Mix Fu:

May 31, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, do it yourself recording, home recording, mixing, mixing music, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, recording magazine, the art of mixing

Learn, Practice, Forget

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

In martial arts, there’s a concept that goes something like this: learn the technique, practice the technique, forget the technique.

Music mixing is similar if you think about it. As we’ve mentioned in these pages before, there are two sides to mixing. One is artfulness and intuition – your ability to feel a track with your heart. One is technical knowledge, skill, and science – your ability to understand a track with your brain.

The Brain Side

On the technical side, it behooves you to study, study, study and practice, practice, practice; learn the techniques and rules of the masters, drill the technique, gain skill over time.

You should never stop learning new techniques and practicing the skill and science of mixing records. You can hone your listening skills by listening to great tracks. You can train your rhythm or do ear training work. You can read magazines and books, watch YouTube videos, and attend seminars. You can continually find new songs to mix and evaluate each mix you do with critical ears. And the more you understand the physics of sound, the science of audio, and the engineering concepts behind the gear and software you work with, the more refined your mix fu becomes.

All this will help you develop a skillset which will make you a technically great mixer. All the practice will deepen your skills and help you learn faster, becoming more confident in the mix. Building your mixing brain may even help you improve your intuitive side.

The Heart Side

Learning, understanding and practice is crucial. But when mix day comes, it’s time to stop thinking about all that. Learn, practice, forget. Mix day is the day to be an artist, and let your intuition take over.

Most great mixers will tell you to mix quickly and there’s a reason for that. Letting yourself follow your gut and move quickly will allow you to tap into your deep well of knowledge efficiently, without overthinking. Overthinking can kill a mix, because you’ll start to make technical changes that aren’t needed and fail to trust your ears.

After all, if it sounds good, it sounds good. The day you mix is the day to forget with your brain, and let your intuition take over. You’ve trained the scientist, now you can be an artist.

Many of us take a deliberate approach to this process, with rituals or methods that remind us to let go and feel the music. One famous story involves a famous Jamaican producer arriving at a studio to finish a mix and refusing to start before getting high. According to lore, this mixer got just high enough and spent the next few hours with his eyes closed and his hand on one EQ knob on the high hat, simply twisting and grooving until at last – voila! It is done!

You will probably do more than tweak one high hat, and you may prefer not to be really high, but you get the picture.

Sometimes a little darkness is good. Some mixers clear the room. Some meditate. I clean the studio and clear out all the physical clutter. I also set up many of the more technical, tedious aspects of a mix in a separate session (a job for the engineering assistant, if you have one).

It doesn’t matter what you do, only that you allow yourself to stop thinking and fall back on your accumulated knowledge and skill intuitively.

It Takes Both – Train, Practice, Forget

Some newer mixers rely only on feel and intuition. This is what Bruce Lee would refer to as the “brawler” – fighting only with passion, flailing and usually falling to the better trained “classical man”. It’s true, without passion and heart, you won’t find the magic in the mix. And if you overthink it and get too technical, you’re likely to create cold, lifeless (although sonically flawless) mixes.

But if you don’t do the work to train yourself and become technically adept, your passion will often fall flat. This kind of mix is often muddy, distorted, or overly odd. I have often suffered from this affliction myself.

To achieve music mixing greatness, you truly need both sides. Learn, learn, learn. Practice, practice, practice. Then call up the mix, turn off the brain, and let your bones do the talking.

Aaron J. Trumm is a lifelong martial artist and music producer. Talk to him about all these things on Facebook, Instagram, or email at aaron at aarontrumm.com!

Signal Flow Part 2

May 23, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Carvin Amps and Audio, Instructional Stuff, Published Work

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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!

In signal flow part 1, we covered the basics starting from ground zero. In part 2, we’ll cover some more advanced topics that shouldn’t be too hard to understand now that the basic idea of the directionality of audio signal is down.

Many of these more advanced issues come up in the DAW, but we can still get a better handle on them by starting in the old-school analog studio. We’ll also look at a couple of things to be aware of in live settings.

Splitting and routing

In part 1, we discussed simple set ups where audio flows in one “straight” line and doesn’t deviate. Now let’s introduce the concept of splitting, which will set us up to understand nearly everything else that comes up.

Splitting is simple. It just means that an audio signal can essentially be “copied” so that it goes to two places at once. Think of it as if you were walking down the street with your twin. At a fork in the road, you go right and your twin goes left. In the analog domain, splitting can sometimes affect signal level or quality, but its rarely a problem, and only when it’s overdone. In the digital domain, a perfet copy can be made.

Splitting is what allows things like aux sends, busses, monitor mixes that are separate from house mixes, and inserts. It can be as simple as using a y-connector or as complicated as multiple routing options on a mixing board.

Routing, meanwhile, just means telling a signal to go to a certain place. On a mix console (and in a DAW), routing is done with buttons. This is a kind of splitting, but it’s easier to think of it as multiplying. You could push the button that sends your signal to the main output, and also push the button that routes it to a buss.

Busses

A “bus” or “buss” in audio is a channel that mixes together other channels. So, technically the main output fader on a mixer is a buss, but when we talk about busses, we’re mostly talking about any extra busses. A console may only have the one main output, or it could have several busses. A mixer referred to as an “8 buss console” would have 8 busses besides the main output. Most DAWs let you create busses to your heart’s content.

Busses are useful for a variety of purposes. Probably the most common is mixing various tracks into one buss for easy manipulation of the whole group. For example, you might route all your drums (kick, snare, hats, overheads, toms, etc) to one stereo drums buss. This would allow you to control the volume of the entire drum set and apply processing to the whole thing at once. You would then route the drum buss to the main output for your final mix.

Splitting comes in when you decide to route those drums to a couple of different busses at once, or to the main output as well. You’ll have to pay attention, because on most mixers and DAWs, it’s possible to route tracks individually to busses and the main output – something you may or may not want. In our drum example, we’d want to make sure they were not routed directly to the mains.

In a DAW you could use busses for that same purpose, or to do things like route click tracks to the headphones and not the mains (if your audio interface has multiple outputs).

Bussing is also useful in a live setting for the same reason. Busses could also be used for a variety of other purposes but some of them would be awkward. Let’s say you have a great house mix but the band wants it a little different. Instead of a buss, the best way to handle this is an aux send.

Auxiliary sends

In that last example, you could use one of your busses (if it has its own physical output) as the “monitor” mix and use the main output for the house mix. That’s ok, but routing to busses is either on or off, typically. So, you couldn’t create a whole different mix – only turn off certain parts.

To create a separate monitor mix, you would need to be able to send different levels to your monitor buss.

Enter the aux send. An aux send is essentially a splitter with a volume knob. Most large mix consoles have several aux sends. The way they work is on each channel strip is an extra knob labelled something like “Aux 1” – there could be several. For every one of those, there’s an extra physical output on the console. Again, this is splitting, because signal goes to the mains (and/or any busses) and to the aux send.

Aux sends have a multitude of uses, including creating separate monitor mixes (if you have multiple sends you can create a different mix for each player, for example), making separate headphone mixes in the studio, and for effects like reverb. For that to work, we need something called a return.

Aux return

If you’ve only used the aux sends in a DAW, you may not know that in analog mixing, sends usually have returns. This is a special input on the console which is connected to a gain knob labelled something like “Aux 1 Return”. This is designed specifically so you can route audio to effects like reverb and return the processed signal to your mix. Aux returns are then routed to either a buss or the main output.

In a DAW, this is handled differently. Individual tracks can have as many aux sends as you want to create, but instead of being routed to a physical output, you route them to a buss. Then you put the effects plugin on that buss, turning the buss into a “reverb” buss, and routing it to the main output. This recreates the “aux return” in an analog mixer set up.

Since this has gotten a little complicated, let’s review with two simple diagrams for analog and DAW mixing scenarios.

In a DAW, it would be more like this:

Inserts

We just have one more monkey wrench to put in, and that’s the insert. You probably won’t see an actual insert if you’re working in a DAW, but the plugin section on a DAW’s channel strip is akin to an insert in the analog domain.

