Music Thoughts, Rants, Randomness

Recording Piano Wrong

September 14, 2021 by Aaron

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?

August 31, 2021 by Aaron

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

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

Favorite DAW? PShaw!

August 24, 2021 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, acoustics, best DAW, DAWs, digital audio workstation, do it yourself recording, favorite DAW, home recording, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, recording magazine

Why choose only one?

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!

A long time ago, in a studio far far away, there were many people involved in a song production, and the process included separate, distinct parts, each role played by a professional specialist. There was tracking, done in a tracking studio by tracking engineers. There was mixing, done in a mix studio by a mix engineer. And there was the dark and mysterious process of mastering, done in a mastering studio by a golden eared audio god immersed in single-minded technicality.

Now? Not so much. Yes, the traditional process still happens, but more and more it’s all one big jumble, especially for those of us producing track after track on tight budgets.

Of course, what has made this possible is computing. Gone (mostly) are megalith tape machines, and in their place the all-powerful DAW – digital audio workstation. Everyone has their favorite. Some people hate all the others. Debates are waged. Articles are written. “How To Choose The Right DAW For You”. “Which DAW is best?” If it weren’t for the loudness wars, the sample rate wars, and the regular ol’ guns and ammo wars, the DAW wars might rage uncontrollably.

But what would it be like if the world of the DAW was all kumbaya and lovey-dovey? What if you didn’t have to choose just one? What if all DAWs had their place in a wonderful world of DAW inclusion?

Or at least what if you, as an all-in-one production team, realized there may be a reason to use more than one. If you think of audio as audio, and not as DAW projects stuck inside a particular format, there’s a whole world of possibility for improving workflow, sound, and creativity.

There are a few reasons for this. One may be obvious – certain DAWs are better suited to certain tasks than others. More than that, certain software may be better suited to your way of doing that task than others. Some DAWs have certain built-in functionality, or a unique sound, and yet don’t work well in other ways (for you). Certain DAWs may not run a favorite plugin or two, or embed video the way you like, or warp audio in a way that makes sense to you.

An argument can be made for warping yourself instead, learning how to most powerfully use your DAW’s features, and that’s definitely a good idea. Still, it’s nice to know there may be other options.

Another fabulous reason to use different software for different parts of the project goes back to the traditional way of doing things. If you’re a one-person production crew, it’s very helpful if you can get yourself in a different mindset for each part of the process. Exporting audio and changing software can go a long way toward that goal.

Indeed, that can be inefficient, but it can be super helpful.

That’s not all though. You may find yourself collaborating with people outside of your studio, and those people may not be using the same software. Wouldn’t it be nice if you were the genius who could handle multiple formats, change back and forth, work within someone else’s flow, and make everything come together?

And of course, having a working knowledge of multiple DAWs is quite helpful when you travel to a session at another studio and your preferred software isn’t available. Perhaps you’re a Cubase lover, but you don’t have a grand piano, and you’ve been granted access to a ProTools studio with a beautimous grand. You’re given the run of the place – as long as you can pilot the ship yourself. It might be nice to be competent with ProTools – and know how to bring the project back into Cubase.

It can be costly to run multiple platforms, admittedly. Although some very good software is free, and other packages are affordable enough that you could replace one you can’t afford with three you can. So multiple packages may be the way to go if your budget is extra tight. Or it may simply be the cost of doing business to maintain a wide array of options. It all depends on your situation.

Speaking of which, everyone’s flow is different, so we all have our quirky little setups. I’ll leave you with mine, just to give you an idea how things might come together.

Tracking: Cakewalk by BandLab. Or ProTools if piloting the aforementioned piano studio.
Editing: Cakewalk. I can’t wrap my head around ProTools editing, even after 25 years.
Voiceover editing: Audacity.
Loop based composition, warping, and live triggering: Ableton.
Mixing: Cakewalk, and then MixBus for final tweaks and that special MixBus sound.
Mastering: Reaper, because it seems to deal with my preferred plugins best.
MP3 Conversion: Sox, a command line tool. I wrote a script which uses Sox to make every deliverable I need in one fell swoop.

