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Monthly Archives: September 2022

The Rhythmic Turnaround: How to make your beats interesting

September 26, 2022 by Aaron
Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Published Work, Supreme Tracks
aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, flypaper, home recording, how to make beats interesting, making beats, music business, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, rhythm, supremetracks

Why boom bap boom boom bap is not enough for your beats

This article first appeared on SupremeTracks.com. I reprint it here with permission and I encourage you to check out their services.

There’s a fine line in rhythm-based music between repetition and variance. It’s certainly necessary to introduce new things to keep listeners interested, but repetition is equally important. In beat making, it’s really all about repetition – without being overly repetitive. 

Striking this balance can be a little tricky, but one of the best places is to start is with the beat. IE: the actual drum track. Drum tracks are by nature the most repetitive part of most songs, and they need to be. The drum track is there to keep the beat and give the song a foundation to sit on. So, they need to establish a pattern and basically stick to it. Too much noodling around and you lose the groove. But a drum pattern can also be too repetitive, which can suck the life out of a track. 

What to do? There are a million options, but one of the best is what I call the rhythmic turnaround. Before we get specific, let’s talk a little about why this works. 

Rhythm and The Brain  

Keeping it simple, let’s just say the brain responds to rhythm differently than other aspects of music. In “This Is Your Brain On Music”, Daniel Levitin says “Our response to groove is largely pre- or unconscious because it goes through the cerebellum rather than the frontal lobes.” In other words, music is visceral. You move and react to it without thinking. 

Sam Brinson points out that when “we’re surprised by an off-timed beat or a different rhythm altogether, the blood flow increases to this area, our brains are surprised… and a little excited because it’s these surprises and deviations that make the music interesting.” 

This means that a little bit of variation will go a long way toward keeping your listener engaged on a very fundamental level. Not only that, the brain tends to respond well to certain types of variation, namely ones based on simple integer ratios. 

That’s just a fancy way to say what we said above: changes are good. But repetition is also good, because listening to something again and again, whether that’s a whole song or a phrase repeated during that song, causes the brain to listen differently, and pay better attention to subtle changes and differences. 

In other words, repetition and variation work together to make an interesting beat. 

The Rhythmic Turnaround

Quite technically, what we’re about to talk about isn’t a turnaround in the strictest sense, but I call it that because it occurs over the last part of a phrase and serves to lead back into the repeated phrase in an interesting way.

Consider the quintessential pop/hip-hop/rock rhythm – the boom bap boom boom bap:

This is a one measure phrase that’s often-repeated ad nauseum throughout a song. While it sometimes works, played on its own it can feel a little wrong. You can make it feel more balanced by turning it into a two-measure phrase with some kind of change at the end of the phrase:

Here I’ve simply added another kick hit which leads the phrase back into itself. A lot of times, this tiny change can make all the difference. For some songs, though, you might need a four-measure phrase. Something like this:

Here I’ve varied the back third of measure four, leading the rhythm back into the first measure. This not only creates a little interest, it also makes the track feel more balanced.

Something interesting to note here is that the longer the phrase, the longer the variance. When we varied the most basic one bar rhythm, we changed the last beat of measure two. In the four-bar measure, we changed a proportionately longer bit of the end of the phrase. In an eight-bar phrase, we might vary the last measure or two to create this turnaround.

The Power of Silence

In the previous examples, we added or moved notes to create a rhythmic change, but it’s just as powerful to take things away. Let’s take the other ubiquitous rhythm- boom boom bap boom boom bap:

You may recognize this rhythm from Queen’s “We Will Rock You”. In their case, it works perfectly, partly because of Freddy Mercury’s vocal groove, and partly because the point of the track’s intro is simplicity.

You can create variants to turn this beat around in a number of ways, including removing notes:

We only removed one kick note and moved another, but it changes the feel drastically. For another example, let’s put silence where there was a note before:

This four-bar loop omits the snare on the four of measures two and four, which creates a short drop. I’ve further varied the rhythm by adding an extra hi-hat hit on measure four. And for good measure, the hi-hat sample has a slight delay effect, further altering the rhythm.

Fills vs. Variants

A drum fill is any variation between sections which marks the transition from one part of a song to another. There’s a small difference between that and a variant, which serves to keep interest and lead the listener back into the loop.

In practice the two may not be all that different. A fill could be as small as one beat or as long a couple of measures, and a variant might be just as long. That said, a true fill is usually more complex:

This is the same rhythm as above, only instead of leaving the snare out at the end of the four-bar phrase, we’ve added sixteenth notes, creating a simple quarter measure fill. This kind of fill pulls the listener forward and can also be used in the same way as a simpler variant, or as a turnaround.

Some longer fills don’t necessarily work as variants because they cause the listener to leave the groove. For example:

While still in time, this whole measure fill temporarily interrupts the basic groove, which helps demarcate a new section. This would be useful for moving into a chorus, or simply into a new part of a verse.

