song in your home studio.
Overall picture.
Making powerful tracks begins with the writing of the song, then the performance, and then the mix.
Don't mix with headphones. Use them only to monitor single sources or to detect noise, hiss, or rumble and check how the bass sounds on headphones.
Phones are often very misleading when it comes to the question if all instruments are well balanced. Vocals tend to be mixed too loud, while “wide” signals such as pads are often too low in volume.
It's always good to have a second pair of ears listen to your song mix when it’s done. Or even while your mixing.
When you start work on a new mix, rather than solo the individual instruments and commence equalizing, compressing, and so on, try first to make the song sound great using only fader levels and pan positions. This approach will not only get you focused right away on the bigger picture, but it will also help you hear what's working and what isn't. For example, you may find that certain instruments are fighting for the same sonic space. In that case, try panning them far apart in the stereo field. Later, you can differentiate them further with EQ.
Knowing the style
Before talking about how to get a great live mix, you need to know what one is and depending on the musical genre, the definition can vary quite a bit. For instance, although a big, in-your-face, chest thumping kick drum sound would likely send a hip-hop band to seventh heaven, the same sound would
be inappropriate for a soft love song.
Fundamentals:
Remember that the sound from the P.A. should reinforce what's coming directly from the stage.
“Before putting any drums into the mix, listen to what's coming off the stage and ask yourself, ‘What can't I hear?' “Then bring up the buried instruments to get them balanced with what's happening. Once you have the quieter stuff represented, you can listen to the drums and the bass. Standard sound checks that start with drums can end up with this huge drum sound that everything else
has to get on top of.” Of course, that philosophy works best in a smaller room in which all audience members can hear a reasonable portion of the acoustic stage sound.
SubGrouping - method 1
Say you’re micing a large band, and you have a couple of mixers handy. One commonly used technique for keeping levels under control is called subgroup busing. You can control entire groups of sounds with a single fader (or 2 faders for stereo).
For example, say you have seven drum mics on seven separate input channels, all nicely mixed . If you want to raise or lower the level of the entire set without the hassle of moving all seven faders in perfect balance to each other, you can just use small mixer and then go out of that mixer into your main mixer.
SubGrouping – method 2
Or you can do ”true” subgrouping, if you have a mixer that includes buss faders. You can have your drums all be assigned to buss 1 &2 which then goes to the stereo out of the master fader. Thus controlling the overall volume of the drum kit itself.
You can do the same with background vocals etc. That way, sections can be easily controlled from the master section while individual faders are still
available for tweaking.
Cleaning up
Clean up individual tracks with mutes, gates, or however. To do this, you have to solo each track, listen carefully for any unwanted noise, and then clean it out. You can use gates if needed for analog equipment. If your doing computer editing then you can just cut out the noisy breaks the tracks.. You should also check for unwanted noise on continuous-playing tracks-for example, amp hiss on an electric-guitar part.
Reference
One helpful things you can do is compare your mix to a similar commercial CD. Though this can be done at any point in the mix, wait until later in the mix. On the other hand, if you don't have an immediate sense of direction for a mix, listening to a few finished mixes may give you some ideas.
Be careful when referencing though, as there's really no standard in mixing, so your mix could sound quite different from someone else's and still be very good. The point of referencing is to make sure your in the ballpark - not to tell you how to throw the ball. Referencing is most useful when making final decisions about levels for bass, vocals, and effects.
You don’t have to listen to a song over and over, in fact that will often discourage you and/or make you alter your mix so drastically that you’ll end up ruining it.
Points on Referencing:
1. The commercial song has been compressed, enhanced & otherwise optimized by some mastering house. So give yourself a little leeway, and expect that your mix will not come out as punchy & present.
2. It's good not to only reference to one secular song, but rather check your mix against a couple different songs. Because even amongst good mixes, there is still loads of variety.
Monitoring
As we've all heard time and again, it's important to monitor at various levels, including loud, soft, and a couple of points in between. But the single most helpful monitoring trick is to listen not only at very low levels, but also in mono.
Mono
Mono compatibility refers to how a mix holds up when played through a mono system (that is, when the two channels are summed to one). Phase problems, though perhaps not apparent in stereo playback, can result in dropouts, comb filtering, and other weirdnesses when the mix is played mono. Stereo effects, too, can be a culprit — what sounded spacious in stereo may evaporate or turn to mud when reproduced in mono.
Gain strategy
It's always a question where to "push it" to get more volume. Should you raise your mixer Gains (or "Trim") or should you push the individual Channel volume faders?
If you want the best signal to noise ratio, keep this in mind:
Digital Mixers: High Gains, Low Channel volumes. Also, better to push the Master Fader & keep the Channels low, then vice versa.
Analog Mixers: Low Gains, High Channel volumes.
And another rule of thumb:
Outputs High, Inputs Low.
In other words, it's generally better to play your guitars, samplers & sounds modules at the highest possible levels (without distorting of course!).
Same for your computer audio. The higher the volume (or velocity) you can run your tracks & outputs, the more you can take advantage of the whole available digital audio range. Turn your computer tracks & outputs up, & turn down the mixer channels, if there's a choice. There are exceptions of course, but this is general advice.
One thing to be careful for! When mixing your drums, or whole song for that matter, if you are doing it at aloud volume, you are fooling yourself a bit in that you think that it’s sounding good, when actually your just enjoying the volume. So of you like hearing things at aloud level, be sure to regularly pull back the level, so that you can get a more realistic idea of what people will end up hearing.
Lead vocal
Even if there are imperfections in your mix, you should try to at least have the lead vocal sound good. That’s what people often judge a song by, how good the singer sounds. The public may be able to excuse all the musicians for their faults, but they won’t excuse the singer, as the vocalist needs to carry the song.
Ride The Fader/volume. In most audio production programs you can create a volume envelope and follow your vocal level. This is very useful and highly recommended that you follow your lead vocals to dip the loud parts and raise the low “hard to understand” parts.
EQ
A mistake that novice mixers often make is boosting every band of EQ on every channel. Though this may initially make the signals sound "better", the seeming improvement is largely due to the signal just being louder. (Remember, boosting EQ levels adds gain.)
Whenever possible, cut rather than boost-or use a combination of cuts and boosts-to get the sound that you want. In general, experienced engineers end up using a combination of cuts and boosts on any given channel.
Soloing an instrument to EQ it can be helpful, but the only thing that really matters is how the instrument sounds in the mix. Therefore, be prepared to change the EQ once all the other instruments are brought in. Often, after an instrument is equalized appropriately for a mix, it sounds quite unappealing when soloed.
EQing your lead vocal:
Use EQ to improve the presence, sibilance, or warmth of the vocal only if it needs it. Don’t automatically go “fixing” things if they are not “broken”.
High Frequencies:
At mixing time, listen to the high frequencies in your Lead Vocals. (Let's call "high frequencies" from 5000Hz up to 20000Hz.) See how they compare to the high frequencies of other elements in the mix. For example, if the High Hat is bright & the Lead Vocal is dull, then you’ll need to balance it out.
Here are some elements in a song that dwell in the same neighborhood as the highs in the Lead Vocal, starting with the most common troublemakers: Tambourines, Shakers, High Hats, Cymbals, other high percussion.
Maybe high frequencies are not so clear on your monitors. It would be best to hear your mix on several sets of different speakers.
It might help to turn up the treble all the way on your amp (if it has tone controls)- and see what starts to hurt your ears first. Maybe a more pleasant way to hear highs relative to each other is to play the mix through headphones, but hold the headphones a couple feet away from you. Start with the volume low, or off, & gradually turn it up, and see which sounds show up first. Those are your strongest trebles.
De-Essing:
Another problem is where your vocal is generally nice, your track is nice, but then those sibilant "s, ch, or t" sounds (& others) just pop out & lash at you.
A de-esser is basically a compressor that just compresses a certain frequency range; typically between 1 KHz and up. The “ss” frequencies for singers vary, but typically they’re around 6 to 10 Khz.
Be careful though not to de-ess too much, otherwise your singer will sound like he or she has a lisp.
Low Frequencies:
You've all experienced the difficulty of deciding how "warm" to make your Lead Vocal, I'm sure. You don't want it to be thin & weak. But if the lower end of the vocal is too warm, it may sound mushy, or may sound too "big" and "in front" compared to the track. (That's because of the "proximity effect"---when someone is closer to you, or to the mike, the lows in their voice are more emphasized. Thus, adding lows can make a voice sound "closer" to you.)
How warm you want the Lead Vocal is very subjective & it also depends on the gender of music.
If you like "warmth", how much of it you can keep may also depend on the quality of your highs-- the "presence" of your Lead Vocal and also how many instruments are playing in your song.
So the lower end of the Vocal is the hardest to adjust. I'm talking about from around 250Hz on down to around 100Hz. The problem is that almost all instruments have frequency content in the 100Hz – 250Hz range. Guitars, keyboards, snare, bass tone, etc.
So what to do? Well, you may have to make some decisions. One thing for sure, if two sounds have the same frequency content, and they are coming from the same direction, the louder one will "mask" the softer one—you won't hear it! That's "Masking". If the piano & voice are sounding at the same note range, then you'll need to decide if one of them will be a little thicker & the other a bit thinner & brighter (or vice versa). (Will get back to this point)
Obviously, it may help to make sure they're not panned to the same position.
Female vocals are a little easier to deal with because their note range is usually a little higher than the mid-range of the
music track. But guys are right down there. If it's a problem, you may want to
consider dropping an instrument that's competing with or "masking" the Lead Vocal. It's no wonder that so many popular
songs do have the Lead Vocal EQ'd a little thinner. Anyway, this leads to the next section:
Low end ("mud-range")
The Bass & other elements can get very thick if you don’t watch for that in your mix. Like from 130Hz to 190Hz.
Concerning the Bass specifically: You want those true lows from about 80Hz or 90Hz on down. You want the attack, maybe up around 2K or
3K. You may want the nice growl or upper bass harmonics around 600Hz. But generally, you DON'T WANT a lot of content in your Bass in that Mud Range.