Yes, everything I do can be done in any one of the packages I use. But I find it freeing to move smoothly from one to another. Maybe you could too!

I work with Cakewalk, Ableton, Reaper, MixBus – and ok sometimes ProTools. We can argue about it on social media @AaronJTrumm.

It’s All About The Room

August 11, 2021 by Aaron

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

Why acoustic treatment should be your first expense

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!

Being the adventurous, un-monied, and fairly non-famous soul that I am, I’ve been in a ton of low-end recording studios. Project studios, home studios, studios in strip malls, studios in cottages behind houses. I’ve visited rehearsal studios in Houston suburbs, band garages in Austin slums, electronica dens in Albuquerque, and video production suites in Oakland. I’ve also been in my fair share of commercial studios. And of course, I’ve built out countless bedroom studios of my own over the course of a 26-year career. Some were pretty bad, I admit.

That’s not to mention all the studio pictures I’ve seen and remote collaborations on Skype and Zoom. I’ve seen enough studio desks to last me a lifetime, and almost daily I see an image of some slick piece of gear I wish I had. Video monitors, big bad computers, control surfaces, pre-amps, mics, you name it.

It turns out that almost without fail, you can a tell a professional by the studio they keep – and it looks quite different than some might expect. You can also predict with reasonable accuracy how a recordist’s work will sound by looking around their room.

Given the topic of this issue, you may not be surprised to hear me say, it’s not the $50,000 Pro Tools rigs or high-end monitor switchers that make the difference. It’s not even the expensive preamps or vintage microphones (although those things don’t hurt).

What it comes down to is the room. Capturing audio is all about the space of course, but especially when it comes to mixing – we all know what a poorly responding room can do to a mix. So, it’s a harbinger of bad things to come when I walk into a studio that boasts $100,000 worth of shiny new equipment placed haphazardly in a hard square box.

Why does this happen? Who knows? Perhaps we gravitate toward the prestigious. Perhaps we need to be able to boast about our equipment to draw in clients. Perhaps we think acoustic treatment is only for top-tier, multi-million-dollar facilities. Maybe people just don’t know why or how to properly prepare a room for audio.

Whatever it is, that’s why we at Recording Magazine dedicate an entire month to monitoring and acoustics. And perhaps this issue should have come out in January, because your listening and recording environments should be the first thing you deal with.

Especially if you’re revamping or building a new studio, rather than spending as much money as possible on your recording computer, microphones, plugins, software, keyboards, and so on, start your spending (and your building) with the room.

Don’t be afraid of running out of money. With some ingenuity you can properly treat a standard bedroom for not much more than the cost of a Rode Condenser – if that. And you can make it look good too! Remember, you don’t need to build a million-dollar facility with 30-foot ceilings, non-parallel surfaces, and outer walls full of sand.

And here’s a tip: Although every room tests out a bit differently, the solutions are pretty much always the same. So, you can finish 90% of your treatment before you even pick out a pair of monitors. In fact, that’s what I’d recommend. Treat the room and make it sound great on its own before you even bring in the furniture. Then get some great monitors, bring them and the other gear in, and listen. Then, if you’re so inclined you can test the room and make tweaks.

It won’t take as much time as you may think, and it won’t cost as much as you may be afraid of. Make the quality of the space your first priority with monitors a close second and you’ll be working with a foundation that’s far better than most other studios.

It really is all about the room!

I work in a small, well treated room. I talk about acoustics quite a bit. I think about acoustics quite a bit. We can talk about acoustics a bit on Facebook if you want, @AaronJTrumm.

Gift Giving For People Who Love Recordists

June 29, 2021 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, do it yourself recording, gift giving, gifts for musicians, home recording, nquit music, presents for musicians, 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!

When I was 16 years old, my mother bought me a 4 Track Tascam Portastudio – the kind with the cassette tape (yes I’m that old). She did it so I would stop commandeering her dual well cassette deck to make pause loop tapes. Ignoring for a moment the slippery path she set me on, the plan didn’t even work. Quickly I learned, and she learned with me, that I would still need to “borrow” that stereo deck to mix down my creations. I used that Portastudio, and that “mixdown” deck, for a surprisingly short time before more “things” were “needed” and quickly things ballooned past anyone’s ability to surprise me with studio presents. I think that Portastudio may have been the last piece of studio gear my family attempted to buy.