An insert interrupts the audio signal and sends it out of the mixer via a separate output and accepts it back via the same connector. This is accomplished using a special cable called an insert cable.

The insert is used in recording and live scenarios for two main purposes:

During mix down or a show, inserts can be used to process a track, similar to the way you would use a plugin in a DAW. For example, you might want to use a compressor on our vocal track. You would connect the output side of the insert cable to the compressor’s input and the input side to the compressor’s output. This is exactly the same routing as a plugin chain, and just as in a DAW, you could chain multiple processors together in the analog domain by connecting the first processor’s output to another unit’s input and so on – finally connecting the last piece to the input side of the insert cable.

During tracking with a mix console, the insert is often used to route audio to a recorder while still being able to hear the live audio in real time via the main outputs of the console. This way, a player or singer can hear themselves separately while still recording. In this case, the input side of the insert is simply not connected, which allows signal to pass through (turning the insert into a splitter). This can also be accomplished via the “direct out” of each channel – but many mixers have no direct output, instead letting the insert act as a direct output.

In a DAW you might simply turn on software or hardware monitoring and listen to the live signal that way. The problem with that is you may have to deal with some latency, which could throw timing off. So even in a DAW recording environment, when a studio is equipment with a console, the insert method is often preferred to monitoring from the computer.

Similarly, during a live show, inserts are often used to split the audio out to a recording device, to record a fully separated multi-track performance (when there’s no direct output).

A note on live splitting: Sometimes, signal is split before it gets to the main console, in order to allow a totally separate monitor mix. In this case, splitters are applied at the mic connection, and that signal is sent to two separate mixing consoles.

Final notes, feedback, and sequential power-up

As a final note, you will have noticed by now that given the right equipment, it’s possible to route and audio output back to its own input. This what’s known as a feedback loop and it should be avoided at all costs, for obvious reasons.

This is related to the feedback you might hear in a live setting. That feedback is because microphones are picking up their own output from the speakers and feeding that signal back into their own input.

It would also be good to mention sequential start up here. Since devices such as mixers create a little surge of audio signal when they’re powered up, it can be damaging to equipment down the line to power up in the wrong order. For example, if a powered speaker is on when you turn on the mixer feeding it, you’ll hear a pop. That pop could damage the cone.

So, audio professionals always power up gear in order of audio signal flow. So, it’s crucial to remember what direction audio flows. There are devices that do this for you, like Carvin’s AC120S power conditioner. Just remember to hook up the power in the right spots!

There you have it. We couldn’t possibly have covered every possible scenario, but you should have enough understanding now to understand and adjust to any situation you might encounter.

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

What Is Quantizing and How Do I Use It

May 18, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Flypaper by Soundfly, Instructional Stuff, Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, flypaper, home recording, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, quantization, quantize, recording, soundfly, what is quantizing

This article first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint my original version here, and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15.

What is quantizing, you ask? It’s simple on the surface. Quantizing is moving notes recorded into a MIDI sequencer or DAW in line with the “grid”, which makes a rhythmically imprecise performance perfect.

That sounds easy enough, but let’s dive a little deeper so we fully understand what this “grid” is, what quantization really does, and when it might be useful. Ok…deep breath….here we go!

Human Timing, BPM, and The Grid

It may not surprise you to learn that human timing is not perfectly uniform. If a drummer decides to play at a “medium” tempo, that’s a pretty arbitrary idea. Your “medium” could be my “way too fast”.

So, in production, we assign numerical values to tempo. 120 BPM means there will be 120 beats over the course of a minute. A beat here is defined as one quarter note. This numerical definition of tempo allows us to talk to computers about it, and to standardize our own definitions. BPM gives us exact timing for all note divisions.

Those precise divisions make up the “grid”. The grid is not arbitrary. At a given BPM, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes – every note you can think of – lands exactly on a mathematically defined place in time. For example, at 120 BPM, a quarter note is precisely .5 seconds long.

But, even if we have a numerical notion of tempo, a human tempo could fluctuate over the course of a song (often desirable). Even if it doesn’t, a human will not hit notes exactly on those mathematically defined divisions.

This is sometimes great, if the player is great and the timing feels great, and everything is just great great great. Other times it’s bad. Say if a player is just off or inexperienced. More importantly, editing arbitrary rhythm that’s not “locked” to the grid can be tricky at best.

Enter quantization…

MIDI Quantize

Although most DAWs now have the ability to quantize actual audio, quantization is first and foremost a MIDI function, so that’s what we’ll talk about here. However, most of the concepts apply when quantizing audio.

Let’s say you play a simple drum beat with kick and snare into your MIDI sequencer while listening to a click track. When you play it back, you notice that the snare just doesn’t hit right in a couple of spots. Or perhaps you’ve laid down a piano groove or a bassline, but some notes aren’t quite right.

You could move each note manually, using a variety of methods we won’t discuss here, or you could apply quantization to the whole phrase.

Your notes are now magically aligned to the grid and your rhythm track is perfect. Boom, end of article!

Well not so fast. The fact is quantizing could hurt the track more than it helps at times. There are several ways this can happen. Way one is using the wrong quantization resolution.

Quantize To…Or Quantize Resolution

Quantize resolution tells the computer how fine the grid should be. For example, if you pick 8^th note resolution, that means all notes will be moved to the nearest 8^th note position. If you happen to have played a rhythm that includes 16^th notes, your phrase will get changed in a way you didn’t intend.

If you use too fine a measurement, notes could be moved to the wrong grid space, changing the feel of the phrase or ruining it all together.

A good rule of thumb is to quantize to the shortest note you’ve played. If the phrase is all 8^th and quarter notes, use 8^th note resolution. If you have 16^th notes in the phrase, use 16^th note resolution. And so on.

Keep in mind that many rhythms might actually use triplets, so you might try using a triplet resolution if things aren’t coming out right.

Once you’ve got your resolution right, you may still notice the track sounding a little stiff and inhuman. If this is the case, you can play with “strength”.

Quantize Strength (or Amount)

Quantize strength works like this. At 100%, it will move the notes exactly to the nearest grid point. To keep a more human feel, you can use strength to simply move notes closer to the nearest grid point, but not all the way there. For example, if a note is ahead of the beat by 60 ticks, 50% strength would move the note back 30 ticks – half of the way home. This can help keep some of that human feel, while tightening the groove.

Swing

Another way to humanize a groove is to apply some swing. When a player swings a beat, they’re making the first note of a pair a little longer (or shorter) than the second. Swing distorts the grid so that each pair of notes is unevenly spaced. At 50%, no swing is applied. At 66%, the first note of the pair is twice as long as the second, and at 33%, the second note is twice as long.

Swing can also be a great way to change the entire feel of a track by swinging a previously straight beat.

Groove Quantize

To this point, we’ve been talking about quantizing to a perfectly even grid, that doesn’t fluctuate. What if you’d like to quantize to a grid created by, say, a live, wild drum track? (Note: “wild” here means not played to a click or other tempo reference – not crazy and awesome).

Groove quantize allows you to quantize to a human groove, or a groove predetermined by software presets. This is particularly handy if you want to lock the grid to a live performance to make editing easier.

Groove quantize works the same as regular quantization, except the grid is defined by the groove source. You may still have to play with resolution, strength and even swing to keep the quantized parts faithful and dynamic.

When, Why and Why Not

Quantization is a crucial tool for keeping productions tight and clean, but it’s not always appropriate. Here are a few times you’ll want to quantize and some you may not:

To Quantize:

MIDI tracks that need to be copied and pasted. The first note MUST be placed exactly on the one, or you’re in for a world of hurt when you try to paste a phrase to another measure.
When tracks need to be super even and tight – such as in EDM or dance music. A quarter note kick drum, for example, really doesn’t do its job un-quantized.
To tighten up a drum track, bass line, piano, or anything that forms the foundation of a song. Use strength settings to keep things from sounding mechanical.

Not To Quantize:

Any time quantization ruins the feel of a part. Undo!
If a part already sounds fantastic. Don’t fix what’s not broken.
Parts, such as lead lines, which have a unique human character. Character is often about subtle rhythmic “imperfections”.
Michael Jackson’s beatboxing. Never, ever, quantize the gloved one.
Tight live ensembles – unless using groove quantize to adjust overdubs to the original group’s timing.