Not only the Bass, but often a Snare, a Keyboard, an acoustic guitar, or Lead & Back-up vocals will have too much frequency content in this range.
Try to bring up the overall bass of your song and you’ll often find you mostly get "muff", instead of defined bottom end.
So I would suggest that if possible, you really watch the 160 Hz area, and "hollow out" your Bass & other instruments just a bit around that range. Don't overdo, but try it. Maybe you could get by if just one instrument is stronger in the mud range. But if a couple instruments or voices are wallowing around down there, it's not going to sound great.
Effects
Choose effects carefully and limit the number of different effects. For example, very few songs need more than two or three different reverbs. Numerous hit songs have sounded great using only one. The idea here is to create the illusion of everything being in the same space. Hall and room reverb settings are good starting points; in general, it's best to save the more unusual effects for individual instruments.
If you want to use reverb, try sending every channel to the same global reverb. To hear your reverb and see what your doing, solo it to hear the size, decay, and overall coloration of the reverb “space”.
The primary reason to add reverb and other effects to a sound in your song is to enhance it, so don’t drown your mix. Which effect or effects you choose, and how
much of each you add, depends on the style of music and the sound, but in general it shouldn't be distracting.
For example, too much reverb can make a lead vocal hard to understand.
When selecting a reverb decay time, I would keep reverb decay time to 1.5 sec for fast songs, and 2.5 sec for slow songs. I wouldn’t go over 3 sec. other wise the song will be changing chords and the reverb will be dragging over them too long and interfering.
Find one or two reverb settings that sound good with 90 % of everything you'll use on the song.
Masking
When two sounds are at similar frequencies, the one that is slightly louder will make the softer sound unable to be heard.
Because of masking, every instrument in a mix sounds quite different when it’s soloed (listened to by itself) compared to how it sounds in the mix.
When instruments put out sounds, they put out the tuned frequency and they put out energy at multiples of the tuned frequency. Going to a piano and playing the A above middle-C will cause a sound of the tuned frequency at 440 Hz. But
the piano will also put out energy at multiples 0f 440 Hz, at 880 Hz, 1320 Hz, 1760 Hz, 2200 Hz, 2640 Hz and so forth. The "multiples" are called harmonics. The energy level of the different harmonics determines the "tone" of the instrument and
is the main factor as to why a piano and another instrument playing the same note sound different.
When an instrument is played with other instruments, some of the harmonics are masked, making the instrument sound different "in the mix" than "by itself."
The instrument's tone can be adjusted so that it sounds the best, when playing with the other instruments. Getting a mix that sounds good now may not sound as good when the other instruments are added.
Equalizing the instrument's sound while mixing is one effective way to overcome masking.
This is especially true for the bass and for the vocals. Typically the bass guitar has to have accented midrange attack and
string sounds to sound good in a mix. The tendency is to boost the fullness of the bass when you listen to it by itself. This
will cause the bass to get "lost" in mix of instruments 90% of the time. The vocal usually has to have over-accented
presence and be slightly "thin" sounding to sound good with other instruments playing.
When equalizing guitars, the 2.5 kHz range of frequencies are often boosted to give an increased "attack" to the guitar.
Often, to sound good in a mix of instruments, the guitar has to have an unnaturally loud attack. If, however, there are several guitars, you should not boost all of them at the same attack frequency. If you boosted 3 guitars at 2.5 kHz, you will insure that one guitar will cover up the sound of another. The correct procedure in this case is to use slightly different frequencies on the different guitars, like 2.5 kHz, 4 kHz and 5 kHz.
Mixing the final to tape.
Just as photographers will shoot several rolls of film to get one usable shot, you should “print” several versions of the final mix. That way, you increase your odds of getting the "right" mix. This is another way to increase the "time buffer," so you can choose your best mix at a later day, when you’re ears are fresh.
Try to print at least four versions of a mix. The first being the one that you think is right. The second is the same as the first, but with a bit more bass. The third is the same as the first, but with a bit more vocal. And the fourth has both more bass and more vocal.
If you can, also try to mix a version without lead vocal another with no vocals included.
Overall picture.
Making powerful tracks begins with the writing of the song, then the performance, and then the mix.
Don't mix with headphones. Use them only to monitor single sources or to detect noise, hiss, or rumble and check how the bass sounds on headphones.
Phones are often very misleading when it comes to the question if all instruments are well balanced. Vocals tend to be mixed too loud, while “wide” signals such as pads are often too low in volume.
It's always good to have a second pair of ears listen to your song mix when it’s done. Or even while your mixing.
When you start work on a new mix, rather than solo the individual instruments and commence equalizing, compressing, and so on, try first to make the song sound great using only fader levels and pan positions. This approach will not only get you focused right away on the bigger picture, but it will also help you hear what's working and what isn't. For example, you may find that certain instruments are fighting for the same sonic space. In that case, try panning them far apart in the stereo field. Later, you can differentiate them further with EQ.
Knowing the style
Before talking about how to get a great live mix, you need to know what one is and depending on the musical genre, the definition can vary quite a bit. For instance, although a big, in-your-face, chest thumping kick drum sound would likely send a hip-hop band to seventh heaven, the same sound would
be inappropriate for a soft love song.
Fundamentals:
Remember that the sound from the P.A. should reinforce what's coming directly from the stage.
“Before putting any drums into the mix, listen to what's coming off the stage and ask yourself, ‘What can't I hear?' “Then bring up the buried instruments to get them balanced with what's happening. Once you have the quieter stuff represented, you can listen to the drums and the bass. Standard sound checks that start with drums can end up with this huge drum sound that everything else
has to get on top of.” Of course, that philosophy works best in a smaller room in which all audience members can hear a reasonable portion of the acoustic stage sound.
SubGrouping - method 1
Say you’re micing a large band, and you have a couple of mixers handy. One commonly used technique for keeping levels under control is called subgroup busing. You can control entire groups of sounds with a single fader (or 2 faders for stereo).
For example, say you have seven drum mics on seven separate input channels, all nicely mixed . If you want to raise or lower the level of the entire set without the hassle of moving all seven faders in perfect balance to each other, you can just use small mixer and then go out of that mixer into your main mixer.
SubGrouping – method 2
Or you can do ”true” subgrouping, if you have a mixer that includes buss faders. You can have your drums all be assigned to buss 1 &2 which then goes to the stereo out of the master fader. Thus controlling the overall volume of the drum kit itself.
You can do the same with background vocals etc. That way, sections can be easily controlled from the master section while individual faders are still
available for tweaking.
Cleaning up
Clean up individual tracks with mutes, gates, or however. To do this, you have to solo each track, listen carefully for any unwanted noise, and then clean it out. You can use gates if needed for analog equipment. If your doing computer editing then you can just cut out the noisy breaks the tracks.. You should also check for unwanted noise on continuous-playing tracks-for example, amp hiss on an electric-guitar part.
Reference
One helpful things you can do is compare your mix to a similar commercial CD. Though this can be done at any point in the mix, wait until later in the mix. On the other hand, if you don't have an immediate sense of direction for a mix, listening to a few finished mixes may give you some ideas.
Be careful when referencing though, as there's really no standard in mixing, so your mix could sound quite different from someone else's and still be very good. The point of referencing is to make sure your in the ballpark - not to tell you how to throw the ball. Referencing is most useful when making final decisions about levels for bass, vocals, and effects.
You don’t have to listen to a song over and over, in fact that will often discourage you and/or make you alter your mix so drastically that you’ll end up ruining it.
Points on Referencing:
1. The commercial song has been compressed, enhanced & otherwise optimized by some mastering house. So give yourself a little leeway, and expect that your mix will not come out as punchy & present.
2. It's good not to only reference to one secular song, but rather check your mix against a couple different songs. Because even amongst good mixes, there is still loads of variety.
Monitoring
As we've all heard time and again, it's important to monitor at various levels, including loud, soft, and a couple of points in between. But the single most helpful monitoring trick is to listen not only at very low levels, but also in mono.
Mono
Mono compatibility refers to how a mix holds up when played through a mono system (that is, when the two channels are summed to one). Phase problems, though perhaps not apparent in stereo playback, can result in dropouts, comb filtering, and other weirdnesses when the mix is played mono. Stereo effects, too, can be a culprit — what sounded spacious in stereo may evaporate or turn to mud when reproduced in mono.
Gain strategy
It's always a question where to "push it" to get more volume. Should you raise your mixer Gains (or "Trim") or should you push the individual Channel volume faders?
If you want the best signal to noise ratio, keep this in mind:
Digital Mixers: High Gains, Low Channel volumes. Also, better to push the Master Fader & keep the Channels low, then vice versa.
Analog Mixers: Low Gains, High Channel volumes.
And another rule of thumb:
Outputs High, Inputs Low.
In other words, it's generally better to play your guitars, samplers & sounds modules at the highest possible levels (without distorting of course!).
Same for your computer audio. The higher the volume (or velocity) you can run your tracks & outputs, the more you can take advantage of the whole available digital audio range. Turn your computer tracks & outputs up, & turn down the mixer channels, if there's a choice. There are exceptions of course, but this is general advice.
One thing to be careful for! When mixing your drums, or whole song for that matter, if you are doing it at aloud volume, you are fooling yourself a bit in that you think that it’s sounding good, when actually your just enjoying the volume. So of you like hearing things at aloud level, be sure to regularly pull back the level, so that you can get a more realistic idea of what people will end up hearing.
Lead vocal
Even if there are imperfections in your mix, you should try to at least have the lead vocal sound good. That’s what people often judge a song by, how good the singer sounds. The public may be able to excuse all the musicians for their faults, but they won’t excuse the singer, as the vocalist needs to carry the song.
Ride The Fader/volume. In most audio production programs you can create a volume envelope and follow your vocal level. This is very useful and highly recommended that you follow your lead vocals to dip the loud parts and raise the low “hard to understand” parts.
EQ
A mistake that novice mixers often make is boosting every band of EQ on every channel. Though this may initially make the signals sound "better", the seeming improvement is largely due to the signal just being louder. (Remember, boosting EQ levels adds gain.)
Whenever possible, cut rather than boost-or use a combination of cuts and boosts-to get the sound that you want. In general, experienced engineers end up using a combination of cuts and boosts on any given channel.