The point is, it’s DIFFICULT to give gifts to a recording enthusiast and as recording enthusiasts we should pity our loved ones.

First of all, let’s not pretend what we do is even remotely accessible without money. Recording gear is expensive, and there’s no way around it. Sure, a person can cruise E-Bay and probably find an SM57 for around $60 but unless their recordist is new or relatively mic-snobby, there will already be a glut of 57’s in their possession. So the loved one is faced with “the person who has everything” syndrome for anything even remotely affordable. Guitar tuner? “I’ve got two.” Mic stands? “20.” Little adapter thingies? “Drawers full.” If the family knows about it, we’ve probably got it in spades.

Alas, the family’s gift giving woes don’t end there. If your doting loved one decides to spend a little more, they have to know what to get, where to get it, and which brand to go with. And do they? Of course not! You must understand, dear recording guru of the neighborhood, to normal folk, your little room looks like a lost Star Trek episode. Knobs, buttons, neon lights, wires, inexplicable wall coverings, floor gadgets, desk gadgets, lava lamps if you’re old enough, razor blades and reels if you’re awesome enough, and the darkness – oh the darkness! Even a seasoned veteran would have trouble navigating your highly customized studio scenario, admit it! How is Aunt Maggie supposed to know what’s missing in this quagmire, or what you have been hoping for?

Well, you could tell them. You could say “for Christmas, I would like a Manley Tube Pre”, and your Uncle Dave might ask why you want to be stuck in a tube and what it needs to be manly for anyway. Your spouse might Google it, but then you’d spend your evening in the ER treating sticker shock. You could be less specific, but then you’ve doomed your loved one to a year of research and looking lost in music stores. You might say, “I need a new set of monitors,” but that’s really just a mean thing to say to someone you like! Heck, even YOU don’t know which pair you want!

They could just take a risk, go to a store and pick something up they think matches the look and feel of your space, and that works just fine if the store has a great return policy.

But let’s face it, it’s kind of awkward when a bass player gets a guitar as a gift. “Yes…yes I see that it has even more strings…uhm…yes…that’s wonderful. Yeah, more…more notes. Thank you.” Ok, that scenario may be a bit hyperbolic, but you get the gist. It may be, even, that your family DOES know the difference between a Fender and a Martin, and in fact, you may even be shacked up with a fellow recordist. If so, your gift giving woes may be less severe, however there is another problem there. If you happen to live with a recordist, how do you know that the presents they give aren’t really for THEM? In this situation, I advise continual and open sharing!

If you’re like most of us, and the lone recording artist in the family, it’s clear you’re not likely to wake up on your birthday to a balanced patch bay with a bow, and you’re probably never going to find a power conditioner under the tree. But don’t be disappointed. Have compassion for the trouble you’ve caused your people by being a genius of sound and audio. Love them anyway, and ask for little. Try, if you can, to understand what they want for presents (even though wanting anything that doesn’t go in a studio does seem insane) and you be the giver. Remember also that you are probably no better at gift giving, seeing as how you tend to give earplugs as stocking stuffers and surround sound for your anniversary.

There may even come a day when your stocking is full of XLR cables, or each day of Chanukah has a different color Y cable but be patient. Until that day, when holidays, birthdays or anniversaries roll around, smile, say thank you, give big hugs…

… and use E-Bay to sell your gifts and get more gear!

Happy shopping!

I mostly do my own studio purchasing and I’m trying to be a better gift giver. If you want to exchange gifts with me, reach out on my socials… @AaronJTrumm on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

The Evolution Of Evolutionary Mixing

June 22, 2021 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, audio mixing, do it yourself recording, home recording, mixing, music mixing, 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!

