flypaper Archives - Aaron J. Trumm

The Abbey Road Trick and Friends

How to EQ Reverb Sends to Free Up Space in a Mix

This article about the abbey road trick first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint it here with permission and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15.

Also – you may find an affiliate link here and there and I may get commissions – it’s part of how I keep afloat!

Reverb may be the most important effect you can use in your mix (besides all the others). It’s reverb that gives your mix depth, makes it sound “real”, and creates a sense of space and character. Often, the use of reverb is the defining characteristic of a particular mix or even an entire style or genre.

Can you picture 80’s hair metal without copious amounts of reverb? Of course not!

But reverb is by nature messy. By definition, you’re taking clean, succinct sounds and spreading them out, adding to them, and generally putting more into a mix than is there naturally. This means using reverb is one of the easiest ways to make a mix muddy.

Abbey Road to the Rescue

One of the easiest and most straight forward ways to free up space in a mix is to use EQ to clean up your reverb sends. There are a few ways to do this, and we’ll mention a couple forthwith, but first and foremost there’s the Abbey Road Reverb Trick.

The Abbey Road trick is so named because it was invented at Abbey Road studios, to help create space in mixes that may otherwise be overwhelmed by reverb. The technique is quite simple and surprisingly effective.

It goes like this. Set your reverb plugin up on its own buss (you should be doing this anyway, rather than inserting reverb directly in tracks). Use the send on your dry track to send your preferred amount of signal to the reverb. Make sure your reverb plugin is only outputting wet signal (most plugins mix the dry and wet signal by default).

Now the Abbey Road part. Insert an EQ plugin before the reverb plugin. It’s important to insert this EQ before the reverb, because you want to tame frequencies that are hitting the reverb to begin with.

Now set up a high pass filter and filter out everything below 600 HZ. That’s not a typo. You want to take off all that low-end mud. Next set up a low pass filter and filter off everything above 10 KHZ.

And that’s it! This simple trick opens up space in a mix in almost magical fashion, by eliminating boomy, low frequency tails in the frequency range that tends to get jumbled anyway, while also taking out distracting high-frequency tails that can sound unnatural.

Oh, and you could try this on stage with hardware reverbs too….just sayin.

Other Tricks

Notching

Once you’ve set up an Abbey Road style EQ before your reverb, you can also try notching in particular spots for certain instruments. For example, on vocals try a 1 to 4 db drop at around 2 KHZ to smooth things out (especially for a yelling tenor).

You might also try a small boost to enhance certain frequencies on the way in to the reverb, but be careful if you’re trying to create space.

Band-Pass Adjustments

When you’ve gotten a handle on the basic function of the Abbey Road trick, you can start playing with the band-pass. For some reverbs, perhaps a purposefully boomy kick drum that appears sparingly, you might drop the high-pass some to allow a little more low end rumble. Or you could try increasing the amount of low-pass filter to clean up even more of the high-end shine. Often, adjusting to 6 KHZ instead of 10 KHZ works great for this purpose.

EQ After Reverb

You can also use an EQ to fine tune the reverb’s output after the fact. You can do this to further tame your sound even if you’re already using an Abbey Road EQ before the reverb.

In this case, you still might want to apply high and low pass filters, cutting below 250 HZ or so and above 10 KHZ, depending on the signal. In addition, solo the instrument or vocal plus reverb, and listen for any resonances that might be getting in the way, and apply a narrow cut in these areas.

Using The Reverb’s EQ

While we’re at it, don’t ignore the EQ setting in the reverb itself. Most reverb plugins include some sort of rudimentary settings, if not a full-blown EQ section. Often this setting is a simple low pass frequency which you can adjust or remove entirely, and many reverbs have both a low and high pass filter.

Be aware that in most reverb plugins, the EQ section is affecting the signal post reverb, so you can’t specifically apply the Abbey Road trick in this way. Nevertheless, the EQ section in your reverb plugin is still a good place to rough in a cleaner sound.

Listen Critically

The key to any EQ job is critical listening. Listen to your moves in the context of the entire mix, not just on solo. The Abbey Road Reverb Trick is a great starting place and will instantly clean up your mix in almost every case. Especially with vocals, this trick creates space for the voice to remain clear and up front, while maintaining a sense of space and depth.