Soloing an instrument to EQ it can be helpful, but the only thing that really matters is how the instrument sounds in the mix. Therefore, be prepared to change the EQ once all the other instruments are brought in. Often, after an instrument is equalized appropriately for a mix, it sounds quite unappealing when soloed.
EQing your lead vocal:
Use EQ to improve the presence, sibilance, or warmth of the vocal only if it needs it. Don’t automatically go “fixing” things if they are not “broken”.
High Frequencies:
At mixing time, listen to the high frequencies in your Lead Vocals. (Let's call "high frequencies" from 5000Hz up to 20000Hz.) See how they compare to the high frequencies of other elements in the mix. For example, if the High Hat is bright & the Lead Vocal is dull, then you’ll need to balance it out.
Here are some elements in a song that dwell in the same neighborhood as the highs in the Lead Vocal, starting with the most common troublemakers: Tambourines, Shakers, High Hats, Cymbals, other high percussion.
Maybe high frequencies are not so clear on your monitors. It would be best to hear your mix on several sets of different speakers.
It might help to turn up the treble all the way on your amp (if it has tone controls)- and see what starts to hurt your ears first. Maybe a more pleasant way to hear highs relative to each other is to play the mix through headphones, but hold the headphones a couple feet away from you. Start with the volume low, or off, & gradually turn it up, and see which sounds show up first. Those are your strongest trebles.
De-Essing:
Another problem is where your vocal is generally nice, your track is nice, but then those sibilant "s, ch, or t" sounds (& others) just pop out & lash at you.
A de-esser is basically a compressor that just compresses a certain frequency range; typically between 1 KHz and up. The “ss” frequencies for singers vary, but typically they’re around 6 to 10 Khz.
Be careful though not to de-ess too much, otherwise your singer will sound like he or she has a lisp.
Low Frequencies:
You've all experienced the difficulty of deciding how "warm" to make your Lead Vocal, I'm sure. You don't want it to be thin & weak. But if the lower end of the vocal is too warm, it may sound mushy, or may sound too "big" and "in front" compared to the track. (That's because of the "proximity effect"---when someone is closer to you, or to the mike, the lows in their voice are more emphasized. Thus, adding lows can make a voice sound "closer" to you.)
How warm you want the Lead Vocal is very subjective & it also depends on the gender of music.
If you like "warmth", how much of it you can keep may also depend on the quality of your highs-- the "presence" of your Lead Vocal and also how many instruments are playing in your song.
So the lower end of the Vocal is the hardest to adjust. I'm talking about from around 250Hz on down to around 100Hz. The problem is that almost all instruments have frequency content in the 100Hz – 250Hz range. Guitars, keyboards, snare, bass tone, etc.
So what to do? Well, you may have to make some decisions. One thing for sure, if two sounds have the same frequency content, and they are coming from the same direction, the louder one will "mask" the softer one—you won't hear it! That's "Masking". If the piano & voice are sounding at the same note range, then you'll need to decide if one of them will be a little thicker & the other a bit thinner & brighter (or vice versa). (Will get back to this point)
Obviously, it may help to make sure they're not panned to the same position.
Female vocals are a little easier to deal with because their note range is usually a little higher than the mid-range of the
music track. But guys are right down there. If it's a problem, you may want to
consider dropping an instrument that's competing with or "masking" the Lead Vocal. It's no wonder that so many popular
songs do have the Lead Vocal EQ'd a little thinner. Anyway, this leads to the next section:
Low end ("mud-range")
The Bass & other elements can get very thick if you don’t watch for that in your mix. Like from 130Hz to 190Hz.
Concerning the Bass specifically: You want those true lows from about 80Hz or 90Hz on down. You want the attack, maybe up around 2K or
3K. You may want the nice growl or upper bass harmonics around 600Hz. But generally, you DON'T WANT a lot of content in your Bass in that Mud Range.
Not only the Bass, but often a Snare, a Keyboard, an acoustic guitar, or Lead & Back-up vocals will have too much frequency content in this range.
Try to bring up the overall bass of your song and you’ll often find you mostly get "muff", instead of defined bottom end.
So I would suggest that if possible, you really watch the 160 Hz area, and "hollow out" your Bass & other instruments just a bit around that range. Don't overdo, but try it. Maybe you could get by if just one instrument is stronger in the mud range. But if a couple instruments or voices are wallowing around down there, it's not going to sound great.
Effects
Choose effects carefully and limit the number of different effects. For example, very few songs need more than two or three different reverbs. Numerous hit songs have sounded great using only one. The idea here is to create the illusion of everything being in the same space. Hall and room reverb settings are good starting points; in general, it's best to save the more unusual effects for individual instruments.
If you want to use reverb, try sending every channel to the same global reverb. To hear your reverb and see what your doing, solo it to hear the size, decay, and overall coloration of the reverb “space”.
The primary reason to add reverb and other effects to a sound in your song is to enhance it, so don’t drown your mix. Which effect or effects you choose, and how
much of each you add, depends on the style of music and the sound, but in general it shouldn't be distracting.
For example, too much reverb can make a lead vocal hard to understand.
When selecting a reverb decay time, I would keep reverb decay time to 1.5 sec for fast songs, and 2.5 sec for slow songs. I wouldn’t go over 3 sec. other wise the song will be changing chords and the reverb will be dragging over them too long and interfering.
Find one or two reverb settings that sound good with 90 % of everything you'll use on the song.
Masking
When two sounds are at similar frequencies, the one that is slightly louder will make the softer sound unable to be heard.
Because of masking, every instrument in a mix sounds quite different when it’s soloed (listened to by itself) compared to how it sounds in the mix.
When instruments put out sounds, they put out the tuned frequency and they put out energy at multiples of the tuned frequency. Going to a piano and playing the A above middle-C will cause a sound of the tuned frequency at 440 Hz. But
the piano will also put out energy at multiples 0f 440 Hz, at 880 Hz, 1320 Hz, 1760 Hz, 2200 Hz, 2640 Hz and so forth. The "multiples" are called harmonics. The energy level of the different harmonics determines the "tone" of the instrument and
is the main factor as to why a piano and another instrument playing the same note sound different.
When an instrument is played with other instruments, some of the harmonics are masked, making the instrument sound different "in the mix" than "by itself."
The instrument's tone can be adjusted so that it sounds the best, when playing with the other instruments. Getting a mix that sounds good now may not sound as good when the other instruments are added.
Equalizing the instrument's sound while mixing is one effective way to overcome masking.
This is especially true for the bass and for the vocals. Typically the bass guitar has to have accented midrange attack and
string sounds to sound good in a mix. The tendency is to boost the fullness of the bass when you listen to it by itself. This
will cause the bass to get "lost" in mix of instruments 90% of the time. The vocal usually has to have over-accented
presence and be slightly "thin" sounding to sound good with other instruments playing.
When equalizing guitars, the 2.5 kHz range of frequencies are often boosted to give an increased "attack" to the guitar.
Often, to sound good in a mix of instruments, the guitar has to have an unnaturally loud attack. If, however, there are several guitars, you should not boost all of them at the same attack frequency. If you boosted 3 guitars at 2.5 kHz, you will insure that one guitar will cover up the sound of another. The correct procedure in this case is to use slightly different frequencies on the different guitars, like 2.5 kHz, 4 kHz and 5 kHz.
Mixing the final to tape.
Just as photographers will shoot several rolls of film to get one usable shot, you should “print” several versions of the final mix. That way, you increase your odds of getting the "right" mix. This is another way to increase the "time buffer," so you can choose your best mix at a later day, when you’re ears are fresh.
Try to print at least four versions of a mix. The first being the one that you think is right. The second is the same as the first, but with a bit more bass. The third is the same as the first, but with a bit more vocal. And the fourth has both more bass and more vocal.
If you can, also try to mix a version without lead vocal another with no vocals included.
Micing techniques
The best way to figure out where to place a mic is to listen to the source - the instrument or amplifier. Try using only one ear, and listen up close and also from a few feet away.
Put the mic where the instrument sounds best to your ear.
You'll always need to use unidirectional microphones in live situations to isolate you sound sources and to avoid feedback problems.
In most circumstances, you will want to put the mic as close to the instrument as possible without interfering with the player's movement. This will ensure a more focused sound with less bleed from the other instruments onstage.
Just keep in mind that the more open microphones you have onstage, the more problems you'll likely have with feedback.
So try to keep your setup simple and use pickups and directional mics whenever possible.
The Three To One Rule
The 3 to 1 Rule is a multiple microphone placement rule that generally prevents the pickup of one microphone from interfering with the pickup of another. The rule is:
"Two microphones, intended to pick up two sound sources must be placed apart at least three times the distance that either microphone is from it’s intended sound source."
When The 3 To 1 Rule Doesn’t Work:
The three to one rule works well if the two singers (or whatever) have similar levels. When the singers sing at different strengths, the 3 to 1 rule loses its effectiveness and so you should compensate.
If you were using directional microphones, also called a "Unidirectional" microphones, you could change the angle of the microphones to fix the 3 to 1 rule problem here or to reduce multiple microphone interference when two singers have different vocal strengths.
In other words the microphone will pickup sounds to the side of the microphone
at half level, so try to not have another loud sound source behind your mic.
X-Y mic arrangement. (For stereo mic’ing)
This shows a X-Y set up, closely spaced. This arrangement will give you good phasing.
Reason? Phase cancellation!
Phase is the time difference between similar waveforms.
When two signals are close in frequency and level (Volume) but out of time with each other, there is a phase difference.
One cycle of sound is considered to have 360 degrees.
When a second signal starts a half-cycle later, it is called 180 degrees "out-of-phase" with the first signal.
When two signals are 180 degrees out-of-phase, the peaks of one signal are in time with the dips of the second signal and the result is a cancellation of the signals’ energy. (Zero, nothing)
It’s sort of like someone pushing on a window as another person pulls on the same window - it doesn’t move.
When two signals have their valleys start at the same time and their peaks start at the same time, the two signals are said to be "in-phase" and the energy of the two signals will double when the signals are combined. This is sort of like two people both pushing on the same window - it opens faster and goes further.