The modern recording process has been set for quite a while. It goes:

Pre-Production (writing/rehearsing, etc.)
Tracking
Mixing
Mastering

Keeping these processes separate and distinct has its advantages. For example, a well written song composed, arranged and rehearsed is usually tracked smoothly, with fewer problems than ill-conceived ideas, even with non-traditional music like electronica. Well arranged songs also lend themselves to easier mixing. Mastering, meanwhile, needs to be its own process, with new ears and different gear, and of course getting a break from long tracking sessions and coming back fresh for mixdown can not only be more effective, but more fun and rewarding too.

The process has proven effective, but in the past 5-10 years, I’ve noticed a new paradigm developing for many musicians and producers, myself included.

In traditional mixdown, we bring recorded, edited final tracks to a mix studio, call up the tracks on tape, MDM or DAW and use a console and outboard processing to create the final mix. We move faders, dial knobs, make patches, and if our console isn’t automated (ie: the ubiquitous Mackie 8-Buss), rehearse and perform moves and changes in real time, sometimes working in teams (“move over, Bob! I have to twist the mid-range NOW to create that EQ wahwah! Make sure you fade channel 2 while I engage the delay…”)

These are often one shot sessions, with hours of listening on multiple monitors, boom boxes, computer speakers and car stereos to achieve translatable mixes. This works, but what if you make a mistake, or find out the mix is too boomy in Walmart? Can you recreate that session? Do you have the time and money to rebook? You can attempt to recreate an analog session, but it is painful and rarely works (remember the knob/fader sheets that came in 8-Buss manuals?).

Of course, DAWS and automated boards make it easier. A ProTools mix can be called up again and again, sounding exactly the same, especially if no outboard gear is involved, and an automated console can do the same. However even an inexpensive digital board sits in a single (expensive) room and so does a hefty ProTools rig, so there wasn’t necessarily a huge change to the process when digital boomed.

However, when laptops got powerful enough to handle multi-track audio, there was a bigger shift. In my own work, that shift was immediate and dramatic. Suddenly mixes could evolve over time. I could take the laptop everywhere, checking mixes and making small tweaks in video edit suites, project studios, theaters, houses or strange headphones. Add mp3s and stronger internet, and suddenly I was sharing evolving mixes with band members or label partners remotely, reading emailed feedback and correcting mixes while at coffee shops or on planes. Not only was there no longer a time crunch every session, I was listening in different ENVIRONMENTS, which is great for translatability. The result was lower cost and better mixes.

That change in process levels the playing field a bit, giving more artists another way to strive for world class material; but it can also change the fundamental recording process. With the ability to quickly tweak and change mix parameters (and save old versions), dialing in the sound can start earlier in the chain. Mixes can evolve with the writing, which is great for genres where the mix is a fundamental part of the composition itself, and while it can certainly be a double edged sword, if managed right, it can also lead to a more integrated and rewarding experience over all, and sometimes even to smooth as butter traditional mixdown and mastering sessions later in the process. Not to mention, there is a new sense of freedom there that wasn’t there before, and we artists do love our sense of freedom.

I like to call it “evolutionary mixing”. I wouldn’t call it a replacement for the traditional workflow. As I said, there are reasons that workflow developed, and some of the freedom afforded with a new outlook can be problematic. Mixing while writing and tracking can cause a loss of perspective, for example, and sometimes easier processes foster laziness. There’s also plenty of reason to hire and learn from masters of the trade. Having a laptop and an attitude is great, but taking that material back to an old master can really create that earth shaking sense of bridging past, present and future.

Personally, I still do my best to compose complete pieces first before doing much tracking, I’m adamant about hiring a world class mastering house, and on my next project, I’ll be combining the evolutionary mixing approach during tracking and editing to put my creative spin on things with a more traditional mixdown later in the process done by a whole different (better) engineer.

That all said, it is exciting to see technology changing the process in a way that increases access and creates new art and inspiration, not only for up and comers, but also for salty veterans who may need a kick in the pants. After all, new process: new result.