One Of Many Tools

A great beat starts with the rhythm itself. A great rhythm can be banged out on a table, worked up in Ableton, or written out as sheet music. These patterns are the foundation of a great track, so it’s useful to know how to write rhythms that are interesting and compelling, even before you start tweaking timbres and effects.

A rhythmic turnaround is just one of many tools you have at your disposal in this endeavor, and now you can try it out on your next track, if you haven’t already! Just make sure to listen and trust your ears – after all, rules were made to be broken!

If you want to try it out with a partner, you might try looking up an arranger on Supreme Tracks or look up a drummer and talk about it with them.

Until next time, may your beats stay fresh and your grooves tight!


I’m a producer, writer and artist. Sometimes I make beats, sometimes I hire a drummer. I always spit on one-measure loops. Discuss with me on Facebook or Instagram.

Everything You Need to Know About Picking Audio Cables

September 21, 2022 by Aaron
Audio Instruction, Flypaper by Soundfly, Instructional Stuff, Published Work
aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, audio cables, flypaper, home recording, music business, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, sound wires, soundfly

This article first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint it here with permission (and I also stole their pictures of connectors – I hope they can forgive me!), and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15.

Unfortunately, you can’t connect audio gear with brainwaves yet – or even wifi (with notable exceptions). So, even in the modern world of digital awesomeness, cabling is still the heart of a studio and a stage, and something you should take seriously.

Here is everything you need to know about picking out cables – which isn’t as much as you may fear (what you could know – that’s a longer story).

Balanced vs. unbalanced

First you need to know the difference between balanced signal and unbalanced signal.

  • Balanced signal uses three wires – ground, positive, and negative. Plus and minus carry the same information with opposite polarity. Balanced devices receive signal and flip one side’s polarity, bringing them back into phase – which happens to put noise out of phase with itself – cancelling it out. Sound like Greek? The key takeaway: Balanced connections reject noise.
  • Unbalanced signal uses – you guessed it – only two wires. Simpler, cheaper, and noisier.

Unbalanced cables may work in short runs (under 25 feet – under 6 if you’re naughty), and some gear is unbalanced. If all your gear is unbalanced, using balanced cables won’t help you much, though it won’t hurt either. If your gear is balanced, you’re better off using balanced cables all around if you can afford it.

Older gear like vintage outboard gear, anything with RCA type connectors like record players, and instruments such as guitars and basses are all unbalanced.

Microphones, mic preamps, and mixers are normally balanced. Again, pick balanced cables unless money is an issue, the runs are short, and/or every single piece of gear is unbalanced (unlikely).

Speaker vs. instrument

If you’ve skipped ahead, you’ve noticed that you can tell a balanced cable from an instrument cable by looking at the connector. Unfortunately, that’s not so with speaker cables vs. instrument (aka guitar) cables.

Nevertheless, it matters. Speaker cables are unshielded, which means if you grab one to connect your guitar to your amp, you’ll pick up noise from other sources (the “Mexican radio” problem), interference from devices – and generally have a noisy, ugly result.

It’s even worse in reverse. Using an instrument cable on a speaker such as a powered monitor or separate amp/loudspeaker can cause major-league harm to your amp. Because instrument cables have smaller wire, you’ll be sending a high amount of current to your amp – way more than it can actually handle. Things may be fine at first, but eventually you could cause a short in the amp, melt the cable, or worse yet – look stupid.

So how do you tell the difference? Read the package and keep track.

Connectors

Here’s a run down of typical audio connectors. Pro tip: if you can tell the difference between the first two, you’ll know if a cable is balanced or not by looking at the connector.

TS

TS stands for tip/sleeve. Think of a guitar cable or a speaker cable (see above if you skipped ahead). Also known as quarter-inch mono or phone jack. Notice there are two terminals. The tip (literally) and the sleeve (below the little line). That’s two channels. Three guesses whether this is a balanced or unbalanced connector, and the first two don’t count. (Hint: Unbalanced.)

TRS

TRS stands for tip/ring/sleeve. AKA quarter-inch stereo or quarter-inch balanced. Notice the extra little line in the connector, creating a tip (literally!), ring (the middle part), and sleeve (as before). TRS connectors are – you guessed it – balanced. Or they can be stereo. Why? Because they have two discreet channels – so they could carry stereo information instead of balanced mono information. Take a look at your headphone connector and you’ll see a tip/ring/sleeve connector. This signal is split into two before it gets to each side of the headphones.

You’ll also see TRS connectors on one end of insert cables. In this case, the signal is split into two not for stereo purposes, but for output and return.

Mini TRS

1/8th inch tip/ring/sleeve connectors are used for earbuds, many y-cables that you would use to connect your laptop’s headphone outputs to a mixer, and some headphones. Look for the three terminals on the connector – if you only see tip and sleeve, it’s not a stereo connector.

XLR

Mic cables. Old-school blokes call them cannon connectors. Unlike other types of cables, XLR cables are male on one end and female on the other. This is handy. Output is male (you know why). Input is female. Notice the three pins. XLR connections are balanced. Mics and mic pres aren’t the only place you’ll see them. They’re also used in AES/EBU digital cables (although the cable itself is a bit different), and you may come across an XLR patch bay.