Lock It Down

There you have it. A quick look at quantization, and how you might use it to better your productions. Quantize is an essential part of an audio/MIDI toolbox, and it can work wonders and make your life easier. But like anything, it’s not for every situation. Use it judiciously, and most of all, use your ears.

Here’s to keeping the beat.

Wanna talk about it all? Hit me up on Facebook or Instagram or aaron at aarontrumm dot com and we can vibe about music biz, making stuff, whatever man.

Chasing the Timeless Sound

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

There’s one term that’s a death nell when its associated with a record. It strikes fear in the hearts of producers, partly because nobody wants this brand, and partly because it’s incredibly difficult to define. As soon as you think you understand it, it’s gone in a puff of smoke. And as soon as you start thinking about it, everything sounds…

…dated.

Shudder.

So, what does it mean? What is it when a song sounds “dated”? Let’s start with a dictionary definition.

Dated: Old-fashioned.

That was easy! Dated means old. That means old stuff is dated, right? But old music doesn’t necessarily sound dated. New stuff that sounds old might sound dated, and it might sound “vintage”. So, using old techniques doesn’t always mean a track will sound dated.

If it did, that would mean that recording a live band in a studio would sound dated, because that’s been done to death – but it doesn’t work that way.

The fact is, “dated” is a lot like other subjective terms like “current”, “rockin”, “good”, or “bad”. What sounds dated to one person might sound fresh to someone else.

Maybe a better word for “dated” would be “unoriginal”.

One thing’s for sure. “Dated” is a real thing, just like “good” or “bad”, and you’ll know it when you hear it.

Does It Matter?

Leaving off trying to define it, does it matter if your song sounds dated? Not really. In the end if you love it, you made something worthwhile. End of story.

From a professional standpoint it can definitely matter, especially in pop.

The music business fraught with requests for tracks that “sound like” some famous artist. “In the vein of Drake”, “with an Ed Sheeran vibe”, etc. Many requests even include the term “current”.

Ironically, the more you chase trends, the more dated you’re likely to sound. Even if you manage to hit the mark now, an overly trendy production may not stand the test of time.

Timelessness

Mysterious as the notion of datedness may be, we have established a few things. First, it’s at least partially subjective. Next, it has something to do with being unoriginal (another nebulous term). Third, you’ll know it when you hear it. And finally, chasing trends can lead to future datedness.

Other things seem clear. The latest cool computer trick – dubstep wobble base, for example – may not stand up long. On the other hand, staying stuck in an old way of thinking could make you sound stale. And copying a famous artist may sound unoriginal.

So, timelessness, which opposes datedness better than “current”ness, seems to be a delicate balance of subtle originality and bold creativity.

The truth is, timelessness is as subjective as datedness, so we could never definitively tell you how to find a timeless sound, but there are a few things that seem to help.

Vintage sounds can anchor a song while simultaneously bringing a fresh perspective to a current style.
Some things stand up over time, like spaciousness, great songwriting, or undeniable virtuosity.
Songs seem more timeless when they don’t rely on gimmicks, or when those gimmicks are so original as to be unrepeatable.
One element of a song may be timeless while others may be dating. Perhaps a lyric is timeless, but it’s sung over a cheesy 80s synth track. Maybe a super original track which will stand up forever is superimposed with slangy lyrics mentioning the year.
Certain styles come and go in repeating patterns. Big reverb, for example.

Just Keep Making

Styles go with time periods, and that’s ok. Does that mean that as we age we become irrelevant? Of course not. As we evolve as individuals, our music evolves, and so does music in general. Half of the reason genres change over time is because the same people make them, and those people have grown. The other half, of course, is new blood.

Outside that reality, the notion of a timeless sound is as nebulous as datedness. Given this subjectivity, it would stand to reason that in order to achieve a timeless production, you’ll need to a) trust your gut, b) don’t chase trends and c) don’t worry about it too much.

The main thing we can say is stay true to yourself but let yourself change. Your songs will follow suit.

I make songs that sound dated, cheesy, and unoriginal. 😉 I try hard never to release those. Find out if I’m succeeding at aarontrumm.com/audio or ask me on Facebook or Instagram

Recording Piano Wrong

September 14, 2021 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, do it yourself recording, home recording, nquit music, piano, piano mics, piano recording, professional audio, professional music, recording, recording magazine

How breaking the rules can transform your piano recordings

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

The piano is an amazing creature. It’s ubiquitous in all kinds of music and its frequency range means it can play any role. It’s also so crazy to record that there are volumes written on how to record it right, including my piece “Caging the Beast” from May 2016’s Recording. Since that’s been done, let’s talk about the “wrong” way; nutso things you can do with piano recording that may yield something new.

Oddball Placements

A piano is huge, and there are a million “good” ways to mic it, including close miking, room miking, spaced pairs, mid-side pairs and so on. There are, however, several places considered not great, at least for capturing a traditional piano sound.

The Hole

Try a large diaphragm condenser like an AKG 414 placed right above one of rear holes. It turns out this might sound nice and can help isolate the piano in an ensemble. A dynamic like an SM57 pointed straight into the hole is a recipe for weird and muddy, but that may be perfect in the right context.

Under The Piano

There’s a whole world of tone under the piano that may not be considered normal, including a wealth of low frequencies that might even help a traditional mix. Try an omni-directional under the middle of the case and see what happens. Or try a ribbon mic to capture the movement of the pedal. Often that movement coincides with the rhythm of the tune, so there may be a rhythm track there.

The Foot

Nathan Rosenberg reminds us in his November 2004 Recording piece that “there is a wonderful place at the tail, just about where the back leg is, or often just outside the case. Here, the various registers tend to project in a surprisingly uniform manner.” This is a great place to place a stereo pair or even a single mic for mono capture. This isn’t particularly crazy, but it’s worth trying.

Wrong Mics

Tradition holds that the best microphone for piano is a condenser or ribbon. There’s good reason for this, as condensers and ribbons are good at capturing high-end detail. Mics like the AKG 414, the Neumann U87 and even the Rode NT1-A are common.

That leaves out dynamics, which are generally too sluggish to capture the detail a ribbon or condenser could. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying! As mentioned, an SM57 in a sound hole can result in something weird, especially if you were to, say, amp that signal?

Also mentioned before, the underside of a grand piano can be a treasure-trove of low frequencies. Maybe try something like an AKG D112 underneath and see what happens.

For that matter, what would happen if you placed that D112 above the low strings? As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what Recording contributor Jon Bare did on one location recording, and it made a baby grand sound like a 9-foot concert grand (see his article “Miking The Not So Great Piano” on Recording’s website).

Perhaps you could try that crappy vocal mic from your dad’s 1970’s live rig placed smack dab on top of the keys, or 17 omni-directional condensers under a closed lid, specifically placed to create phase problems. What if you taped a lavalier to the inside of the shell? The possibilities are endless.

Mess With the Piano

Next let’s try the instrument itself. There are tons of ways you can cause a piano to sound abnormal. Recently I put a sweatshirt on the strings to create a muted sound that proved useful for rhythms. Some avant-garde pianists spend hours before a gig preparing the piano contraptions placed on the strings, hammers and soundboards.

“Tack” pianos are made by sticking thumbtacks in the hammers so they make a tacky sound when striking the strings. (Beware: this is permanent, as it damages the felt.) Or what if the hammers were softer than normal?

You could prepare the innards of the piano, or you could mess with the outside. Try closing the lid, draping a storage blanket over it, and miking from above. You’ll probably get a dull sound, but what if you were to hold down the sustain pedal and let a ton of notes build up on top of each other?

For that matter, you could remove the lid entirely. In fact, that technique, which Elton John producer Gus Dudgeon was fond of, isn’t even rare.