I’ve been searching for a good mix for 27 years. Most of the best ones have evolved over a little time. I’m currently outside…in fact I just took the picture at the top of this… talk to me about this and other music, creativity, and outside related things on my socials… @AaronJTrumm on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

The Importance of Going Outside

June 15, 2021 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, do it yourself recording, health, home recording, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, recording magazine, work life balance, work/life balance

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!

I was talking to a friend on Twitter (ironic start to this I know), and he sent me a picture of a beautiful lake. We got to talking about that lake, and how his habit was to take long walks around it. I said I thought it was important to go outside as much as possible, and he agreed. I told him there was a similar (former) lake outside my department in grad school, and that I’d head out there whenever I wasn’t in the studio, but back then, that wasn’t very often. He shared that a certain recent song production had been finished while walking around that lake with a friend, and it occurred to me that there’s more than one reason to get out of the chair and hit the fresh air.

As engineers, producers and musicians, most of us spend the majority of our time squirreled away in dark clubs and darker studios. Night is the preferred (or necessary) time of work for most musicians, and isolation from the world is necessary both acoustically and emotionally. This isn’t bad, but we spend our energy mercilessly in the studio – people who have never mixed a record have no idea how much physical energy it takes. That’s reason one to get outside. It can kill a person to sit in front of a mix desk or a computer all the time and never see the light. Sitting has even been called the new smoking. So, it’s important to get up, leave the room, leave the building, and go outside. Take a walk, get some more serious exercise, or just look at something natural.

My Twitter friend pointed out reason two with his story about the song. Inspiration comes from “refilling the well” (to paraphrase Julia Cameron), and if you sit too long in your own production, you can run out of perspective and ideas. Personally, I’ll probably never write a lyric about a pristine lake; that would be boring to me. But refilling the well is more about replenishing energy than direct and literal inspiration. Sometimes a walk around the lake just causes that last, elusive idea to come.

In this case, getting outside is both literal and metaphorical. We need to get outside of our heads, outside of the room, and outside of our own thinking. We need an outside perspective. That’s why there are mix notes. That’s why great mixers clear out the control room. There needs to be someone who wasn’t there the whole time to come in toward the end and give an outside perspective. Sometimes it may even behoove us to hire an outside mixer, producer or player, or take a project to an outside studio.

Reason three: Ears need breaks. Listening fatigue causes poor sonic judgement and especially if things are loud, ears can get damaged over time. Getting away from the sound at regular intervals is as important as keeping volumes reasonable and wearing ear protection. If you live in Manhattan, going outside may not help you here, but as I recall, it’s only about a 5 minute walk from Hell’s Kitchen to Central Park, so maybe all is not lost for you New Yorkers!

If health isn’t your bag, and inspiration is coming out your pores at all times no matter what, maybe reason four is enough to get you outside: You can’t get famous if you never meet anybody. One could argue that you can use the internet for that, but we all know that meeting people face to face is so much more powerful. Getting outside in this case just means out of your house, and you still may end up constantly in dark clubs, or once you achieve this fame, deep in penthouse suites drinking chardonnay and eating thousand dollar fish guts, but if you want that to last, I refer you to previous paragraphs regarding health.

I for one have changed the way I do business and make music. I get up in the morning now, I keep the windows and doors open 95% of the time, and I built my new office/studio in the sunniest room in the house. I never book a session longer than four hours (usually it’s two) and I stand up and walk out the front door repeatedly throughout the day. All-nighters are a thing of the past now, as is the romance of the dungeon studio.

For me, it’s more than just nature, sunshine and lakes, and it’s more than literally going outdoors. For me, it’s about work/life balance, something that people in other professions enjoy, but it seems that musicians usually don’t. For me, it’s about treating my dream job as WORK, and not a hobby, which means, I get to have a life outside of work/music. We don’t HAVE to be squirreled away all the time and miss the beautiful, varied, colorful things that live out THERE, not in HERE, just because we make music.

I may not ever meet my Twitter friend by the lake, but I’m glad he reminded me to take it outside. If you need me the rest of today, that’s where I’ll be.

I’m a vocalist, pianist, producer, engineer and – as you can see – writer. I’m currently outside, but when I come in, you can find me at @AaronJTrumm on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Feeding Back

June 8, 2021 by Aaron

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.

