Audio Instruction Archives

Swiss Army Recording Rooms

October 11, 2022 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Published Work, Recording Magazine

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, acoustics, do it yourself recording, home recording, home studio acoustics, mixing, mixing music, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, recording magazine

Acoustic treatment for multi-purpose studio spaces

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 everybody has the luxury of a multi-room studio complete with control room, recording space, and booths. Many great recordists make do with one room which serves all these purposes and more. Some people even prefer it that way. After all, who wants to run back and forth between two rooms every take? Other than fitness buffs, that is.

Still, while it may be true that a most recordists work in one room, when we talk about acoustic treatment, we usually talk about specialized rooms such as mix rooms or live rooms.

So, we thought it’d be good to talk about treating multi-purpose spaces – the kind of space most people actually record in.

Many bedroom studios are literally bedrooms.

Lows First

One thing that doesn’t change if your room serves multiple purposes is the potential issues low frequency reflections pose. So, as with any room, deal with the low frequencies first. Owing to large wavelengths, absorption is best here, but one-inch absorbing panels or Auralex style foam on the walls won’t cut it.

If you have enough room to use 4-inch panels, spaced 4 inches away from the wall all over the room, go for it, but most likely you’ll need to use other strategies such as corner traps and broadband panel traps.

Start by treating the corners where lows build up. A great solution is the super chunk (figure 1), which is easy to build, and consists of corner pieces of rigid fiberglass or rockwool, enclosed by breathable fabric. You can stack an entire corner this way or you can build them in small modular chunks (figure 2) for flexibility.

Panel traps (figure 3) are broadband absorbers using a resonating membrane principle. They’re reflective at high frequencies – handy if you don’t want the room too dead. Space panel traps around the room for an even distribution of low frequency absorption.

It’s probably wise here to go for an even distribution of low frequency absorption, leaving no spot in the room with any major nulls or peaks.

Changeable Highs

When it comes to high frequencies, various rooms are dealt with differently. Vocal booths may be entirely dead, whereas recording rooms may be kept live, using diffusion randomize reflections. Mix rooms usually go for a reflection free zone to the sides and above the mix position, sometimes leaving the back wall live or diffused.

If you intend to mix in the room, you’ll still want a reflection free zone around the mix area, but you may want to deal with the rest of the room differently.

Diffusion is a great way to give a multi-purpose space an even high frequency response, but unless your room is pretty big, it won’t do much. Smaller absorptive panels, usually two inches thick, can be distributed throughout the room to create a kind of pseudo diffusion, evening out reflections, but keeping the room from being overly dead.

This is where modularity comes in handy. Consider small, light panels which can be rearranged to create different acoustic environments. You can even use a light frame and artful fabric covering, hanging these acoustic art pieces like you would any painting (figure 4).

In addition to moveable panels, solutions like absorbing curtains that can be rolled up or drawn back or gobos that can be stored away give you the opportunity to change the space to your advantage. For example, you can cover your reflective panel traps with a curtain or blanket to transform the room into a dead space for vocals or acoustic guitars. (Just be sure your temporary absorber doesn’t touch the front of the trap, lest it lose its low frequency absorption properties).

Similarly, you could remove absorbing panels to create a live space or use gobos to create a temporary booth. Double points if your hangable treatment can come off and stack. Always listen to the results of your changes so you don’t just recreate the boxy sound you were fixing to begin with.

Look Up

We often forget about the ceiling as a source of problematic reflections. The ceiling can also be thought of as a treasure trove of surface area to place low or high frequency absorption. Mix rooms usually have some treatment above the mix position, but in a multi-purpose room, you may want to have a go at the entire ceiling.

You can deal with the ceiling in a variety of ways, including alternating panel traps with high frequency absorbers or spreading absorbers around and creating a pseudo drop ceiling. Again, you can use movable panels for flexibility, but it’s a little more of a hassle to move overhead panels. Either way, ceiling treatment light so it’s easy to hang (figure 5).

If you can, give some space between the ceiling and the panel itself. Ideally this distance is equal to the thickness of the panel (ie: 2 inches for 2-inch panels). This increases the effectiveness of the absorber.

You can strategically place ceiling panels to create zones, or simply go to town on the ceiling to create a kind of acoustic foundation, as it were.