In any case, when making tweaks to either your Abbey Road EQ or your post-reverb EQ, make sure to listen carefully, because the exact same fine-tuned settings won’t apply every time. And finally, don’t be afraid to experiment and spend some time with your reverb EQ. Treat the reverb as carefully as you would any instrument and it will play just as important a role – without getting in the way.

I’m a producer, vocalist, and writer. I have “Abbey Road” presets in all my EQs, that’s how much I love that trick. Let’s talk about it on Facebook or Instagram

6 Tips for Audio Mixing on the Go

This article about audio mixing on the go first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint it here with permission and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15.

Also – you may find an affiliate link here and there and I may get commissions – it’s part of how I keep afloat!

Let’s not beat around the bush. You probably got stuck at home for a long time due to the virus which shall remain nameless. So maybe “on the go” is an ironic thing to say, but the concept of mixing outside of the normal studio setting is what we’re talking about here.

You can use some of these tips to help you get quality mixes while you’re stuck at home, and even if your actual studio is at home, and in an open world you can take them out to all the coffee shops, park benches, and hotel rooms your heart desires.

So, without further ado – let’s talk about six tips for mixing on the go.

Listen More Ways

The fact is if you’re doing this audio mixing on the go thing, you’re probably doing so in headphones. If not headphones, you’re listening in rooms that aren’t treated well. If you’re at home, you could start treating the room you’re in, but if you don’t want to go down a home studio rabbit hole, or if you’re actually out in the world, consider various listening devices.

Try listening to mixes on your main headphones, then your laptop speakers, then a set of earbuds. Try exporting the mix to an mp3 and listening with your phone. Or connect an old boom box with aux input. Listen on your TV. Listen in your car. Take notes everywhere you listen so you can make adjustments.

Believe it or not this was common practice even back when everything was mixed in big fancy commercial studios.

Small Tweaks

When you make adjustments from listening to various speakers and devices, make them subtle. If you hear too much hat on the laptop but it sounds fine in the headphones, pull it down a bit so it starts to sound better on the laptop but doesn’t get lost in the headphones.

Remember the name of the game is having mixes translate on various devices, so making subtle tweaks is usually best. It’s also better in general when you’re not in the best circumstances to make small tweaks.

Develop Over Time

Since you have a DAW and you can save mixes, and even save alternate mixes, you don’t have to do it all at once. You can use this to your advantage to let a song develop over time, rather than trying to get it all right in one go.

This evolution of a mix over time is sometimes the best way to get past the limitation of being in less than ideal mixing environment.

Get Feedback

Since you do have the luxury of letting a mix develop over time, take advantage of other people’s listening environments (and ears!) by getting feedback. Take notes and try to make subtle adjustments based on what other people hear. Usually, you can implement everything everyone says in a subtle way and strengthen your mix over the course of a little time.

These people don’t have to be experts either. A healthy mix of expert ears and lay-listeners can really give you the best bead on how your sound is landing.

Use Reference Tracks

Starting off a mix session by listening to a view great mixes that are in the ballpark of the sound you want is always a good idea, but it’s especially necessary when you’re in unfamiliar territory. You still won’t be able to hear sub bass your headphones can’t reproduce or shimmering highs missing in your temporary speakers, but you will be able to calibrate your listening so you can more quickly get to the sound you’re looking for.

Come back to your references periodically, especially if you’re in headphones, to keep your perspective right.

Corrective Software

Finally, you may be able to improve your ability to mix remotely with the use of corrective software such as SonarWorks. Although not the only game in town, SonarWorks is the best at calibrating headphones so that you can get a reasonable even, reliable sound to mix with. Other calibration packages include IK Multimedia’s ARC, ToneBoosters, Dirac, and Waves NX. All these packages are simply filters you insert between your master buss and audio output, which eq the sound according to a headphone or room profile, evening out the sound for a more accurate mix. You may be surprised at how game changing this can be. (By the way, you could probably use some room correction in your space too – check my video on how I do this for – basically – free).

Go Forth – Or Stay Home

Whether you’re languishing in a house with no studio, or you’re living in the post COVID utopia of travel and socialization, you can get a great mix on the go with your laptop, DAW, and a little bit of tenacity and inventiveness. And you can always check your mixes later at the real studio to see how well you did. Using some of the tips here, we hope you’re pleasantly surprised!