Let’s not forget we’ve been talking about grand pianos this whole time. Uprights and spinets are a whole different world, and while there are “right” ways to capture them, there are also crazy ways. Most importantly, consider a bad upright. Perhaps you have an antique which can’t be tuned and has strings missing. Maybe there’s an opportunity for some interesting stuff by finding the worst sound it can make and recording that. This kind of buzzy, crackling thing can be great for creating interesting rhythm tracks, for example.

Play With the Playing

By now we’re placing wrong mics in wrong holes on wrong instruments. Awesome!

Now let’s play with the playing. There’s an incredible variety of playing styles available to the piano. Super staccato, flowing legato, damper pedals, low registers, glissandos and tigers and bears, oh my! Even staying at the keyboard, you can probably think of a hundred ways to break out of the box. How about using the lowest two octaves to create a bassline, replacing a bassist? What about recording the same riff 7 separate times in all the octaves?

Beyond the keyboard itself, a piano can make a lot of sounds we don’t normally think of. Check out The Piano Guys for a litany of examples, from plucking and poking strings to hand drumming on the soundboard to threading a frayed violin bow through the strings.

The cool thing here is breaking these rules doesn’t lead to any particular genre. You could end up doing pop covers like The Piano Guys, avant-garde craziness ala The Mars Volta, or even create hip-hop track.

There Are No Rules

Just like music in general, there are no rules with the piano (as long as you don’t destroy a piano that’s not yours!) You can stick with the tried and true and there’s a world of creativity to be had with such a versatile instrument, but if you get bored, run out of ideas or have a sticky problem you can’t solve, it may be time to do things a little wrong. You never know what might come of it!

—–

I‘m a singer, rapper and writer who uses the piano in a fashion that’s not always right. You can talk to me on social media @AaronJTrumm

Art vs. Science in Mixing – and Life?

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

If you haven’t read a book called “Zen and the Art of Mixing”, stop now, order it, and then continue reading this.

Now that you’ve done that, I’ll tell you a story. One day not long ago I was sitting in a plush lecture hall in the Westin hotel in Los Angeles, listening to a workshop on mixing by Rob Chiarelli. If you don’t already know, Rob is a Grammy winning producer and mixer, known for working with such acts as Will Smith, Christina Aguilera, Pink, LeAnn Rimes, Janet Jackson, Stevie Wonder…and on and on and on.

Needless to say, we were all excited to hear what Rob had to say, and there were many enthusiastic mixers ready with a host of questions. As you might imagine, some of those questions were quite technical, and I remember early on somebody in the back asked something I thought of as – well – a little nit-picky. LUFS on pre-master mix buss, or something along those lines. Something that although I have the capacity to understand, would never have crossed my mind to ask, in 25 years of making records. Naturally I felt stupid.

I was prepared for embarrassment, feeling sure that Rob would pontificate in great detail on the proper way to handle whatever it was, but was pleasantly surprised when Rob scoffed. I don’t want to say he called it a stupid question (he was very magnanimous) – but kinda.

Rob’s answer was basically this: does it sound good? Does it feel good? He did talk for some time in response to that question, but the lecture was about what matters in a mix, and that’s the song. If the thing feels great, it feels great. If it sounds great, it sounds great, and if you get so caught up in the technical mumbo-jumbo and fail to pay attention to the feel of the mix, you’ll probably mess it up.

That was a great relief, but in the next few minutes, Rob did talk about some very technical points, and he did end up addressing the question in some detail. What struck me was the deep understanding he had about the science of audio, as well as the overall goal. Here was a guy who has a grasp of the balance between art and science. He hadn’t scoffed at this question because he was stumped. Not at all.

It seems this is a pretty fitting analogy for life in general. We need to understand the details, and science has the been the way we’ve achieved most of what we take for granted now. It was a physicist (Loud Tommy Dowd) who gave us multi-track recording and the fader. An electrical engineer (Max Mathews) brought us digital audio. But when we get caught in the details and forget the reason for them, we risk losing the art entirely.

We’re seeing that battle a lot lately, not just in music. Science is being thrown away when it shouldn’t be, but so is its counterpart, faith. This is a dilemma as old as history. In college lectures on medieval history, we called it the battle of faith vs. reason. In every era one trumps the other and there are always consequences.

Perhaps this is what’s so magical about music and mixing. You really can’t get it right without both. Fail to understand the science and you’re left guessing, bumbling, and making mixes that sound like cats fighting or elephants dying. Skip the crucial details and you could find yourself overloading a speaker, losing a job, or recording silence at a once in lifetime performance.

Still, if you can’t step back and feel the music, let it tell you what it needs, and worry less about technical terms, peak meters and the next fancy plugin, you could end up making cold, dreary mixes that move no one. In fact, too much emphasis on the technical and you could end up with the same muddy, screechy mix as your head-in-the-clouds counterpart.

There are two abilities that set great mixers apart from mediocre ones. One is the ability to hear details – pick out the high-hat and hear that slight 3k resonance or hear the kick phasing just slightly with the bass. The other is to turn that type of listening off and hear the big picture. Listen to the way the mix grooves as a whole unit. Turn off the brain, notice the goosebumps, and feel your head nodding. The ability to be both analytical and emotional – sometimes simultaneously – is what makes a mixer truly amazing. It may even be what music is for.

It’s hard to be two opposite things at once, or at least we’re led to believe that. But I think in mixing, as in life, the great goal is balance. I think and I feel, therefore I am a musician.

So, if you ask me whether art or science is king in mixing, I’d say they share the throne. Whichever side you tend to lean toward, I encourage you to lean the other way sometimes. See what you can find by valuing both. Maybe you’ll be able to mix art and science a little better (pun fully intended). Either way, keep doing what you do.

—–

I’m always trying to learn more about balance, art, science and sound. If you want talk about it with me, find me on Facebook @AaronJTrumm

Signal Flow Part 1

July 1, 2021 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Carvin Amps and Audio, Instructional Stuff, Published Work

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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!

Signal flow – the direction audio signal “travels” in a live or recording setup – is the most fundamental concept in audio, and understanding it is a prerequisite to understanding anything else in audio.

Still, there are places even veterans can get tripped up, so here we’ll get back to basics and discuss signal flow from a true beginner’s perspective. We’ll start in the recording studio to get a solid foundation.

Signal flow fundamentals

When it comes to studios, many setups these days are minimal when it comes to actual, physical audio connections. Still, understanding signal flow at its most basic is the quickest way to understanding the complexities in digital audio workstations (DAWs) and other audio software.

In addition, live sound setups are still physical entities, and in that setting, certain concepts such as feedback are crucial to understand.

So, to begin with, we can easily understand signal flow if we think of sound itself as directional. As we all know, sound is simply a phenomenon of air molecules being “pushed” out by something – a voice, a drum, whatever. We “hear” sound by detecting variances in how those molecules propagate through the air and arrive in our ear.

Sound actually radiates in all directions, but to understand signal flow, we can temporarily think of sound as going in one direction – from the source to the receiver.

A source creates sound. A drum is a source. A receiver receives sound. Your ear is a receiver.

Everything else in signal flow follows from here.

In audio, we need to turn sound into an electrical signal before it can be amplified or recorded, but once we do that, the concept is the same. Audio “travels” in one direction – from source to receiver.

This fundamental understanding will make the rest much easier.

Typical scenarios

Let’s look at two simple, typical situations, both involving a singer.

Situation 1: Singer sings into a microphone which is recorded to a recording device (doesn’t matter what kind). First the sound wave travels from singer to microphone. Then it’s converted to signal and it travels from the microphone to a preamp, then into the recorder. This is the signal flow:

Singer
Mic
Pre-amp
Recording device input

Situation 2: Singer listens back to recording. First the recorder plays back an audio signal, which travels to an amplifier, then to a speaker. The speaker converts the audio signal back into a sound wave, which travels to the singer’s ears. Here is the signal flow:

Recording device output
Amplifier
Speaker
Ears

Signal flow is really that simple! But let’s make it slightly more complicated, so we’re never confused by the audio gear itself. Revisiting our two scenarios, we actually have:

Situation 1 – Singer records some singing:

Singer output (aka mouth) to
Mic input (mic itself) to
Mic output (XLR plug and cable) to
Pre-amp input to
Pre-amp output to
Recording device input to
Recording media (tape, hard drive, etc)

Situation 2: Singer listens to recording

Recording device output to
Amplifier input to
Amplifier output to
Speaker input
Speaker output (aka actual speaker moving air)
Human input (aka ears)

The reason to understand it this way is to understand that every audio device has an input and an output. Signal always flows from the “output” of one device to the “input” of another, and then to the “output” of the second device, and so on:

Output->input->output->input->output…

It doesn’t matter how many devices there are, this is always how signal flows.