RCA

SONY DSC

Also called phono connectors. These are unbalanced. You’ll see the female side on mixers labelled “tape in/out”, on the back of consumer electronics such as TVs and video game consoles, and interestingly – as S/PDIF digital inputs on audio gear. Technically, S/PDIF cables are more robust, and it’s better to opt for a true S/PDIF cable for these connections, but a regular old RCA cable will do in a pinch. RCA connectors are also typical in the y-cables mentioned above.

Other types

There are of course many other types of connectors you’ll see less often. These include but are not limited to banana plugs (speaker/amp systems), speakON (stage monitors and pro PA stuff), BNC (word clock and video connections), optical (digital audio), DB25 (computer-like connections with multiple channels in a small space), Elco (similar idea to DB25), and tiny telephone or “bantam” (miniature TRS connectors typical for large studio patch bays – very space-saving).

That’s it. In fact, that may be more than you actually need to know. You’ll notice we didn’t talk about Monster cables and Mogami cables and gold lamé cables and thousand dollar per foot custom-made cables from Japan. All those things may be great, and they may float your boat, but for the most part, any solidly made cable will do the job – as long as you pay attention to balanced vs. unbalanced and speaker vs. instrument cables – and your connections.

Until telepathic wi-fi enabled audio is invented, we hope this helps.


I’m a producer, writer and artist. I’m not always spacey, but when I am, I prefer lush and classy reverb – sometimes. Let me know your favorite reverbs on Facebook or Instagram

Tips For Setting Up Quickly On Stage

September 12, 2022 by Aaron
Audio Instruction, Carvin Amps and Audio, Instructional Stuff, Published Work
aaron trumm, carvin, carvin amps and audio, live music, music, music tips, stage, stage setup, tips for setting up quickly on stage

This article was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products!

Nothing saps your energy on stage like running late and being in a rush. To boot, you can’t always get into a venue at 9AM like the big shows do and set up. So, getting your stage set up done quickly and efficiently is crucial to ongoing success as a gigging musician.

Here are some of our best tips for getting your setup done quickly and easily, so you might have a chance at a good sound check and a little break before rocking the crowd.

Get Organized Today

Spend some time on an off day to organize gear. Label cables, fix equipment, and pack gear so you know exactly where everything is. Make sure you have fresh batteries (and backups) in all your battery powered gear such as wireless receivers and pedals.

You can even go so far as to carry an inventory checklist, color code cables, or preassemble racks and pedal boards.

No matter what you do, use high quality cables and coil them properly.

Stay Organized Yesterday

An easy setup starts before the gig. In fact, it starts at the end of the previous gig. You’ll be tempted to just throw everything in a bag and get going after a long night and plenty of peer pressure to either get to the party (or bed). Fight that urge and pack up gear properly – especially cables.

Plan Ahead

If possible, visit the venue days ahead of time and get the lay of the land. Note the size and location of the stage, the parking situation, when and where you’ll be loading in, and any obstacles you may face on show day. Get to know the staff and management well enough that you can ask for their help with things like getting in the door and moving furniture.

Especially important: find out whether you’ll need to provide a P.A.

As an extra bonus, prepare a stage plot even if the venue doesn’t need one. This will help you lay things out consistently, which is faster than re-inventing the wheel every show.

Practice

Setting up gear is like any other musical skill. The more you practice, the more proficient you become. So, dedicate some rehearsal time to starting from ground zero, setting yourself up, setting up a P.A., and getting ready.

Arrive Early

Things almost never go as planned. Arrive at least a half an hour before planned load in time to get your bearings, introduce yourself (again) to the staff, and get the process started. In some cases, this will mean waiting half an hour for somebody to arrive and open the door, but that’s better than being late and looking unprofessional.

Manage Space

When you start loading in, don’t put gear directly on the stage. Find a designated area off stage for prep, and load only what you need onto the stage when you’re ready. This may be required if you’re closely following another band. In that case, you can use the between time to pre-assemble drumkits, tune guitars, and generally get as much done as possible before taking the stage.

Focus

As much as you love your entourage and those rabid fans that come three hours early, you should ignore them during setup. Be friendly, of course, but set up the expectation beforehand that when you’re setting up, you’re not available for chit-chat and beers.

While you’re at it, stay focused on your own task, rather than managing the work of your other band members. When you’re completely done with your part, you should offer to help, but be sure to take direction and do what actually helps.

Load In Help

If you’ve got extra hands, use them! Minimize the number of trips you take from the car by getting multiple people to carry or using carts.

Keep Calm and Get Er Done

Finally, relax. Probably the number one reason for arriving early, not being in a rush may be your number one efficiency tool. If you’re well prepared, organized, and calm set up will run smoothly, you’ll iron out any problems quickly, and the night is very likely to go well.

Try these tips out at your next gig and let us know how it went. And for tips on keeping your stage clean and tidy, check out Streaming Lining Your Band’s Stage Setup.


If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm – or email me aaron @ aarontrumm.com

Latest Posts

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