Flexibility and Planning

At the end of the day, your multipurpose room is still unique to you. Think about what you plan to do in there – ie: you don’t need to treat for drums if you never record drums. And think about flexibility. Keep things modular and light, and you’ll be able to adjust your room as needed. Finally, think about evenness first, because a room with a good foundation is already most of the way toward super useful.

Here’s to the bedroom recordists! May we all win Grammys in our jammies.

I’ve built out home studios from Oakland to Albuquerque to Austin to Houston, and hold a master’s degree from Stanford University, where I had the distinct privilege of learning acoustic science from the author of the textbook. 🙂 Talk acoustics with me on Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram @AaronJTrumm

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

1/8^th 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

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

In Studio: Track Band Together, or Separately?

August 29, 2022 by Aaron

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

aaron trumm, audio basics, carvin amps and audio, carvin audio, home recording fundamentals, nquit music, recording basics, signal flow

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!

By now it’s an age-old question: should we track the band together as if we were playing live or should we try to get the cleanest signals and performances possible by tracking separately?

The truth is there’s no right or wrong answer. How you go about recording depends not only on you – your chemistry, skill, and tightness – it also depends on the studio. Is the space tight enough that bleed will be a major problem? Will you be able to properly hear each other? Is there a drum booth? Do you need eye contact can you get it?

Your genre is a big determiner here too. Jazz ensembles and jam bands who improv a lot and feed off each other may need to track together regardless of the tradeoffs. Pop groups who need to sound as clean as possible may want to opt for fully separated tracking.

The good news is, it’s really an either-or proposition. In fact, in reality most groups use some sort of hybrid, and most projects exist somewhere on a spectrum between fully together and fully separated tracking. Here we’ll go over just a few common ways to answer this question.

Authentic Live Capture

The most extreme end of the tracking together spectrum. An authentic live capture seeks to track the band exactly as it is on stage with no overdubs. The advantage here are authenticity – you’re really capturing the group as it is on stage – and efficiency. A well-rehearsed group may even be able to knock out 10 songs in the time it takes to play 10 songs. Potential disadvantages include instrument bleed, performance errors, and edit issues.

Some ways to mitigate these issues include separating drums and amps into booths, using headphones to monitor, and playing to a click or reference track. Playing to a consistent tempo reference can be crucial for editing takes together or making fixes later. Isolating amps and other loud sources to minimize or eliminate bleed gives you the opportunity to overdub later – even if your goal is not to. Finally, rehearsal is crucial if you track this way. Tiny mistakes and inconsistencies come through loud and clear on a record, so if you’re recording this way, you need to be tight.

The Basic Band With Overdubs Method

With this method, the intention in initial tracking sessions is to play together as a band, but the focus in the control room is capturing the main foundation of the band. This usually means drums, bass, guitar, and piano if it’s in the band. In this tracking session, the vocalist is singing, everyone is doing their part, but the main focus is to get the foundation right. You don’t go back on a bad lyric or a flubbed note from the singer, because the singer will come back later to overdub the “real” vocal take. Backup singers may or may not participate in initial tracking, and extra fillers like bells or extra percussion wait until later to overdub. This method may be the most common method for bands, as it captures the chemistry of the band while still getting clean vocals. Extra leads and solos may be overdubbed too.

Guidelines for mitigating bleed still apply here, as does the advice about playing to a click or other fixed tempo source.

The Rhythm Section First Method

In this method, start with the drums, bass, rhythm guitar, and piano if you have it. The focus is entirely on putting together a solid rhythm section, without the “distraction” of vocals and leads and what not. This method may be good if the vocalist also plays guitar, piano, or bass and doesn’t always feel comfortable doing both at once. It’s even more useful if the vocalist is the drummer, because capturing a clean vocal take in the midst of a drum kit can be pretty hard.

Play to a click and isolate as well as possible without messing up chemistry.

The Hip-Hop, Pop and Everything Else Method

If the group is not a band, the whole question is nearly moot. Beat makers make beats which are always locked to tempo, performers perform over the top of those beats, and there’s no question about separation, unless there are multiple vocalists.

If there are multiple vocalists, you’ll have to decide whether they should sing or rap together and if so whether they should be in the same room, share a mic, be in booths, etc. It would be easy to decide to give everyone their own mic, but there are plenty of times you might choose to let vocalists share. For example, a really skilled 4-part harmony might be better captured with a great omnidirectional condenser than with isolated microphones. “Gang vox” where a room full of people chant together might be hard to deal with if there’s 40 separate signals come mix time. Instead, that group might be better captured in a room with a stereo pair.