I’m an artist, producer, and writer. I used to mix all over the place. Now I stay more put. Let’s talk about it on Facebook or Instagram

5 Creative Ways to Use Delay in a Mix

This article about creative ways to use delay first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint it here with permission and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15.

Also – you may find an affiliate link here and there – it’s part of how I keep afloat!

Delay is one of those staple effects. No DAW is without at least one delay plugin, and most mixes utilize this bread-and-butter effect in some way. Not to mention, hardware delays are a lot of fun too. There’s a good chance you’re using it regularly, perhaps to create a repeating effect, make a ping-pong happen, or any number of creative things. There are, in fact, a whole host of useful things you can do with a delay, so we thought we’d go over five creative ways to use delay in a mix.

Create and change rhythms

One beautiful use of delay is to create or change rhythm tracks. You can take an otherwise boring drum beat, say boom bap boom boom bap, and make it swing and sway, turn it into a whole different thing, or just make the snare do a few interesting flims and flams. Try sending both kick and snare through a tempo delay set at factor one half (8^th notes). This will turn boom bapp into Boom(boom) Bap(boomBi) Boom(boomboom) Bap (boom Bi). Adjust the wet dry mix to emphasize or deemphasize the original rhythm and use decay time to adjust how long the new delayed rhythm plays out.

Or try using a stereo delay that’s locked to your project tempo. Set one side to factor three quarters and the other to one half. You can use feedback to mess with the rhythm further, and if your delay has a crossfeed setting, you could even automate that to come up at certain times to create variance in the pattern and pseudo fills. You could even combine feedback and crossfeed to create crescendos. Use your imagination, try a whole bunch of different things, and you can create a ton of rhythms you wouldn’t have thought of.

Use delay instead of reverb

To get quite technical, reverb is simply a kind of delay. You can set your delay to basically give you reverb, or even better, use delay instead of reverb to create space without washing out the sound. For example, here’s a trick that adds depth and presence to a vocal track:

Send the vocal to a buss and insert a tempo-locked stereo delay. Set one side to a 16^th note and the other to a 16^th dotted or triplet. Set the feedback to something low like 7% on the left and 9% on the right, so that you get one or two repeats. Bring the buss up until you have what you want. You can use this effect instead of a reverb, or in combination with one. It works as an in-your-face effect in some mixes, and sometimes it’s appropriate to use it subtly, like something you only notice when it’s gone.

Make a mono track stereo

If you’ve got a mono track, perhaps a synth or guitar and you want it to be stereo, you can use a delay to do this. Just copy the signal to another track and pan each copy hard left/right. Then insert a delay on one side and set it somewhere between 5 and 20ms. Make sure the wet/dry is set to 100% wet, with no feedback or crossfeed (unless you want to see what happens!).

Alternatively, use three tracks with the original in the center. Insert a separate delay on both left and right with a similar setting, say 5 to 20ms on the left and 10 to 30ms on the right, making sure they’re different. Bring the two sides down or up to taste to create your new stereo track.

Create a metallic effect

If you set your delay to a very fast response, say around 15ms, and set feedback to a generous setting, say around 50%, what you’ll get is a very metallic effect, akin to some kind of robot sound. This effect is enhanced by a high pass filter cutting out low frequencies.

Play with the feedback and crossfeed settings to create more metal effect or decrease the delay time even further to inch toward a flange-like sound.

Delay the delay

Finally, there’s no rule against combining delays. To put some of the previous examples together, I created a simple pattern with kick and snare. Next, I inserted a delay and set the delay time to around 17ms, with a feedback of 40% and a wet/dry mix of 44%. Then I inserted a stereo delay, this one tempo locked, and set the left side delay time to factor one half (8^th notes) and the left to three quarters. I set the feedback at 26% and the wet/dry mix to 34%.

That was cool enough, but the fun part was automating the crossfeed setting in time with the rhythm. On the metallic delay, bringing the crossfeed to around 50% at the last beat of the measure created a kind of synth accompaniment, and jamming it all the way to 100% created basically a wobble bass, as the low end from the kick modulated, then interacted with the second delay. Next, I tried automating the crossfeed on the second delay, which created fills and variations in both the drum track and the new pseudo synth.

All of this coming out of only one drum patch, with a simple kick and snare pattern.