Mixers

The real world is obviously more complicated than the situations above, but once you understand that signal simply goes in one direction, everything follows. In situation 2 above, it would be more likely that the signal goes through another step before the amplifier – a mixer.

A big 56 channel monster console looks intimidating with its hundreds of knobs and buttons, but it’s actually just the same thing – a channel strip – repeated over and over. And there’s an easy way to remember which way signal flows in a channel strip. Think of tipping the mixer toward you so that it sits vertically. Signal flows from top to bottom. Let’s pick a random channel…say 12, on a typical analog console. Signal flow on channel twelve is:

Channel 12 input
Channel 12 gain
Channel 12 EQ section
Channel 12 pan
Channel 12 fader

After the channel fader, audio goes to the master fader and then to the mixer’s outputs, and finally to the amplifier and speakers.

That’s it. Channels 1-11 and 13-whatever all work the same way.

Digital recording

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork, we know that signal flows the same way in a digital world as it does in the analog audio world. There are complications, but few that aren’t also available in analog audio. We’ll get into some of those more advanced topics in an upcoming article.

For now, we can think of the digital audio workstation (DAW) as a fancy recording device and mixer in one. In digital recording, the basic signal chain described above is the same, with the addition of an audio interface and/or audio to digital convertor (ADC), to turn analog audio signal into digital information:

Singer
Mic
Pre-amp
Audio interface/ADC*
Computer
Software

* ADCs, DACs (digital to audio converters) and audio interfaces are two separate entities, but they’re typically combined in one device.

To listen back, the chain would employ a DAC and the flow would look like this:

Software
DAC/Audio interface
Amplifier
Speaker
Ears

As mentioned above, you might include a mixer in that series – or not. And to make things more complicated, DAWs have their own internal mixers (usually). As you might expect, signal flow in a DAW works similarly to a mixer – but because you’re in a digital domain, there are many more options.

In part 2, we’ll cover those options and a host of real-world signal flow issues such as splitting, inserts, sends, bussing, monitoring, plugins, and live audio considerations like feedback.

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

Feeding Back

June 8, 2021 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Music Business, Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, do it yourself recording, get better at making music, improve my music, music critique, nquit music, recording magazine

Improving your tracks by soliciting critique

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

Normally in the audio world we try to eliminate feedback. Nobody wants that high-pitched caterwauling ruining an otherwise perfect performance. That may also be how you feel about listening to someone’s opinion about your music, but the truth is outside opinions can be incredibly helpful.

Even if your goal isn’t a wildly successful professional career, getting an outside opinion or five can help you see what you’re missing in a way that time away from a track cannot. If you’re willing to take on the challenge, you can use these other opinions to dramatically improve your work. Just like a writer rarely submits a first draft to a publisher, a great song is hardly ever the first version. In fact, most great productions go through multiple iterations and some final versions are barely recognizable as the same song as version one.

That all said, there’s an art to soliciting feedback and using it wisely to improve a track. But done right, the circle of feedback, revision, feedback, revision is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal in the never-ending quest to sound better.

An Ever-Widening Circle

The first question that’ll come up when you’re ready to get critique is who to ask. Sure, you can ask just about anyone and if you know how to listen, every opinion will have value. But in practice you’ll probably want to strategize, both for time’s sake and for your own sanity. A good plan of action employed by many is the ever-widening circle approach.

The Inner Sanctum

Start with your closest and most trusted associates; the people who already believe in you, think you’re great, and you feel safe showing bad work to. This group may be the four or five members of your band, it may be the 2 collaborators on a long-distance project, or it may be your mother and your girlfriend.

This is the group you can show sketches to, to start to get an idea if a song is even worth your time to produce. This group is also well situated to feedback on multiple versions of a song and help as the song grows from an itty-bitty baby mp3 demo into a full-fledged mix. It’s helpful if one of this inner circle is an expert, but it’s equally helpful if at least one is not. Most important, they should understand you and your goals, and they should feel safe to be honest. This should not be a group that will say everything you do is great. That’s not helpful. They should, rather, know how great you CAN be, and hold you to that standard.

First Steps Into The World

Once your track starts to grow legs, you should start widening your circle. Seek out trusted industry contacts, other musicians and strangers who aren’t the general public. A good place to find new people at this stage are Facebook groups meant for production feedback. It’s helpful to be part of a few semi-private industry groups like MixMe where people bounce ideas and learn from each other.

The key at this stage is to present as finished a mix as you can, and then be willing to go back and change it. Luckily, these are not the days of 12-hour analog mix sessions that can never be recreated. Do a “save as” and create a new DAW file so you can implement changes without losing the older versions. If you ARE working in an all analog environment, you may consider having more people involved earlier in the process, and more people in the building when you mix.

It can be a hard pill to swallow to work hard on getting something to “finished” and then soliciting feedback, but once you start to involve strangers you want to put your best foot forward.

At this point, you’re still probably looking for general feedback, but you may start focusing down, maybe by seeking feedback from mix engineers on the mix, and songwriting experts on the song writing. Make sure to take notes on everything you hear good and bad, and don’t put your own filter on. If possible, try to implement every piece of feedback you get unless two people directly contradict each other. In that case, you’re the boss so use your veto power.

Going Semi-Public

Once you’ve solicited feedback from some fellow producers and extra friends and done a few more iterations, you’re probably feeling confident about the track. Now’s the time to get a little more public, and you can do this in a number of ways.

You could share the track on social media and wait for feedback. If you do it this way, it’s unlikely anyone will say anything bad to you, but you’ll be able to gauge how well the track is moving people by how extreme their responses are. If you get 3 comments on a Facebook post that say “neat. Great track, man,” that’s not a great response. It means people are being polite. If you get 43 comments that say “holy CRAP I love this SOOOOO much where can I download it PLEASE?” that’s a great response.

That’s a decent way to go about it, but in truth, it’s hard to get people to listen to songs on social media (a subject for a whole other article). If you’re really looking to test the track’s mettle, you may start reaching out to gatekeepers or professionals whose job is to critique songs. If you’re a Taxi member you can submit for feedback or find a listing to submit to and see what the screener says about the track. If the track gets accepted great, but you don’t really care yet, you’re just looking for feedback.

Another option is to submit your track to a service like Audiu, AudioKite (now a part of ReverbNation) or Fluence and read the reports. The feedback may or may not be specific enough for you, and your skin needs to be thick at this point, but the powerful part is these are not people that are trying to please you, and they’re anonymous.

At this point, it may be even harder than before to want to change things, because you’ll have worked hard, but if you’re willing, you can make your track just that much better. Just beware of one thing: context is decisive. That means that inside the context of you seeking “coaching”, you will probably never impress these people. Their job is to look for what’s wrong, so simply use what they say to polish up the track, and leave the accolades to your fans.

The Art Of Solicitation

Once you have an idea about who to ask, how do you ask? As is usual in any business interaction, the first rule is be civil, polite and humble. Be specific about what you need feedback on, and never ever answer back. When receiving feedback, especially face to face, it’s never helpful to defend a decision. This leaves people feeling unsafe to really open up, which will leave you in the dark about what they really think. Instead, simply nod, write down the note, and say thank you.

If you’re simply looking for people’s first responses, then you can simply ask “what do you think of this”, but as you move forward, you’ll probably have specific questions, like whether the mix is translating or if the lyrics seem trite. It’s good to let people know if the mix is just a rough and you’re looking for songwriting, or if the arrangement is set in stone, and you’re just looking for opinions on the bass. Whatever it is, being specific helps people narrow in on what you need and saves time and energy.