Two rappers feeding off of each other, however, might be better tracked in isolation, but perhaps together in the same room.

The completely separated method is the best and sometimes only way to go about things if you’re capturing sources in a variety of home studios or collaborating remotely.

These are just a few of the most common answers to the question of whether to track together or to track everything separately. As you can imagine, there are infinite ways you can tweak to make it work for your group. The best way to come up with the plan of action is to first think about the abilities and idiosyncrasies of the players, the genre, the end goal, and of course the budget. After all, if you’ve only got the studio for an hour total – the question is answered. Similarly, if you’re working with 4 or 5 people all in different towns, you know what you have to do. In any case, there’s no one right answer to the question “should we track all together or separately?” – only your best solution.

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

Do You Need That Upgrade?

August 24, 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, music equipment, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, recording magazine

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!

Black Friday will be upon us soon and you’ll be inundated with discount offers tempting you to buy while you can. But unless you’re filthy rich, “discounts” can break the bank. In fact, it may be the number one way to stay poor: spend money you wouldn’t otherwise spend on something you don’t need, simply because it’s less than it might have been.

Still, when it comes to your studio and your creative output, there are times when you need to make purchases. Around the holidays is a great time to make upgrades, not only because of sales, but because at end of the year you’ll have some idea how much room you have for tax deductions.

Generally, it’s wiser fiscally to respond to a need (or a want!) and see if you can get a great deal than to react to an offer – unless you’ve been patiently waiting for exactly that offer. But that doesn’t mean offers won’t come your way, so there are a few questions you can ask when one hits your inbox:

Have I been waiting for this exact thing?
Is there a quality issue in my studio that this would solve?
Is there a productivity issue in my studio that this would solve?
Is there something I can’t do at all without this (eg: recording vocals with zero microphones)?
Do I already have this functionality?
Is something broken that this would replace?
Have I exhausted the possibilities with my current gear?
Am I excited about this?

The first six questions here come down to practicality. You can solve many problems with resourcefulness and handywork. There’s a lot of creativity in that, but sometimes you’d rather apply your creative energy to music, so it’s perfectly alright to solve these problems with money. But you can save a lot of money, time, and space by asking these practical questions before buying. If the answer is “no but so and so says I need it”, back away slowly.

The last two questions deal with creativity.

The first – “have I exhausted the possibilities with my current gear?” means a lot. Most of us don’t read the entire manual when we start using a new gadget. We just jump in and make it make noise and as we go we get really good with certain aspects and neglect others.

This is fine – there’s no reason to use audio snap if you only use MIDI. But the downside is you may have missed something a piece of gear or software can do that you’re about to buy a whole other thing for. Your existing gear may even do it better!

Not only that, you may find that exploring an undiscovered function could lead to a bunch of ideas. Why NOT record audio and see what audio snap does? Why not explore the omnidirectional setting on your condenser? What happens if you use the sequencer on this vintage synth instead of the DAW?

It’s worth it to really get to know the ins and outs of your current rig before you add to it. You might discover that you don’t need something you thought you needed, or you may discover a different new purchase that would suit you better.

That leads into that last question – which other than pure practicality may be the only real reason to buy something new. Inspiration! Sometimes you just need a fresh something to jazz your juice! There’s nothing better than diving into a new toy – maybe a hot new analog synth or some insane, revolutionary plugin that does something heretofore not done in sound.

There’s definitely nothing wrong with that. After all, you may be a musician at heart but if you’re reading this, you’re also a recordist at heart and that’s all about playing with toys.

So, ask yourself “does this excite me?”. Believe it or not the answer is often no. As Derek Sivers, famed founder of CD Baby, has said many times, “hell yes or no!”.

At the end of the day there are a million things that everybody says you need lest you not be good enough and you almost feel obligated to buy just to keep up with the times. This is financially prohibitive. Instead, you can maintain the health of your studio with practical purchases and leave just enough room for those new toys that will cream your corn and make you make a new masterpiece.

This is the way of the wise upgrader.

I’m a producer/artist who stays just behind the cutting edge, stays efficient, and thus can afford healthy food. Ask me about it on Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram @AaronJTrumm

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

aaron trumm, audio basics, carvin amps and audio, carvin audio, home recording fundamentals, nquit music, recording basics, signal flow

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