So when 2 microphones are separated, you get phase cancellation, because the sound waves traveling through the air arrive at the 2 microphones at different cycles, thus creating cancellation. (Very rarely do they arrive in such a perfect way as to cancel each other out, but they still do throw each other out of wack to a certain degree. I’ve experienced this on a few of my earlier recordings, when I didn’t quite understand this concept yet, and the result was that if you listen to these songs in mono for example, the drums drop in volume and loose a considerable amount of presence.
Drum Miking Techniques
Of all acoustic instruments, drums and percussion instruments seem the most elusive to capture with a compelling sound.
Drum tuning is very important. You must start with a good natural sound to begin with.
The best place to start is with the overhead microphones.
Separate mic’d tracks for each drum is a luxury that most of us can’t afford.
So, if you can afford to record on 4 tracks, I’d suggest to use 2 overhead mics, in the X-Y configuration we talked about earlier, and one mic on the snare drum, and one mic on the kick drum.
If you can only afford to record 3 tracks, then I’d go for 2 overheads, and one mic on the kick drum.
If you can only afford 2 tracks, then I’d go for one overhead mic and one on the kick drum.
Microphone Choice
There are so many mic choices, which I won't get into. But one tip is to look at the frequency response of the mic you are using and see if it matches your need.
For example: don’t use a Shure 57 on a kick drum, as it won’t pick up any of the low frequencies you want.
Overheads
You can put the overheads over the drums set, or behind the drummer or in front of the kit facing the drummer.
It depends really on what type of sound your trying to achieve, so I would suggest that you experiment a bit and see what sound you like most for your particular song.
Kick drum
Place it half in, and half out of the hole in the front head. This distance is variable, but try to keep the mic pointed exactly at the spot on the rear head where the beater hits.
A good mic that’s affordable to use is the Shure Beta 52.
I would not suggest using a sensitive condenser mic on the kick drum since a lot of air pumps straight out into the mic. Air blasts can damage those mics.
Snare Drum
A good mic to use is the Shure 57. Place it at about 11 o'clock from the player's perspective, between the hi-hat and the rack tom, about two inches from the head.
In general, aim snare mics directly at the center of the drum head where the drummer should hit the drum. If you find you have too much "hit" and not enough tone, then move the mic slightly downward, in front of where it is hit. Try to make sure not to aim the mic at a lug, but position it between two lugs. Pulling the mic back away from the snare drum greatly changes the sound. Doing this, generally produces a bigger and rounder tone with less attack and a little more ambience. But still aim the mic at the center of the drum.
Or try different things if you want to experiment with tone, like mic from beneath the snare. These guidelines tell of how to mic the best punch from you drums.
Tom-Toms
The floor and rack toms are mic’d from the top only and aimed at the center of the head.
I won’t suggest a mic, as there are many, and most real good ones are out of our price range. You can however purchase drum mic sets for a reasonable price. If you are going to be doing a lot of drum mic’ing, it may be worth it to invest in a set.
Electric Guitar
Electric guitars are easy to mic and record. Usually you mic just one speaker. Moving the mic anywhere from touching the grill cloth to a foot away will do the job.
By keeping the mic close to the speaker you are enhancing the low frequencies. High frequencies are directional, so if you align directly on the center of the speaker cone, you will get the most high frequencies available.
As you move the mic further away, you lose lows and as you move the mic laterally towards the outer edge of the speaker cone, you lose highs.
Guitar amps can be mic’d with a dynamic mic, like the Shure 57.
Acoustic Guitar
Put the mic slightly above, close too and in front of the spot where the neck joins the body, and angle it downward toward the sound hole. This placement should give you a nice blend of string harmonics, resonance, and pick sound.
It is impossible to say exactly what to do in every particular situation though.
The guitar's sound is dependent on the player's technique, the instrument itself, the key of the song and the condition of the strings. So listen and find the sweet spot for your situation.
For stage performances, if the guitar has a pickup, try taking it direct. This may or may not sound good, depending on the quality and type of pick up.
Bass
The "direct" sound of the bass guitar is used more often than not.
If you want to mic the amp, stick the mic right up to the speaker.
Vocal Mic Placement
Mic placement - particularly when using sensitive condensers - directly affects every aspect of the singer's sound and performance. While there are no hard and fast rules, ideally the singer needs to sing directly into the diaphragm of the mic.
Distance to the mic is extremely important because our ears relate distance to intimacy with the singer's voice and emotion:
Closer distances equate to a more intimate sound.
Changing distance causes a degradation in quality but is all part of "working the mic," which is part of a singer's stage sound. Experienced singers use these physics to enhance or color the good and bad areas of their voice. A good singer will use slight distance changes for dramatic punctuation.
(For example, when a singer hits a loud high note, they will move slightly away from the mic, to compensate for the level change.)
Working very close to the mic nearly always necessitates the use of a "pop filter". If you are doing a recording in your studio or room, I’d suggest always using a pop filter. It can just be a coat hanger wire with a pair of stockings pulled over the loop. (That’s what I used for a few years.)
In general, a good starting point mic placement is slightly higher than the singer's mouth. The mic is then aimed downward at the mouth.
Remember that this class is a guide, ultimately you should rely on your ears to determine the best mic placement for optimum sound.
Put the mic where the instrument sounds best to your ear.
You'll always need to use unidirectional microphones in live situations to isolate you sound sources and to avoid feedback problems.
In most circumstances, you will want to put the mic as close to the instrument as possible without interfering with the player's movement. This will ensure a more focused sound with less bleed from the other instruments onstage.
Just keep in mind that the more open microphones you have onstage, the more problems you'll likely have with feedback.
So try to keep your setup simple and use pickups and directional mics whenever possible.
The Three To One Rule
The 3 to 1 Rule is a multiple microphone placement rule that generally prevents the pickup of one microphone from interfering with the pickup of another. The rule is:
"Two microphones, intended to pick up two sound sources must be placed apart at least three times the distance that either microphone is from it’s intended sound source."
When The 3 To 1 Rule Doesn’t Work:
The three to one rule works well if the two singers (or whatever) have similar levels. When the singers sing at different strengths, the 3 to 1 rule loses its effectiveness and so you should compensate.
If you were using directional microphones, also called a "Unidirectional" microphones, you could change the angle of the microphones to fix the 3 to 1 rule problem here or to reduce multiple microphone interference when two singers have different vocal strengths.
In other words the microphone will pickup sounds to the side of the microphone
at half level, so try to not have another loud sound source behind your mic.
X-Y mic arrangement. (For stereo mic’ing)
This shows a X-Y set up, closely spaced. This arrangement will give you good phasing.
Reason? Phase cancellation!
Phase is the time difference between similar waveforms.
When two signals are close in frequency and level (Volume) but out of time with each other, there is a phase difference.
One cycle of sound is considered to have 360 degrees.
When a second signal starts a half-cycle later, it is called 180 degrees "out-of-phase" with the first signal.
When two signals are 180 degrees out-of-phase, the peaks of one signal are in time with the dips of the second signal and the result is a cancellation of the signals’ energy. (Zero, nothing)
It’s sort of like someone pushing on a window as another person pulls on the same window - it doesn’t move.
When two signals have their valleys start at the same time and their peaks start at the same time, the two signals are said to be "in-phase" and the energy of the two signals will double when the signals are combined. This is sort of like two people both pushing on the same window - it opens faster and goes further.
So when 2 microphones are separated, you get phase cancellation, because the sound waves traveling through the air arrive at the 2 microphones at different cycles, thus creating cancellation. (Very rarely do they arrive in such a perfect way as to cancel each other out, but they still do throw each other out of wack to a certain degree. I’ve experienced this on a few of my earlier recordings, when I didn’t quite understand this concept yet, and the result was that if you listen to these songs in mono for example, the drums drop in volume and loose a considerable amount of presence.
Drum Miking Techniques
Of all acoustic instruments, drums and percussion instruments seem the most elusive to capture with a compelling sound.
Drum tuning is very important. You must start with a good natural sound to begin with.
The best place to start is with the overhead microphones.
Separate mic’d tracks for each drum is a luxury that most of us can’t afford.
So, if you can afford to record on 4 tracks, I’d suggest to use 2 overhead mics, in the X-Y configuration we talked about earlier, and one mic on the snare drum, and one mic on the kick drum.
If you can only afford to record 3 tracks, then I’d go for 2 overheads, and one mic on the kick drum.
If you can only afford 2 tracks, then I’d go for one overhead mic and one on the kick drum.
Microphone Choice
There are so many mic choices, which I won't get into. But one tip is to look at the frequency response of the mic you are using and see if it matches your need.
For example: don’t use a Shure 57 on a kick drum, as it won’t pick up any of the low frequencies you want.
Overheads
You can put the overheads over the drums set, or behind the drummer or in front of the kit facing the drummer.
It depends really on what type of sound your trying to achieve, so I would suggest that you experiment a bit and see what sound you like most for your particular song.
Kick drum
Place it half in, and half out of the hole in the front head. This distance is variable, but try to keep the mic pointed exactly at the spot on the rear head where the beater hits.
A good mic that’s affordable to use is the Shure Beta 52.
I would not suggest using a sensitive condenser mic on the kick drum since a lot of air pumps straight out into the mic. Air blasts can damage those mics.
Snare Drum
A good mic to use is the Shure 57. Place it at about 11 o'clock from the player's perspective, between the hi-hat and the rack tom, about two inches from the head.
In general, aim snare mics directly at the center of the drum head where the drummer should hit the drum. If you find you have too much "hit" and not enough tone, then move the mic slightly downward, in front of where it is hit. Try to make sure not to aim the mic at a lug, but position it between two lugs. Pulling the mic back away from the snare drum greatly changes the sound. Doing this, generally produces a bigger and rounder tone with less attack and a little more ambience. But still aim the mic at the center of the drum.
Or try different things if you want to experiment with tone, like mic from beneath the snare. These guidelines tell of how to mic the best punch from you drums.
Tom-Toms
The floor and rack toms are mic’d from the top only and aimed at the center of the head.