That said, it can be quite telling to NOT mention a particular problem you’re worried about. See if people notice it without you mentioning it. That’s a tell tale sign that your instinct was right and you need a change.

Of course, if you’re asking other musicians for feedback, be sure to be willing to help them on their tracks too! On most Facebook groups, the common etiquette is to feedback on other people’s work for a while before making your ask. People will be more familiar with you and feel more comfortable helping you.

Above all, be great with people, and receive all criticism with gratitude.

Giving Feedback

Since you’ll be reciprocating by helping people, you may want to think about how to give feedback in a way that creates a good relationship while still actually helping your fellow musicians grow.

The same basic rules apply. Be kind and courteous, and treat people with respect, even if they are brand new. Never pan work outright, and never criticize the person. A good rule of thumb when giving feedback is to assume everyone is a professional who knows what they’re doing. This means only providing feedback when asked, sticking to what’s asked for, and never talking down to people, even if they’re way newer than you.

You also don’t want to blow smoke. Just as with your work, it’s patronizing and unhelpful to simply say “yeah! Great stuff!” unless your mind is so blown that you can find nothing to improve. In that case, you will probably come up with something more anyway. By the same token, focusing entirely on a plethora of mistakes can be damaging and equally unhelpful.

So a good method to use is what management technique calls “the sandwich method”. This method is normally used to surreptitiously give negative feedback to employees, but when critiquing music can be the perfect approach. It goes like this: start with something positive, lead to something that could be improved, and end with something positive.

The key to the sandwich method NOT being disingenuous and manipulating is to really MEAN the positive parts. Find something that you truly like or love about the song, and lead with that. From there, move into the thing that you noticed that you think could be improved. Be specific, and offer an idea for something else to do. Then end with more positivity. That could be “great work!” or “can’t wait to hear the next version”, or even another specific thing.

For example, maybe your friend Joe asks you for general feedback on a song and the first thing you notice is a very muddy low end. Since that’s the first thing you noticed, you should listen again, and look for what you like. On second listen, you notice how great the songwriting is. So your feedback might go something like:

“Hey Joe! Wow this song is so well written. Amazing lyrics! I’m hearing some mud in the low end which obscures a couple lyrics, so I might try to carve out some 100hz in the bass and kick drum, and maybe look for other cuts in some of the ‘mud’ frequencies like 200 and 400-500hz. I’d love to hear it at that point. Really digging this one, can’t wait for the finished master!”

The best part about establishing this method of feedback is that if you boost people up while still actually helping them improve, they’ll do the same for you!

Go Around Again

Once you’ve got some good critique and a bunch of notes, obviously you’ll want to implement it. You’ll probably want to save a new DAW session file, and you may even want to make a couple of different versions at this point. Perhaps you’re not decided between one person’s idea that you make a song longer and another that you make it shorter. You can do a couple of versions and let them shoot it out. Or you may just make that executive decision. Either way, once you’ve implemented as much of the feedback as you can, go back around the ever-widening circle until you’re getting very little critique, and most importantly you feel satisfied and confident.

When you’re at that point, it’s time to put the song into the world, and after that don’t ask for feedback, because that sets up the context that the song is not finished. When you release to the general public simply project confidence and excitement. You’ll still get some unsolicited critique, and that’s ok. Carry that feedback forward and let it inform your next productions, and where and who you market the finished song to.

Wherever that leads you, you will find that vetting your work will give you confidence, better tracks and a lot more opportunity to interact with and work with people of like mind.

Here’s to feedback we want, and may you never hear the other kind of dreaded squeal again.

I’m a producer, singer and emcee who could have used some more vetting early on. Nevertheless, I’m now open to conversation on social media @AaronJTrumm.

Could It Be The Drums?

May 18, 2021 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Musical Instruments, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, do it yourself drums, do it yourself recording, drums, home drum recording, home recording, nquit music, recording magazine

Modern use of drums is different now

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

There’s just something about a live drummer. I’ve said this hundreds of times. Two records ago, I insisted on using a live drummer for every track. This was not easy to accomplish. In fact, I had to rebuild my home studio AND the drummer’s to finally get what we wanted. The result was of course dynamic, awesome, difficult to record and hard to mix, but ultimately super satisfying.

When I went to do the next record, I was really going for modern, and I wanted tracks that would work well for licensing, where new and hip is everything. When we listened to the previous record, one thing jumped out at us: It sounded a bit dated. “What could it be?”, I wondered. Oh my god, could it be the drums?

You may have read something very similar in my article “Changing Of The (Pick) Guard” last year in Recording. It seems that my love for real guitars, real drums and real bass led to a place of sounding old.

That’s a bit disturbing, seeing as how we often lament a declining use of live musicians. So I looked deeper, and the news is encouraging. Let’s dive into how (and a little of why) drums have changed, so that you’re equipped to stay fresh.

It’s Not Just The Instrument

There are a million ways to hit a drum or make a rhythm. Even the standard trap kit came about as a result of tampering with the known. So it stands to reason that HOW drums are used, regardless of the kind of drum or whether it’s played by a person, will evolve. Of course, the opposite is also true. As tools change, so does the music made with them. When it comes to drums, or more broadly, rhythm, there has been a lot of evolution.

With the trap kit came a style of play that lent itself to the way the kit was built. That, in turn, grew and spread, until many different styles of play emerged. In Jazz especially, virtuosity has battled with emotional impact for top priority for decades, and there are easily discernable eras where each ethos has come out on top.

Similarly in rock, hip-hop, indie rock, pop and any other rhythm-based music, trends tend to oscillate, and there’s a real tendency for some genres to emphasize the skill of the drummer, while others strip down. Rock has mainly turned into “indie” or “alternative”, and rhythms have simplified, even when there’s a live drummer on board. Metal, on the other hand, has remained metal to the core, and intricacy is key there. In fact, metal drums, characterized by the blast beat, are more intricate, full and detailed than ever.

In pop, drums are often de-emphasized as pop productions seek to stand out from the crowd. In the face of a thousand big monster tracks, pop producers are now trending toward sparse tracks. The R&B /hip-hop track on the stereo in this coffee shop, for example, consists entirely of an 808 kick drum and a kind of bell click that replaces a snare. There are no cymbals, no hi-hat, and no other percussion elements. Maroon 5’s “Girls Like You” de-emphasizes drums as the main focus, instead opting for a similar 808 kick that appears in the chorus. Over the course of the song, other 808 elements are added that add to the emotional build of the song, but on a conscious level are barely noticeable. Drums in that song are cool, but they don’t define the rhythm. An acoustic guitar does that.

The buildup over time of a track is common in pop now, and that’s a big change from a more traditional approach, where the drums are the solid, predictable element in a song. So, for pop or pop-like productions, sparseness and change over time seem to be the order of the day (for now).

In alternative rock (which often doesn’t sound like rock to a 90’s kid) very simple four on the floor beats or straight 8s are more common than funky grooves, and although there are live drummers in these bands, fills and big cymbals are less common, at least on the records. Listen to Muse’s “Uprising” or “Wish I Knew You” by The Revivalists for examples. Contrast those tracks to older rock tracks like Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” or “I Don’t Care No More” by Phil Collins. One could say that this indicates a lack of mastery on the part of modern bands, but I think it may have more to do with an attempt to get musicianship out of the way of the emotional message. It’s also a heck of a lot easier to mix a record that has a simple drum track.

In electronica, beats have gotten more complex rhythmically, while (at times) remaining more sparse timbrally. Half-timing and syncopation are more common. Double-timed drum tracks as in drum-n-bass are so 2001. Think about a track like Clams Casino’s “I’m The Devil”. Of course, there’s a huge crossover between hip-hop and electronica, and in that realm, there’s a return to the classic TR-808 and 909 sounds. In this world, live drummers have never been common, and the attempt to fake a real drum sound usually fails, so producers go all in on samples and strange timbres, making no attempt to sound “real”. Or they throw back to big samples or the 808 kick/snare. This has always been the case in these genres, but now it’s easier than ever to come up with an interesting new sound or conjure up a well done 808 sample. Still, while basic rhythms may be more complex, there are fewer rhythmic accoutrement like quick fills, flams or 32^nd and 64^th note craziness.