Master The Craft And The Art Will Follow

February 11, 2021 by Aaron

home recording, home recording studio, 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!

One of my earliest mentors was a man named Dale, but we always called him “the old man”. He was a documentary producer at the local public television station where I got my start. I worked under him as a work study generalist, but he quickly put a camera in my hands and, recognizing my bent, had me heading up sound on set within weeks.

Dale and his other protégé Manny brought an artfulness and soul to documentary making that I’ve rarely seen matched. We were the wild men of KNME, the ones with big beards and foul mouths, and it often seemed to me we were flying by the seat of our pants. Some days we would just grab a hi-8 camera and a pistol grip boom and go down to the worst parts of town, just to see what we could find.

It may have seemed crazy to me at the time, but one of Dale’s favorite things to say to us was “master the craft and the art will follow”. If it’s not obvious, what that means is this: Amateurs try to be creative first, thinking up wild ideas and trying to figure out how to do it. Professionals do this too but what they do first is work hard to understand their craft. That gunslinger you think doesn’t have a care in the world? He doesn’t, but that’s because he’s so well prepared.

An audio engineer from the days when audio engineering required actual engineers, Dale taught us to know our tools very deeply; how light, sound, physics, gear and even people worked. He taught us to prepare thoroughly and love the craft. For me, what that meant was it wasn’t enough to know where the record button was. I wanted to know how to white balance, what an iris does, how to manipulate the f-stop, what kind of lavalier would actually work in a noisy environment, and what a change in light would do to a long shoot.

Sure enough, as Dale predicted, the more I learn, teach and write about the craft, and the more I understand the mundane details and deep fundamental concepts, the more creative I feel. There’s nothing to block the creative flow when you truly know your medium and your tools.

That’s one of the major reasons I write for Recording. When it comes time to teach something, there’s no choice but to know it in and out, and when I do that, I tend to find a creative wellspring as a reward.

It almost never fails. Deep dive into the subtle and elusive art of cleaning and punching up low end in a mix, and you find your mind conjuring up a song laden with sick kick drums and slick bass lines, just so you can mix them better than you’ve ever mixed before. Learn once and for all what happens when you treat a room and how to do so, and suddenly you’ve got nothing standing in between you and that cello masterpiece. Get a systematic view of the mics available in a certain budget window and what you can expect to hear from them, and suddenly you can picture an elusive vocal mix with no question about how to achieve it.

There’s an interesting and tricky balance that goes on there. Some recordists are absolute perfectionists. Some believe there are details that don’t matter. Try asking a Facebook group about MP3s and see how many answers you get. The one thing that remains constant though, is that the more knowledgeable an artist is, the more empowered they are. That’s probably why we continue to debate the physics, science and psychology of sound and music. We want to know. We want to have an unburdened creative flow. We seek mastery.

When we’re young, we want it quickly. We often want to skip the boring stuff and get straight to being wildly creative. We worry that we need to chase the art, or it will fly away without us. That’s ok too, but sometimes we tend to go great guns without preparing, only to wonder why the final product isn’t what we envisioned. Our sifus, senseis and mentors tell us “master the craft”. We say “but we want the ART!”.

It turns out, the muse is attracted to skill. That creative spark we all seek and hope will come our way is enflamed and incited by our mastery and love for craft. It’s looking for the artist that will do it the most justice. Every time you learn something about HOW to make the art, the art comes sniffing around.

So, we at Recording hope to help you some in that regard. We hope we can be a part of your on-going love of the craft of making incredible records, and it turns out that really helps us on our path to mastery. We’ll keep making records and writing about how, and you keep making records and reading about how. Write about it too, we’d love to learn what you know!

After all, as The Old Man says, master the craft and the art will follow.

I’m a producer, vocalist, pianist, writer and craft masterer – hmm…. Anyway, look for me on Twitter or Facebook at @AaronJTrumm.