I won’t suggest a mic, as there are many, and most real good ones are out of our price range. You can however purchase drum mic sets for a reasonable price. If you are going to be doing a lot of drum mic’ing, it may be worth it to invest in a set.
Electric Guitar
Electric guitars are easy to mic and record. Usually you mic just one speaker. Moving the mic anywhere from touching the grill cloth to a foot away will do the job.
By keeping the mic close to the speaker you are enhancing the low frequencies. High frequencies are directional, so if you align directly on the center of the speaker cone, you will get the most high frequencies available.
As you move the mic further away, you lose lows and as you move the mic laterally towards the outer edge of the speaker cone, you lose highs.
Guitar amps can be mic’d with a dynamic mic, like the Shure 57.
Acoustic Guitar
Put the mic slightly above, close too and in front of the spot where the neck joins the body, and angle it downward toward the sound hole. This placement should give you a nice blend of string harmonics, resonance, and pick sound.
It is impossible to say exactly what to do in every particular situation though.
The guitar's sound is dependent on the player's technique, the instrument itself, the key of the song and the condition of the strings. So listen and find the sweet spot for your situation.
For stage performances, if the guitar has a pickup, try taking it direct. This may or may not sound good, depending on the quality and type of pick up.
Bass
The "direct" sound of the bass guitar is used more often than not.
If you want to mic the amp, stick the mic right up to the speaker.
Vocal Mic Placement
Mic placement - particularly when using sensitive condensers - directly affects every aspect of the singer's sound and performance. While there are no hard and fast rules, ideally the singer needs to sing directly into the diaphragm of the mic.
Distance to the mic is extremely important because our ears relate distance to intimacy with the singer's voice and emotion:
Closer distances equate to a more intimate sound.
Changing distance causes a degradation in quality but is all part of "working the mic," which is part of a singer's stage sound. Experienced singers use these physics to enhance or color the good and bad areas of their voice. A good singer will use slight distance changes for dramatic punctuation.
(For example, when a singer hits a loud high note, they will move slightly away from the mic, to compensate for the level change.)
Working very close to the mic nearly always necessitates the use of a "pop filter". If you are doing a recording in your studio or room, I’d suggest always using a pop filter. It can just be a coat hanger wire with a pair of stockings pulled over the loop. (That’s what I used for a few years.)
In general, a good starting point mic placement is slightly higher than the singer's mouth. The mic is then aimed downward at the mouth.
Remember that this class is a guide, ultimately you should rely on your ears to determine the best mic placement for optimum sound.
EQ - A Typical Example
The following example uses all of the techniques discussed. instrumentation is Drums, Bass, Electric Guitar, Keyboard with Lead and Background Vocals. "+" indicates boost and "-" indicates reduction at given frequency.
Kick
-6 @ 400 Hz
+4 @ 5 kHz Reduces box quality. Increases attack
Snare
+4 @7 kHz
+2 @ 100 kHz Increases snap. Adds fullness to high-tuned snare
All Drums
-4 @ 400 Hz
+4 @ 15 kHz Decreases ambiance & increases bass clarity. Increases cymbal sizzle.
Bass
-2 @ 50 Hz
+4 @ 400 Hz
+2 @ 1.5 kHz Increase clarity of bass Adds clarity to bass line and recognition at low volume. Increases pluck and recognition.
Guitar
-4 @ 100 Hz
+2 @ 3 kHz Increases guitar vs. bass distinction. Increases attack ( 3 kHz needs much less boost once 100 Hz is reduced).
keyboards
+4 @ 5 kHz Increases clarity & brightness.
Lead Vocal
+4 @ 10 kHz
+2 @ 5 kHz
At 200 Hz, reduce 2 or 4 to add clarity to low vocals increase 2 or 4 to fill out high vocals.
Bkg. Vocal
-6 @ 5 kHz Sets background back and increases lead vs. background distinction
This "textbook" EQ can’t be expected to work on all sessions. On the right session, however, it would give a very natural sounding recording or mix with surprising clarity and punch.
Note that boosting two instruments at the same frequency was avoided.
Note that reductions were generally larger than boosts.
Kick
-6 @ 400 Hz
+4 @ 5 kHz Reduces box quality. Increases attack
Snare
+4 @7 kHz
+2 @ 100 kHz Increases snap. Adds fullness to high-tuned snare
All Drums
-4 @ 400 Hz
+4 @ 15 kHz Decreases ambiance & increases bass clarity. Increases cymbal sizzle.
Bass
-2 @ 50 Hz
+4 @ 400 Hz
+2 @ 1.5 kHz Increase clarity of bass Adds clarity to bass line and recognition at low volume. Increases pluck and recognition.
Guitar
-4 @ 100 Hz
+2 @ 3 kHz Increases guitar vs. bass distinction. Increases attack ( 3 kHz needs much less boost once 100 Hz is reduced).
keyboards
+4 @ 5 kHz Increases clarity & brightness.
Lead Vocal
+4 @ 10 kHz
+2 @ 5 kHz
At 200 Hz, reduce 2 or 4 to add clarity to low vocals increase 2 or 4 to fill out high vocals.
Bkg. Vocal
-6 @ 5 kHz Sets background back and increases lead vs. background distinction
This "textbook" EQ can’t be expected to work on all sessions. On the right session, however, it would give a very natural sounding recording or mix with surprising clarity and punch.
Note that boosting two instruments at the same frequency was avoided.
Note that reductions were generally larger than boosts.
EQ Recommended Frequencies
Use the following Recommended Expanded Frequencies Chart as a starting point.
50Hz
1. Increase to add more fullness to lowest frequency instruments like kick, toms, and the bass. Peak equalization with a 1.4 Q.
2. Reduce to decrease the "boom" of the bass and will increase overtones and the recognition of bass line in the mix. This is most often used on loud bass lines like rock. Shelf equalization.
100Hz
1. Increase to add a harder bass sound to lowest frequency instruments. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0
2. Increase to add fullness snare. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0..
3. Reduce to remove boom on guitars & increase clarity. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0 to 1.4..
200Hz
1. Increase to add fullness to vocals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 0.7 to 1.0..
2. Increase to add fullness to snare and guitar ( harder sound ). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
3. Reduce to decrease muddiness of vocals or mid-range instruments. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
4. Reduce to decrease gong sound of cymbals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
400Hz
1. Increase to add clarity to bass lines especially when speakers are at low volume. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
2. Reduce to decrease "cardboard" sound of lower drums (foot and toms). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
3. Reduce to decrease ambiance on cymbals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 0.7 to 1.0. Alternately try a shelf EQ with a 320 Hz frequency setting.
800Hz
1. Increase for clarity and "punch" of bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
2. Reduce to remove "cheap" sound of guitars. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
1.5KHz
1. Increase for "clarity" and "pluck" of bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4..
2. Reduce to remove dullness of guitars. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
3KHz
1. Increase for more "pluck" of bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
2. Increase for more attack of electric / acoustic guitar. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
3. Increase for more attack on low piano parts. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
4. Increase for more clarity / hardness on voice. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
5. Reduce to increase breathy, soft sound on background vocals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
6. Reduce to disguise out-of-tune vocals / guitars. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
7. Increase for more attack on the snare or other drums. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4 to 2.8.
5KHz
1. Increase for vocal presence. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
2. Increase low frequency drum attack ( foot / toms). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4 to 2.8.
3. Increase for more "finger sound" on bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
4. Increase attack of piano, acoustic guitar and brightness on guitars (especially rock guitars). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
5. Reduce to make background parts more distant. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
6. Reduce to soften "thin" guitar. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
7KHz
1. Increase to add attack on low frequency drums ( more metallic sound ). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4 to 2.8.
2. Increase to add attack to percussion instruments. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4 to 2.8.
3. Increase on dull singer. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
4. Increase for more "finger sound" on acoustic bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
5. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers. Peak Equalization with a Q of 2.8. Sweep frequency slightly (between 7 kHz and 8 kHz) to find the "exact" frequency of the S
6. Increase to add sharpness to synthesizers, rock guitars, acoustic guitar and piano. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0 to 1.4.
10KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
2. Increase for "light brightness" in acoustic guitar and piano. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
3. Increase for hardness on cymbals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
4. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
15KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals (breathy sound). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
2. Increase to brighten cymbals, string instruments and flutes. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
50Hz
1. Increase to add more fullness to lowest frequency instruments like kick, toms, and the bass. Peak equalization with a 1.4 Q.
2. Reduce to decrease the "boom" of the bass and will increase overtones and the recognition of bass line in the mix. This is most often used on loud bass lines like rock. Shelf equalization.
100Hz
1. Increase to add a harder bass sound to lowest frequency instruments. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0
2. Increase to add fullness snare. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0..
3. Reduce to remove boom on guitars & increase clarity. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0 to 1.4..
200Hz
1. Increase to add fullness to vocals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 0.7 to 1.0..
2. Increase to add fullness to snare and guitar ( harder sound ). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
3. Reduce to decrease muddiness of vocals or mid-range instruments. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
4. Reduce to decrease gong sound of cymbals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
400Hz
1. Increase to add clarity to bass lines especially when speakers are at low volume. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
2. Reduce to decrease "cardboard" sound of lower drums (foot and toms). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
3. Reduce to decrease ambiance on cymbals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 0.7 to 1.0. Alternately try a shelf EQ with a 320 Hz frequency setting.
800Hz
1. Increase for clarity and "punch" of bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
2. Reduce to remove "cheap" sound of guitars. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
1.5KHz
1. Increase for "clarity" and "pluck" of bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4..
2. Reduce to remove dullness of guitars. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
3KHz
1. Increase for more "pluck" of bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
2. Increase for more attack of electric / acoustic guitar. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
3. Increase for more attack on low piano parts. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
4. Increase for more clarity / hardness on voice. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
5. Reduce to increase breathy, soft sound on background vocals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
6. Reduce to disguise out-of-tune vocals / guitars. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
7. Increase for more attack on the snare or other drums. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4 to 2.8.
5KHz
1. Increase for vocal presence. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
2. Increase low frequency drum attack ( foot / toms). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4 to 2.8.
3. Increase for more "finger sound" on bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
4. Increase attack of piano, acoustic guitar and brightness on guitars (especially rock guitars). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
5. Reduce to make background parts more distant. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
6. Reduce to soften "thin" guitar. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
7KHz
1. Increase to add attack on low frequency drums ( more metallic sound ). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4 to 2.8.