It COULD Be The Instrument

Above, we talked about changes to how rhythm tracks are designed musically, but there’s also plenty of evolution in the realm of timbre choice, and what instrument is being used to create rhythms. Obviously it’s not always a live drummer, but even when it is, different timbral and mix decisions are made nowadays. There’s a lot of throwback going on in this area. Gated snares are making a comeback in alternative rock and even in electronic genres, and as I mentioned above, the 808 snare has returned in a big way (808 kick drum sounds have remained a staple ongoingly). The TR-909 isn’t far behind in usage, but these two classics aren’t always being used to create a retro vibe. Instead, they’re often part of a lush, more legato landscape accompanying highly autotuned R&B or half-timed rap.

In the “rock” type genres, much use is now made of epic tom sounds and big reverb, but sparingly as opposed to throughout songs. Refer back to the fills that do occur in Uprising, or in many Imagine Dragons songs.

Not surprisingly, in electronica genres that aren’t hip-hop or R&B, there’s a wealth of creativity, especially when it comes to snare drums. Stereo spread sounds are common, and the use of claps and snaps on the basic 2 and 4 instead of snare is common. Snare sounds sometimes play support roles, and it’s not uncommon to see an instrument change over time or in choruses. Big snappy snares show up in boom-bap type tracks like “Shine On” by SomeOthaShip, accompanied by old school rap with some twist on the use of classic synths. While we’re on that subject, the “analog” or “8-bit” sound is all the rage in some circles. Check out Suzi Analogue’s “NRG NRG” for a great example of a NOT sparse rhythm track, using throwback sounds, multiple snares, and a completely out of this world and totally modern take on the use of “8-bit” synths.

Outside of metal, cymbals are often de-emphasized, and from a mix-engineer’s point of view, that’s not surprising. Cymbals are very noisy at high frequencies, and it can be difficult to mix them, especially if you’re new or less well equipped, which more and more producers and engineers are. In metal, though, the drummer’s ability to wreak havoc with steel is crucial!

It Could Be Both

I mentioned earlier that the tools often influence the music itself, and of course this is true for drums. It’s common knowledge that access to resources (or the lack thereof) plays a big role in how the newest music sounds, and lack of certain resources can create a world of creativity. Fewer young people have access to traditional music training now, and access to great “real” instruments and recording technology has always been rare. But most everyone has a laptop, and because speed and space is now enough, some interesting and surprising things have happened. Now you CAN access a real recording of a real drummer on a real kit in a real studio, recorded separately and correctly. Packs like Loop Loft or Drums On Demand can give an average Joe access to world class real drums, and of course some people still actually record them.

The point is, there’s no longer a question of whether the drums on a song are made by a real drummer or a drum machine. It’s very often both. This isn’t a new concept, as drum replacement plugins have been around for a long time now, and before that triggers allowed replacements to be made from old school drum machines like the Alesis D4 of old. Now, though, it’s common to see layers and combos. A trained ear can usually still hear when the track is truly just a drummer in a room banging away, but the line has been seriously blurred, and it’s not always clear who did what.

Some common occurrences are the combo of an electronic kick sound like a 909 or 808 with real snare, live drums appearing in choruses, use of programmed hi-hats to tighten up live tracks, layering snares and kicks, and augmenting sampled drum loops or programmed tracks with sparse real cymbal crashes in strategic spots. Combining modalities isn’t necessarily new, but it’s certainly an easier thing to do now, and thus, it’s done a lot more (even in metal).

It Could Be The Mix

It’s not just the method of capture or creation that changes how a drum track sounds and feels. That is probably a no-brainer, but it’s still worth mentioning. How drums are mixed in modern songs is also something of an evolving process. First of all in many genres, especially electronica, the mix develops along with the production. It’s not uncommon for the entire mixdown of a song to be done in Ableton or another creative DAW on the fly, and this means how drums and other instruments are emphasized can be more intimately woven into the fabric of the song itself than in a traditional setting, where a group is recorded and then mixed later. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything in particular, but it seems that this process can cause a de-emphasis on things (like cymbals) that might be harder to integrate into a mix.

Even in traditional mixdown situations, what we do with the drums can be incredibly variable. Early on the days of stereo, it was common to put the entire kit in one speaker (think Beatles). Low end elements like kick drums played a crucial role, but not the boom that we use them for now. This was mainly due to the limitation of vinyl. On a vinyl record, low frequencies take up more physical space, allowing for less play time and in extreme cases, a big boomy note can cause the needle to skip. Now that’s not an issue, so we can do (mostly) what we want with the low end. So, recordings after the days of vinyl tend to boom of more. As time has gone by, this has become more and more true. Even when mixing real drums, kick drums tend to be severely manipulated with cuts to mid and high frequencies, emphasis on the lows, compression, and a “rounding” of the sound. This isn’t particularly new either, but it’s still common.

Snare sounds have tended toward the throw back in the past few years, with more and more gating and softening of the high-end snap, and emphasis on the heavy thump around 200 khz or so. If not that, we see the exact opposite. In hip-hop and R&B it’s more and more common to use a very thin snare sound (which is easy to do with an 808 snare). Of course, we still see some cracky snappy snares, usually in throwback hip-hop tracks or in electronica.

In general, drums are mixed cleaner, tighter, more compressed these days, and in pop genres, less emphasis is placed on hugeness, and more on clean support of the vocal message. There’s far less use of long reverbs, and while drum sounds aren’t necessarily totally dry, they’re definitely more forward and present, even when they’re quieter in the mix. Harsher high frequencies are emphasized less, and in general drum mixes have more space. Even some classic songs have been redone with a subtle but noticeable change in the amount of space the drums leave for other elements.

It Could Be Everything

In the end, all of the elements of modern recording and production have evolved and changed. The process of writing we use, the instruments and sounds available, the way we capture, the way we mix and even the REASON we do it have all morphed, shifted and continue to change. Drums have always been the biggest challenge in production, and they’re often the main thing that makes a track either super cheesy or really fresh. They’re almost always the element I point to when a track just doesn’t work for me or sounds amateur or dated. Creativity and innovation in this area is a major indicator of awesomeness, so it’s not surprising how much drum tracks have changed in the last few years.

So, it really is everything! There are a million variables involved, and there are really no rules, so how you approach your rhythm track is up to you. If you want more ideas, you can check the Recording archives for my articles “Keeping The Rhythm” parts 1 and 2 (acoustic and programmed, respectively).

Hopefully, this brief and informal discussion of the ever-changing rhythm track combined with those pieces will help you in your next project! Go forth and make rhythm!

I play Chinese drums, produce records and pet cats. Talk to me on social media (aka Facebook) @AaronJTrumm.

Stretching The Budget

April 5, 2021 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Music Business, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron j. trumm, home recording, independent music, music business, nquit music, recording magazine, recording on a budget, save money on recording

How to get the biggest bang for your recording studio buck

This article first appeared in Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

Not so long ago, a recording project required a full-fledged studio. Things have changed now, and many projects are done entirely at home. But there’s still a place for a dyed-in-the-wool recording studio, and still plenty of reason you may need one.

This means money. No one’s recording budget is unlimited, so let’s talk about how to make that budget go as far as it can, without sacrificing quality.

Pre-Production

You can save money at every stage of the production process, but the preparation stage, or pre-production, is your best opportunity to save money in the long run.

Rehearsal

Recording sessions are usually charged hourly. Nothing makes a session take longer than doing take after take because the artist isn’t ready to rock n roll. It’s even longer if you never get a whole take and have to comp them together, and that’s seriously compounded if those comps have fluctuating tempos.