A Transformative Weekend

August 19, 2019 by Aaron

music business, music licensing, pay to submit, recording magazine, sync, taxi, taxi music, taxi.com

How The 2017 Taxi Road Rally Exceeded All Expectations

This article first appeared Recording Magazine in January 2018. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

Two disclaimers: Recording Magazine and Taxi have a great relationship, so I understand if you expect a bit of bias; I personally was a Taxi member for a short time 15 years ago, and not since. (2019 EDIT: I actually did become a Taxi member for the year after I wrote this, and did not renew, which doesn’t mean I don’t think you should. It’s one of the only pay-to-submit companies I would recommend.)

Now that that’s out of the way, GO TO THE TAXI ROAD RALLY. I went this past November for the first time, and I started the weekend with at least a small amount of skepticism. I’ve never liked paying any kind of membership fee for anything, and I’ve always especially distrusted anyone who asks for money from artists. So although friends were telling me Taxi’s great, I was really only going to the rally to network.

Boy was I wrong. I haven’t been this excited, juiced and sparked since my first National Poetry Slam, which if you’ve never heard of it, is 5 days of the 300 best performance poets in the world going head to head. It is one of the most intense, beautiful and transformative experiences you can go through. So is the Taxi Road Rally.

First off, take the breakout sessions. 4 time slots a day, with at least five different options for classes from industry pros – and I’m talking people who will melt your face with their credits, and then melt the rest of your body with the depth and clarity of their knowledge – on topics spanning from how to reverse engineer an instrumental cue to how to deal with stage fright, to how to master with new LuFS standards, to how to decipher music business contracts, to how to achieve balance and success without messing up your marriage (that last class, taught by Jill and James Kocian, revolutionized my career in a single hour and is easily the best thing I’ve done for myself in 20 years).

Next let’s talk feedback. One-on-one mentoring sessions and group mentor lunches where you can bend the ear of producers, sync agents, radio promotors, other musicians, and so on. Not to mention several listening panels with industry pros who will tell you in no uncertain terms what’s right and wrong with your music (from their unique industry point of view), and do so in an empowering way that truly helps.

You know all this though. You can see it in the back pages of this magazine quite often, and you can read it on the Taxi website.

What you may not know about, and what made me want to go back next year, and re-join Taxi ASAP, is the incredible community of like-minded, supportive and positive dreamers that Taxi members are. Members lift each other up, encourage each other, collaborate with each other, eat together, laugh together and make the big bad L.A. music industry feel like a huge beautiful slumber party – with millionaire mixers and hot shot producers in the next sleeping bags.

Not once did I hear a piece of feedback that didn’t start and end positively (I call that the sandwich method). Not once did I witness any sort of competitive vibe or see anyone stepping over each other to get up. The whole tone of the Taxi Road Rally, to borrow from Marc Smith (the inventor of Poetry Slam), is “pull the next one up”. The result is a collaborative energy that has clearly resulted in success AND happiness for countless members, and a level of overall quality that was frankly mind boggling.

AND I got to walk around with a guy who mixed and produced Christina Aguilara and Will Smith (Rob Chiarelli) and the guy who wrote Every Which Way But Loose (Steve Dorff)! That was a funny story! Not to mention men and women who have written with, produced, mixed, played with and known almost every artist I’ve ever heard of. To hob-nob with great people in the recording industry and have it be not only NOT intimidating, but absolutely invigorating, is, to me, high achievement.

As to whether I would recommend you join Taxi, I couldn’t say. That depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and where you stand in your career. Taxi, like any such company, can help you a LOT, but only if you’re ready to utilize that help. If you’ve got a good sized catalog, or you’re good at writing or producing music quickly and to spec, AND if you have the right attitude about feedback and being willing to grow and change, then Taxi could be great. If you’re not willing to change or your skin is too thin, or maybe you’re a beginner starting out, I’d say wait. But I encourage you to get on their list and check out the listings they send out (for free). That alone can teach you a lot. And when you’re ready, get yourself out to Taxi’s Road Rally – maybe as a guest of a member, like I did – and bring your tunes, your good vibes, and a REALLY big, empty notebook!

In the meantime, you can go check Taxi out and see if you like the vibe at www.taxi.com.

Happy recording!