2. Increase to add attack to percussion instruments. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4 to 2.8.
3. Increase on dull singer. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
4. Increase for more "finger sound" on acoustic bass. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
5. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers. Peak Equalization with a Q of 2.8. Sweep frequency slightly (between 7 kHz and 8 kHz) to find the "exact" frequency of the S
6. Increase to add sharpness to synthesizers, rock guitars, acoustic guitar and piano. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0 to 1.4.
10KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
2. Increase for "light brightness" in acoustic guitar and piano. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
3. Increase for hardness on cymbals. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
4. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.4.
15KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals (breathy sound). Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
2. Increase to brighten cymbals, string instruments and flutes. Peak Equalization with a Q of 1.0.
EQ Ranges
EQ'ING TIPS:
30Hz and down ..........Unnecessary
30 to 90Hz ..................First octave bass
80 to 250Hz ................Second octave bass
275 to 325Hz ..............Warmth zone
375 to 425Hz ..............Mud zone
500 to 900Hz .............Midrange-(watch for honk)
850 to 1.5kHz .............Nasal Zone
1.75 to 3kHz ...............First octave presence
3.5 to 4.25kHz ...........Second octave presence
4.5 to 5.5kHz ..............Sibilance zone
6.5 to 7.5kHz ..............Third octave presence
9.0 to 12.5kHz ............High end
12.5kHz and up........... Sizzle.
30Hz and down ..........Unnecessary
30 to 90Hz ..................First octave bass
80 to 250Hz ................Second octave bass
275 to 325Hz ..............Warmth zone
375 to 425Hz ..............Mud zone
500 to 900Hz .............Midrange-(watch for honk)
850 to 1.5kHz .............Nasal Zone
1.75 to 3kHz ...............First octave presence
3.5 to 4.25kHz ...........Second octave presence
4.5 to 5.5kHz ..............Sibilance zone
6.5 to 7.5kHz ..............Third octave presence
9.0 to 12.5kHz ............High end
12.5kHz and up........... Sizzle.
The Basics of Equalization
Hz (Hertz) : The number of cycles per second in reference to sound waves. Human hearing ranges roughly from 20 Hz (20 cycles per second of a sound wave) to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz – kilohertz).
The lower the frequency in hertz, the greater the size of the wave form. A 20 Hz signal is produced by subwoofers or speakers with large bass drivers. The drivers of these speakers are large in order to create the large sound waves necessary to reproduce a 20 Hz or similar low bass signal.
On the other end of the human hearing spectrum (topping out at around 20 kHz and less for many people) the sound waves are very small. Small tweeters, normally around 1 to 2 inches in diameter, are used to reproduce these high frequencies’ small waves.
Each cycle can be thought of as a wave, with a 20 Hz signal pushing out 20 large waves per second while a 20,000 Hz signal produces 20,000 very small waves per second. The lower frequency range (around 20 Hz) can be felt as well as heard adding gut impact to movies and music. (Speaker permitting)
Sometimes, Less is More
Your bass may sounds fat. The guitar punchy. The kick is in your face. The snare is... well, it's very "snarey" sounding. So, how come your mix sounds like oatmeal?
Equalization, or EQ, is a process by which a specific parts or parts of the audible frequency spectrum are either cut or boosted, in order to change a sound.
Having EQ capabilities is not an excuse to get lazy! Getting good sound first is a matter of mic placement instrument quality & playing quality. Trying to EQ a kick drum that is tuned loose can be a nightmare. You can't effectively boost what isn't there in the first place. Good miking makes EQ adjustments almost unnecessary. If you've done everything right, you may very well find that the best EQ is none at all! (Though getting that great miking can be rather difficult.)
As we all know, time and budget limits will create conditions that are not always ideal. You won't always have the perfect mic at your disposal. Not every acoustic guitar you will be using is going to be a $2,000 Taylor. And it can be detrimental to your happiness to spend 30 minutes experimenting with your mike. In situations like this, EQ is often your only solution. When you've done the best you can, yet that timbre isn't exactly what you were going for, careful use of EQ can mean the difference between greatness and so-so-ness.
Musical Shoehorn
It's often useful to think of mixing as putting together a giant sonic jigsaw puzzle.
Your job is to take all of the "pieces" spread across your "desk" and make them all fit into a beautifully assembled. (A good sounding mix of your band.)
When listening to a single player, all by his lonesome left, he may sound real cool.
But take all these beautiful colors and play & mix them together, and you'll likely get what you'd see if you mixed all of these beautiful separate colors together-- a yucky brown goop!
The idea is to allow each instrument to occupy it's own "place" in the mix so that, like a great painting, it has powerful impact as a whole, yet you can "see" (or, in our case, hear) all the individual parts as well. There are generally to accomplish this:
> Volume (the setting of levels)
> Sound staging (Panning or balance between left & right)
> Time (the use of delay, reverb and effects to separate sounds in time);
> Equalizing (the use of EQ to separate sounds across the spectrum).
The next time you listen to a great record, try to see if you can figure out which of these three techniques are being used. Chances are, you'll hear all four at the same time! But since this is an article about EQ, we'll focus on that technique.
A lot of people like to build a mix from the bottom-up.
So let's say you've got this bass player, and you've also got that groovy kick-drum.
On most records, the bass and kick together represent the foundation of the song, which greatly effects the feel of the song in general.
The kick-&-bass relationship is one of the critical signals that all listeners key in on, whether they realize it or not!
So it makes sense to have a very clear idea of the style of the music your playing. Because if you don’t have those 2 elements in your band, you need to decide what if your foundation instrument. This is very important, as if you have no idea where you are going, you are not likely to end up where you wanted to be.
So, lets say you have bass & drums in your band.
1. The roundness of the bass lies in the 60 Hz to 150 Hz range. And that pop'n'snap thing is up there around 2.0 kHz to 3 kHz range or so. But on a lot of electric bass frequencies around 250Hz can mud up the sound.
So cut a little around 250 Hz and you hear the meat of the kick drum a little better now. The bass and drums aren't stepping on each other so much
any more because you've cut out a little part on the bass for the kick to come through.
Now you bring in the acoustic guitar, so cut the low frequencies below 80 Hz out of it. This leaves the guitar feel intact, yet leaves plenty of room for the bass and kick to still breathe. Are you starting to get the idea?
Cool! Your mix is starting to come together! You continue to EQ in this manner until the song is done.
All sounds contain several frequencies -- in fact, usually many thousands of different frequencies, each at different volume levels. A simple sine wave is the only type of sound that contains one and only one frequency.
It's important to learn with practice, the "sound" of each frequency and the number of Hz that corresponds to it. To be able to identify frequencies and frequency ranges by ear is as great skill.
One thing to remember is that when you cut or boost using an equalizer, you are affecting not a single frequency, but a range of frequencies near it.
It could be a narrow band, or a wide band.
("Q" is not a musical concept, though widely used, it’s actually called octaves.)
I find that one octave is a good bandwidth to start out with for most general EQ tasks.
An octave is generally narrow enough to get close to the frequencies you're after, while wide enough to not have too radical an effect.
A wider bandwidth (two or three octaves) is good for less specific overall coloration.
A narrower bandwidth (1/3 octave or less) is generally used for cutting problem frequencies.
Stage Feedback tuning
Set you graphic equalizer to flat position.
Turn up the main vocal microphones (un equalized).
Slowly bring up the overall system level until your system starts to ring (do not let your system to ring too loudly or you will damage your speakers and/or your hearing).
Pull down the EQ slider that makes the feedback stop (but only few dB).
Turn the volume up again and another frequency will begin to feedback. Pull down the corresponding EQ again (only few dB again).
Repeat this procedure three times (not more). Otherwise you’ll end up sounding un-natural.
When you have completed this you have the equalized the speakers to a flatter response for the room. However, keep in mind that when people come into your room, it will greatly alter the tone and abortion of the room. So don’t over EQ your mix trying to cut out the feedback.
It’s recommend to someone new to EQ, to not use more than 6 dB cut or boost.
The lower the frequency in hertz, the greater the size of the wave form. A 20 Hz signal is produced by subwoofers or speakers with large bass drivers. The drivers of these speakers are large in order to create the large sound waves necessary to reproduce a 20 Hz or similar low bass signal.
On the other end of the human hearing spectrum (topping out at around 20 kHz and less for many people) the sound waves are very small. Small tweeters, normally around 1 to 2 inches in diameter, are used to reproduce these high frequencies’ small waves.
Each cycle can be thought of as a wave, with a 20 Hz signal pushing out 20 large waves per second while a 20,000 Hz signal produces 20,000 very small waves per second. The lower frequency range (around 20 Hz) can be felt as well as heard adding gut impact to movies and music. (Speaker permitting)
Sometimes, Less is More
Your bass may sounds fat. The guitar punchy. The kick is in your face. The snare is... well, it's very "snarey" sounding. So, how come your mix sounds like oatmeal?
Equalization, or EQ, is a process by which a specific parts or parts of the audible frequency spectrum are either cut or boosted, in order to change a sound.
Having EQ capabilities is not an excuse to get lazy! Getting good sound first is a matter of mic placement instrument quality & playing quality. Trying to EQ a kick drum that is tuned loose can be a nightmare. You can't effectively boost what isn't there in the first place. Good miking makes EQ adjustments almost unnecessary. If you've done everything right, you may very well find that the best EQ is none at all! (Though getting that great miking can be rather difficult.)
As we all know, time and budget limits will create conditions that are not always ideal. You won't always have the perfect mic at your disposal. Not every acoustic guitar you will be using is going to be a $2,000 Taylor. And it can be detrimental to your happiness to spend 30 minutes experimenting with your mike. In situations like this, EQ is often your only solution. When you've done the best you can, yet that timbre isn't exactly what you were going for, careful use of EQ can mean the difference between greatness and so-so-ness.