So, first and foremost, rehearse. Whether you’re a band or a solo artist, tracking sessions can be incredibly efficient if you’re well-rehearsed. Some things to do in rehearsals:

Practice with a click – You’ll be asked to sync to one in the studio, and if you’re not used to it, it can be difficult to say the least.
Practice in public – Preferably, you’re recording songs you’re already killing with on stage. In the studio strangers will be watching and when tape rolls, nerves can be a factor. Plus, if you’re recording well-vetted material, you’ll have fewer decisions to make later
Practice as a group – If you’re a group, you probably want to record as a group, at least to begin with, so obviously you should practice together.
Practice alone – The tape never lies. In the studio, you can’t hide behind the group, the crowd and the fleeting moments like you can on stage. So put your parts out there where you can scrutinize and perfect them.
Practice recording – Even if all you have is the voice recorder on your phone, practice recording however you can. Roll on rehearsals and listen back, making notes and practicing the little things you wouldn’t have noticed.

Writing And Arranging

Even if you’re cutting new material, you should still be rehearsing and finishing songs ahead of time. Writing songs in the studio is a huge money waster.

Lyrics, song, and arrangments should be completely finished. Get feedback and edit songs in pre-production. Don’t pay money to send rough mixes to find out you should have sung “I love your mom” instead of “I love your man”. You can find that out with an acoustic scratch track or a lyric email.

The same holds for melodies, chord progressions, breaks, fills, everything musical. If you’re a band, work as much of the cool production stuff out live as you can. Bring your producer to rehearsal and implement their ideas. You’ll wildly improve your live act while you’re at it.

If your music is more sequencer based, you should be arranging everything at home. Get feedback on your home versions first, before going in the studio.

Session Planning

Once you’ve finished your songs, plan the sessions. Communicate with the studio ahead of time. Share your tech rider with the engineer and discuss mic choices, physical arrangement, song order, headphones mixes, everything. Anything you can figure out ahead of time when the clock isn’t running will make sessions faster.

If you can visit the studio beforehand so you know what they have, what you’ll need to bring, and who will be working on the project, do it! If you can have a pre-production meeting with your engineers, even better. You can even plan how many tracks you’ll need and what to overdub.

In any case, communicate everything you can with the studio, so they can be ready for you.

Tracking

When the day comes to start work, there’s still plenty you can do to maximize your budget.

Use The Right Room

In pre-production, you should outline what you’ll record in the main studio and what you’ll do at home or in a cheaper studio. Higher-end facilities often have multiple recording rooms, and studio B or C might be cheaper than studio A.

Also consider booking time in different studios. You may be able to track a bunch of vocals in a small project studio that costs half the big studio, for example. Save the expensive rooms for work that can only be done there. Grand piano, full orchestras, or full band captures, for example.

You may be also able to do some work at home. If your music is sequenced, you’ll certainly do that work at home, but you may be able to do more. If you’ve got a simple interface and there are guitar overdubs that would work with a direct input, plan to do that at home. You may even be able to grab backing vocals at home, or keyboard parts. These audio files can be integrated into the main DAW project. You may even have enough home studio to track everything at home and save money for mixing and mastering.

Also ask about intern engineers. Studios often let the new guy record on off hours at significantly discounted rates. Just remember that the engineer is bearing the brunt of that discount, so be nice!

Finally, you may be able to save some money overall by booking a day or week-long lockout. That won’t be cheap, but it will remove the pressure of the clock.

Gear Maintenance

Prep your equipment ahead of the session. Make sure strings are new, drum heads are in good shape, fingers and vocal chords are fresh, and anything else you need is ready to go. The clock doesn’t stop if you break a string, so be as ready as possible before you get to the studio.

Of course, your body is equipment too. Sleep well, eat right, and come to the session fresh and ready to go. The fresher you are, the fewer mistakes you make, which makes everything more efficient. And it should go without saying but being snot-slinging drunk will not get you your best performance.

Studio Day

Just a few things to note when you get to the studio:

Be early – Arrive at least 15 minutes early to the session. Once your booked time begins, small talk and intros cost money, so create relationships before and after the session.
Be even earlier (and organized) – Next, be organized when you arrive and leave extra time for load in. If you can bring help to carry gear, that will make things quicker and leave the engineer free to set up. Aim for being in the room fully set up 5-10 minutes before the session start time, if possible. Many engineers won’t start setup until the clock starts, but if you can do anything to facilitate pre-session preparation, great. Just remember to be respectful of the studio’s time too.
Warm up – You’ll be glad if you warm up before the session rather than on paid time. Run through scales or vocal drills at home, and then quickly when you’re waiting for the session to start.
Bring documentation – Bring anything you wrote during pre-production like set lists, tracking plan, “stage” plot and the like and be sure the engineer gets copies. Give the engineer lyric sheets, too, with enough space for notes.
Keep it professional – Just like in rehearsal, the more you jabber, the more time things take. But beware, being too tight makes performances rigid and leads to mistakes. So, keep yourself in the sweet spot between fun and focused. Say stuff, laugh, be creative – and be ready and able to shut it at a moment’s notice. You’d be surprised how much time this habit can save.
Take breaks – Recording sessions can get grueling. It’s not uncommon for a session to drone on for 12 hours. Don’t do this. Break every two hours, eat a meal every four, and unless you’re trying to maximize a lockout, keep days to eight hours. You’ll stay fresher over the duration of the project, which will lead to better efficiency.

Mixing

Oh happy day! You’ve finished tracking. Hopefully you’ve sought feedback on rough mixes, and you’ve been careful to throw away advice you can no longer implement (that lyric should have been edited in pre-pro, remember?).

Now you need a mix. Every studio on Earth will try to convince you that you need to mix at their studio, since you tracked there. Poppycock. That studio may be the best place to mix, and it may not.

In either case, we’re thinking about the money here, so you want to consider a few things to help you maximize the mix budget:

Pay per song – Mixing can be involved and unpredictable, and it’s in your best interest NOT to pay an hourly rate. It just so happens that dedicated mix engineers prefer it this way too.
Provide references – If you’re going for a certain sound, provide references to the mixer.
Organize tracks – This is really the tracking engineer’s job, but don’t leave it to chance. Make sure the mixer gets well organized, properly labeled tracks. There shouldn’t be 34 guitar tracks labeled “eric” or “rickenbacker 45000 uptown one chicken fried awesome track”. Edit and comp tracks and label them plainly, ie: “electric guitar”.
Pick a leader – The whole group should get to feedback, but one person should have final veto power. Otherwise things may never get done. If you have a producer, this is their job.
Limit revisions – Most mix engineers (especially with a per song fee) will do this for you, but you should make sure there are only one or two revisions. You can tweak forever and never get done, and if you’re paying hourly, this will cost you severely.

Mastering

If you’re on a budget, you may not be thinking about sending mastering out to yet another studio/engineer. This is ok. You can have your mix engineer put together a master, and that mix engineer might very well be the same person who tracked you. Maybe this isn’t the aural ideal, but It’s no crime.

If you do have a mastering budget, some guidelines apply:

Don’t fix it in mastering – Never leave anything wrong with a mix for mastering to fix. If it can be done in mixing, do it.
Organize songs – Similar to sending a mixer well organized tracks, the mastering engineer needs clean, well-documented material. Make clear filenames and include notes telling the engineer what’s where.
Clear deliverables – Be very clear ahead of time what deliverables you need. Do you want CD quality files? A CD master? Streaming-ready MP3s? Provide a detailed list of deliverables so there’s no back and forth.
Limit revisions – What’s true in mixing is true in mastering too. Keep the tweaking to a minimum.

The After Party

As you can see, maximizing your recording budget is often done in increments. Each time you add efficiency or cut something unnecessary, you stretch the budget. Yes, you can cut your budget to nothing by setting up your phone recorder and jamming out some tunes (call it lo-fi, it’ll work!), but what you’re really trying to do is create something awesome.

If you’re efficient, you can actually improve the quality of your recording, because you won’t have to cut corners after wasting a bunch of money – for example – drunkenly re-writing a song in the $250/hr main room at Ocean Way.

And if you do it right, you’ll have just enough left over for a few beers at your fabulous post-recording party!

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I like to think of myself as the McGiver of recording. I “funded” my first CD by rebuilding a boneyard at the University Of New Mexico, dragging 80 pounds of gear there every Saturday, and re-tarring the roof of my mentor’s studio to earn mix time. Ask me about it on Facebook @AaronJTrumm – or email me aaron @ aarontrumm.com