Musical Shoehorn
It's often useful to think of mixing as putting together a giant sonic jigsaw puzzle.
Your job is to take all of the "pieces" spread across your "desk" and make them all fit into a beautifully assembled. (A good sounding mix of your band.)
When listening to a single player, all by his lonesome left, he may sound real cool.
But take all these beautiful colors and play & mix them together, and you'll likely get what you'd see if you mixed all of these beautiful separate colors together-- a yucky brown goop!
The idea is to allow each instrument to occupy it's own "place" in the mix so that, like a great painting, it has powerful impact as a whole, yet you can "see" (or, in our case, hear) all the individual parts as well. There are generally to accomplish this:
> Volume (the setting of levels)
> Sound staging (Panning or balance between left & right)
> Time (the use of delay, reverb and effects to separate sounds in time);
> Equalizing (the use of EQ to separate sounds across the spectrum).
The next time you listen to a great record, try to see if you can figure out which of these three techniques are being used. Chances are, you'll hear all four at the same time! But since this is an article about EQ, we'll focus on that technique.
A lot of people like to build a mix from the bottom-up.
So let's say you've got this bass player, and you've also got that groovy kick-drum.
On most records, the bass and kick together represent the foundation of the song, which greatly effects the feel of the song in general.
The kick-&-bass relationship is one of the critical signals that all listeners key in on, whether they realize it or not!
So it makes sense to have a very clear idea of the style of the music your playing. Because if you don’t have those 2 elements in your band, you need to decide what if your foundation instrument. This is very important, as if you have no idea where you are going, you are not likely to end up where you wanted to be.
So, lets say you have bass & drums in your band.
1. The roundness of the bass lies in the 60 Hz to 150 Hz range. And that pop'n'snap thing is up there around 2.0 kHz to 3 kHz range or so. But on a lot of electric bass frequencies around 250Hz can mud up the sound.
So cut a little around 250 Hz and you hear the meat of the kick drum a little better now. The bass and drums aren't stepping on each other so much
any more because you've cut out a little part on the bass for the kick to come through.
Now you bring in the acoustic guitar, so cut the low frequencies below 80 Hz out of it. This leaves the guitar feel intact, yet leaves plenty of room for the bass and kick to still breathe. Are you starting to get the idea?
Cool! Your mix is starting to come together! You continue to EQ in this manner until the song is done.
All sounds contain several frequencies -- in fact, usually many thousands of different frequencies, each at different volume levels. A simple sine wave is the only type of sound that contains one and only one frequency.
It's important to learn with practice, the "sound" of each frequency and the number of Hz that corresponds to it. To be able to identify frequencies and frequency ranges by ear is as great skill.
One thing to remember is that when you cut or boost using an equalizer, you are affecting not a single frequency, but a range of frequencies near it.
It could be a narrow band, or a wide band.
("Q" is not a musical concept, though widely used, it’s actually called octaves.)
I find that one octave is a good bandwidth to start out with for most general EQ tasks.
An octave is generally narrow enough to get close to the frequencies you're after, while wide enough to not have too radical an effect.
A wider bandwidth (two or three octaves) is good for less specific overall coloration.
A narrower bandwidth (1/3 octave or less) is generally used for cutting problem frequencies.
Stage Feedback tuning
Set you graphic equalizer to flat position.
Turn up the main vocal microphones (un equalized).
Slowly bring up the overall system level until your system starts to ring (do not let your system to ring too loudly or you will damage your speakers and/or your hearing).
Pull down the EQ slider that makes the feedback stop (but only few dB).
Turn the volume up again and another frequency will begin to feedback. Pull down the corresponding EQ again (only few dB again).
Repeat this procedure three times (not more). Otherwise you’ll end up sounding un-natural.
When you have completed this you have the equalized the speakers to a flatter response for the room. However, keep in mind that when people come into your room, it will greatly alter the tone and abortion of the room. So don’t over EQ your mix trying to cut out the feedback.
It’s recommend to someone new to EQ, to not use more than 6 dB cut or boost.
Use of Compression
Full band compression:
Multi band compression:
First, let's define Compression.
The reduction of audio dynamic range, so that the louder passages are made softer, or the softer passages appear louder, or both.
Compression settings:
Threshold: (eg. -40 to 0 dB)
Threshold: Level at which the compression is applied.
Ratio: (eg. 1:1 to 00:1 (which is limiting))
Ratio: Measure of cut, (e.g. 1:2 = 1dB cut for every 2 dB over the threshold)
Attack: (eg. 0.1ms to 200ms.)
Attack rate: rate of how fast the compression takes place.
Release: (eg. 50ms to 3 sec)
Release: Rate at which the compression backs off.
Knee: (eg. hard and soft)
Knee: Compression level intensity.
Now, for the basic two rules:
Rule #1: There are no rules. If you want to use a compressor/limiter of any type, then go ahead and use it.
Rule #2: When in doubt, don't use it!
> How can you tell when you have enough compression?
Discussing sound is like describing colors to a blind person, but let’s try.
Supposing there are two qualities of music, one called punchy, the other smooth.
Let's say that some music sounds better punchy, other music sounds better
smooth.
In general you can achieve a punchy or smooth sound through different amounts and types of compression, or not using compression at all.
> Try to avoid overall compression in the mix until mastering all songs on your album.
> Use individual compression on certain instruments or singers.
Technical reasons to avoid overall compression on your song:
> Save decisions on overall compression and individual tune equalization for an expert CD mastering person: (Unless of course you don’t plan on sending it to one. In that case, save 2 versions. One with, and one without overall compression.
Reasons:
1. The mastering house will have a more appropriate quality compressor for your music.
2. They will likely be more experienced than you about the compromises, advantages and disadvantages of applying overall compression.
3. They’ll be able to do all of this in a non-destructive way. In other words, they will be able to undo anything.
4. If you apply overall compression to your music, and your choice of compressor & or settings was wrong, the mastering house will have a difficult or impossible time attempting to undo the damage.
5. The more you compress your mix, the less the mastering person will be able to compress it, using the appropriate settings.
Dynamic Range--The Ups and Downs of Music:
Before we can study the art of compression, we must learn to appreciate the power of music's dynamic range. How does music grab our interest?
> A production which is relentlessly loud (or relentless in its sameness) can become boring very fast.
> Musical styles that depend on constant sameness become old very fast. (Disco died because it became boring, and over-compression contributed to its death. Rock hasn’t died yet, decades later, one reason is because it’s lively in dynamics.
> Any genre that does not grow in musicality will quickly die, and dynamic contrast plays a big role in musicality.
> Musical interest can grow and avoid sounding tiresome by expanding its dynamic range. Low levels create suspense that make the loud parts sound even more exciting. Four big firecrackers in a row just don't sound as exciting as 3 little cherry bombs followed by an M80.
This is what I mean by dynamic range.
A lot of music lately, especially that played on the Radio, are currently too compressed, but it sure turns some people on at home, and also in the motion picture theater.
> Films provide an ideal framework to study the creative use of dynamic range.
The public is not consciously aware of the effect of sound, but it plays a role in a film's success. For example, the movie The Fugitive succeeded because of its drama, despite an aggressive, compressed, fatiguing mix. From the beginning bus ride, with its super-hot dialog and effects, all the crashes were constantly loud and overstated, completely destroying the impact of the big train crash. They forgot the term "suspense"?
In contrast, the sound mix of the Titanic was a masterpiece of natural dynamic range. The dialog and effects at the beginning of the movie are played at natural levels, enhancing the drama and suspense for the big thrills at the end.
That's where the excitement lies.
Compressors: Tools to Manipulate Dynamic Range:
Compression is a tool; when used right, can produce some of the most beautiful recordings in the world. A lot of music styles are based on the sound of compression, from Disco to Rap to Rock. And a engineer may intentionally use creative compression to paint a mix and form new special effects.
But too often, unskilled compression squashes the sound, removes life, vigor and impact, and replace it with mush.
It actually takes more work to make a natural-sounding recording than an artificial one.
> First learn to paint naturally; then can you truly understand the art of creating distortion.
> Learn where compression is useful, and where it does a dis-service to the music.
> A compressed production may sound good on a boombox, but when reproduced on a high-fidelity system, it can sound overbearing and ultimately lifeless.
- Everyone has his own style of working with compressors and there are no rules. However, before you make your own rules, go slow on using compression too much! This learning process will teach you to make better-sounding music later on. Thus the compressor becomes a tool to handle problems, not a crutch or substitute for recording techniques.
> First, learn about the natural dynamics of musical instruments, then begin to alter them with compressors.
> Every so often, give yourself a reality check. Try bypassing it or pulling back the amount and see where you stand. You'll rediscover what is called the dynamics of music. It's a real challenge.
Watch For These Compression-related Pitfalls.
> When recording vocalists who have to belt it out now and then, a well-adjusted compressor can make them sound a lot more comfortable.
> For live mic’ng, watch out for a "closed-in" sound, "clamping down" when the vocalist gets loud, or loss of clarity.
> For Recording to tape or PC, compress at the mixing stage, not while recording. Remember, when recording, you cannot undo the damage of over-compression.
> If you are compressing up to 10dB or more, you are most likely over-compressing and as a result just bringing up the noise floor. A good compression range to stay around is 5 dB reduction.
> Start fresh each time you are gonna use compression. Free yourself of preconceptions. Although you always compressed the bass a certain amount, maybe this time you won't need that much compression. Each musician is an individual. In general, the better the bass player, the less compression you will need to use, and the greater the chance that compression will "choke up" his sound.
> In pop music, compressors are often used to create a tighter band sound, making the rhythm instruments sit in a good, constant place in the mix. But when misused or overused, compressors can take away the sense of natural breathing and openness that makes music swing and sway. Thus, I recommend that during mixing, after you've inserted a few compressors on certain instruments (e.g., the bass, rhythm guitar, vocal) and listened for a while, try comparing with the compressors bypassed. Sometimes you'll find the compression was hurting the mix, and not helping the sound.
Avoid Wimpy Loud Sounds:
Some of you may say that this conservative advice only applies to acoustic styles like country music. However, Rock music is often a casualty of compressor abuse. Some engineers try to be get louder and louder and reach a climax, but
have lost their intensity, producing wimpy loud sound. Always strive to put life into your sound. When you mix rock music, listen closely to the climaxes; is it possible that you are killing the music with your compressor?
Stop trying to copy squashed CDs. Many compare their mixes against already-pressed CDs, but be careful what you choose as a standard. Ironically, mastered CDs often do not sound like what comes out of the mix, so how can you emulate something which can only be done post-mix? What you really need is to hear the sound of a good mix before it was sent for mastering. But since that's not available, turn down the CD reference.
Remember this: when two CDs are listened to at equal loudness, nine out of ten people will prefer the sound of an uncompressed song to a over compressed one. For the first minute, a louder presentation will grab you, but relentless
sound quickly becomes tiring. Many of today's compact discs have already exceeded the loudness limit---which is the level above which the sound quality goes downhill while the sound "quantity" goes up. You can't get something for nothing.
If You Can't Make It Sound Good, Make it Loud? (Nope)
Compression is not making a song louder & hotter than the competition. Compression is the process of making a song better.
Multi band compression:
First, let's define Compression.
The reduction of audio dynamic range, so that the louder passages are made softer, or the softer passages appear louder, or both.
Compression settings:
Threshold: (eg. -40 to 0 dB)
Threshold: Level at which the compression is applied.
Ratio: (eg. 1:1 to 00:1 (which is limiting))
Ratio: Measure of cut, (e.g. 1:2 = 1dB cut for every 2 dB over the threshold)
Attack: (eg. 0.1ms to 200ms.)
Attack rate: rate of how fast the compression takes place.
Release: (eg. 50ms to 3 sec)
Release: Rate at which the compression backs off.
Knee: (eg. hard and soft)
Knee: Compression level intensity.
Now, for the basic two rules:
Rule #1: There are no rules. If you want to use a compressor/limiter of any type, then go ahead and use it.
Rule #2: When in doubt, don't use it!
> How can you tell when you have enough compression?
Discussing sound is like describing colors to a blind person, but let’s try.
Supposing there are two qualities of music, one called punchy, the other smooth.
Let's say that some music sounds better punchy, other music sounds better
smooth.
In general you can achieve a punchy or smooth sound through different amounts and types of compression, or not using compression at all.
> Try to avoid overall compression in the mix until mastering all songs on your album.
> Use individual compression on certain instruments or singers.
Technical reasons to avoid overall compression on your song:
> Save decisions on overall compression and individual tune equalization for an expert CD mastering person: (Unless of course you don’t plan on sending it to one. In that case, save 2 versions. One with, and one without overall compression.
Reasons:
1. The mastering house will have a more appropriate quality compressor for your music.
2. They will likely be more experienced than you about the compromises, advantages and disadvantages of applying overall compression.
3. They’ll be able to do all of this in a non-destructive way. In other words, they will be able to undo anything.
4. If you apply overall compression to your music, and your choice of compressor & or settings was wrong, the mastering house will have a difficult or impossible time attempting to undo the damage.
5. The more you compress your mix, the less the mastering person will be able to compress it, using the appropriate settings.
Dynamic Range--The Ups and Downs of Music:
Before we can study the art of compression, we must learn to appreciate the power of music's dynamic range. How does music grab our interest?
> A production which is relentlessly loud (or relentless in its sameness) can become boring very fast.
> Musical styles that depend on constant sameness become old very fast. (Disco died because it became boring, and over-compression contributed to its death. Rock hasn’t died yet, decades later, one reason is because it’s lively in dynamics.
> Any genre that does not grow in musicality will quickly die, and dynamic contrast plays a big role in musicality.
> Musical interest can grow and avoid sounding tiresome by expanding its dynamic range. Low levels create suspense that make the loud parts sound even more exciting. Four big firecrackers in a row just don't sound as exciting as 3 little cherry bombs followed by an M80.
This is what I mean by dynamic range.
A lot of music lately, especially that played on the Radio, are currently too compressed, but it sure turns some people on at home, and also in the motion picture theater.
> Films provide an ideal framework to study the creative use of dynamic range.
The public is not consciously aware of the effect of sound, but it plays a role in a film's success. For example, the movie The Fugitive succeeded because of its drama, despite an aggressive, compressed, fatiguing mix. From the beginning bus ride, with its super-hot dialog and effects, all the crashes were constantly loud and overstated, completely destroying the impact of the big train crash. They forgot the term "suspense"?
In contrast, the sound mix of the Titanic was a masterpiece of natural dynamic range. The dialog and effects at the beginning of the movie are played at natural levels, enhancing the drama and suspense for the big thrills at the end.
That's where the excitement lies.
Compressors: Tools to Manipulate Dynamic Range:
Compression is a tool; when used right, can produce some of the most beautiful recordings in the world. A lot of music styles are based on the sound of compression, from Disco to Rap to Rock. And a engineer may intentionally use creative compression to paint a mix and form new special effects.
But too often, unskilled compression squashes the sound, removes life, vigor and impact, and replace it with mush.
It actually takes more work to make a natural-sounding recording than an artificial one.
> First learn to paint naturally; then can you truly understand the art of creating distortion.
> Learn where compression is useful, and where it does a dis-service to the music.
> A compressed production may sound good on a boombox, but when reproduced on a high-fidelity system, it can sound overbearing and ultimately lifeless.
- Everyone has his own style of working with compressors and there are no rules. However, before you make your own rules, go slow on using compression too much! This learning process will teach you to make better-sounding music later on. Thus the compressor becomes a tool to handle problems, not a crutch or substitute for recording techniques.
> First, learn about the natural dynamics of musical instruments, then begin to alter them with compressors.
> Every so often, give yourself a reality check. Try bypassing it or pulling back the amount and see where you stand. You'll rediscover what is called the dynamics of music. It's a real challenge.
Watch For These Compression-related Pitfalls.
> When recording vocalists who have to belt it out now and then, a well-adjusted compressor can make them sound a lot more comfortable.
> For live mic’ng, watch out for a "closed-in" sound, "clamping down" when the vocalist gets loud, or loss of clarity.
> For Recording to tape or PC, compress at the mixing stage, not while recording. Remember, when recording, you cannot undo the damage of over-compression.
> If you are compressing up to 10dB or more, you are most likely over-compressing and as a result just bringing up the noise floor. A good compression range to stay around is 5 dB reduction.
> Start fresh each time you are gonna use compression. Free yourself of preconceptions. Although you always compressed the bass a certain amount, maybe this time you won't need that much compression. Each musician is an individual. In general, the better the bass player, the less compression you will need to use, and the greater the chance that compression will "choke up" his sound.
> In pop music, compressors are often used to create a tighter band sound, making the rhythm instruments sit in a good, constant place in the mix. But when misused or overused, compressors can take away the sense of natural breathing and openness that makes music swing and sway. Thus, I recommend that during mixing, after you've inserted a few compressors on certain instruments (e.g., the bass, rhythm guitar, vocal) and listened for a while, try comparing with the compressors bypassed. Sometimes you'll find the compression was hurting the mix, and not helping the sound.
Avoid Wimpy Loud Sounds:
Some of you may say that this conservative advice only applies to acoustic styles like country music. However, Rock music is often a casualty of compressor abuse. Some engineers try to be get louder and louder and reach a climax, but
have lost their intensity, producing wimpy loud sound. Always strive to put life into your sound. When you mix rock music, listen closely to the climaxes; is it possible that you are killing the music with your compressor?
Stop trying to copy squashed CDs. Many compare their mixes against already-pressed CDs, but be careful what you choose as a standard. Ironically, mastered CDs often do not sound like what comes out of the mix, so how can you emulate something which can only be done post-mix? What you really need is to hear the sound of a good mix before it was sent for mastering. But since that's not available, turn down the CD reference.
Remember this: when two CDs are listened to at equal loudness, nine out of ten people will prefer the sound of an uncompressed song to a over compressed one. For the first minute, a louder presentation will grab you, but relentless
sound quickly becomes tiring. Many of today's compact discs have already exceeded the loudness limit---which is the level above which the sound quality goes downhill while the sound "quantity" goes up. You can't get something for nothing.
If You Can't Make It Sound Good, Make it Loud? (Nope)
Compression is not making a song louder & hotter than the competition. Compression is the process of making a song better.
EQ - Frequency Ranges
Frequency ranges and effect of sound quality
20-150 Hz
Those sounds are more felt than really heard. In this area it gives sense of power. But too much produces a muddy sound.
150-300 Hz
The rhythm section is here. Either a fat or thin. Too much here makes the sound too boomy. (Bass guitar, snare, toms)
300Hz-2kHz
This is probably the most important frequency range. Most instruments contain important harmonics here. Too much boosting at 300 Hz can cause horn like sounds.
1kHz and 2kHz sound tinny. Too much here sounds like a telephone. Judge well.
2-5kHz
This is upper vocal region. Too much here will cause great hearing fatigue and start to be painful. Reducing 3kHz in musical instruments brings vocals on top if your having a hard time being understood.
5-10kHz
This is presence range. This area has great achievement in overall sound. Too little sound here causes a "far away" sound.
10-15kHz
Sibilance levels can be controlled here. This area gives bright clean definition.
20-150 Hz
Those sounds are more felt than really heard. In this area it gives sense of power. But too much produces a muddy sound.
150-300 Hz
The rhythm section is here. Either a fat or thin. Too much here makes the sound too boomy. (Bass guitar, snare, toms)
300Hz-2kHz
This is probably the most important frequency range. Most instruments contain important harmonics here. Too much boosting at 300 Hz can cause horn like sounds.
1kHz and 2kHz sound tinny. Too much here sounds like a telephone. Judge well.
2-5kHz
This is upper vocal region. Too much here will cause great hearing fatigue and start to be painful. Reducing 3kHz in musical instruments brings vocals on top if your having a hard time being understood.
5-10kHz
This is presence range. This area has great achievement in overall sound. Too little sound here causes a "far away" sound.
10-15kHz
Sibilance levels can be controlled here. This area gives bright clean definition.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)