Put it into practice

If there’s one thing that comes up over and over in audio, music and mixing, it’s that there are no rules. You can find creative ways to use delay any way you see fit, and it’s a great idea to experiment. Play with settings, break the rules, and find your next crazy, interesting, beautiful sound.

I’m an artist, producer, and writer. I’m very punctual, even though I love delay. Let me know your creative delay tricks on Facebook or Instagram

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

The 5 Best Reverb Plugins Compared

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

Reverb is like water. You can live without it for a few days, but eventually you’ll die. Ok, it may not be that necessary, but without a few good reverb plugins in your DAW, you’ll be hard pressed to get a good mix, as reverb is one of the most essential tools in mixing. Reverb creates a sense of space, makes a song come alive, and gives mixes depth.

So, we’ve compiled five of the best reverb plugins around, in case you’re in need of an upgrade in that department. It would be hard to claim that this is the only possible list of five top verbs, as there are so many incredible plugins out there, but these five come up repeatedly and have become staples in many a studio.

Without further ado, in no particular order, and a drumroll please….

Valhalla VintageVerb – $50

Overwhelmingly the most mentioned plugin in our informal surveys of producers and musicians. VintageVerb is a simple, intuitive plugin that offers three distinct modes:

1970’s Color Mode uses algorithms inspired by digital reverb hardware from the 1970’s. This mode reduces bandwidth to add artifacts.

1980’s Color Mode emulates digital hardware reverbs from the 80’s. Bandwidth is less limited here, and the mode does just what it says – makes 80’s sounding reverb.

NOW Color Mode gives you a more modern, clean reverb sound.

Valhalla VintageVerb is great for vocals, and while it may not be everyone’s go-to for other tracks, it has a flavor all its own, and as such is loved across the board.

Audio Ease Altiverb – Around $650 to $1100

Altiverb an expensive choice, but the love shown for this convolution reverb is as much as any other. Altiverb comes in two flavors – regular at 499 British pounds and XL at 849 pounds. This translates to somewhere around $650 and $1100 depending on current exchange rates, although you can do a good bit better at a dealer like Sweetwater.

Expense aside, Altiverb is sophisticated and rich, and arguably the top convolution reverb on the market. If you don’t already know, convolution reverbs take impulse responses (IRs) from real world spaces – cathedrals, concert halls, bathrooms, anything, and use complicated computer mumbo-jumbo to allow you to place your source in that space.

Altiverb has a massive library of IRs from around the world, all exquisitely crafted. This includes more than just music spaces. It also includes responses from vitage gear, specific stage locations, experimental responses and more. If you’ve never tried a convolution reverb, do yourself a favor and at least try out Altiverb’s demo.

Uaudio Lexicon 224 – $299

Uaudio’s Lexicon 224 is a digital emulation of Lexicon’s famous hardware reverb, which was the most popular studio reverb from its release in 1978 well into the modern era. If you’ve heard U2, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Grandmaster Flash or any number of other artists, you’ve heard the 224.

UAD’s emulation does the classic reverb justice, using the same algorithms as the original hardware and adding presets from famous producers who used the original, such as Prince’s Chuck Zwicky and Peter Gabriel’s Kevin Killen. Even Lexicon endorses UAD’s plug-in version, and for good reason.

The 224 is another great vocal reverb, but it shines in almost every situation. Its characteristic lush tails and classic 80’s sound will transport you back, but the truth is the sound of the 224 is equally at home in a more modern production. It’s a pretty simple plugin, with only 5 faders (just like the original remote control), so it won’t be hard to start experimenting right away.

Fabfilter Pro-R – $199

Fabfilter’s Pro-R makes the list not only for popularity and a decent price tag, but because it’s so innovative. The company claims the Pro-R plugin works in a more “musical” and less technical way, and that’s a pretty accurate statement. Some features that set Pro-R apart are a stepless room size control, tempo sync’d pre-delay, and probably the coolest thing ever – delay rate eq, which allows you to control the decay time of different frequency ranges independently.

Besides offering these cool features, Fabfilter’s Pro-R has an incredibly natural and smooth sound, almost never introducing artifacts or producing ugly, nasally “reverb” sounds.

Softube TSAR – $199

Last but certainly not least, Softube’s “True Stereo Algorithmic Reverb”, or TSAR. Softube’s sell on their reverb plugin is that it is NOT an emulation or a “static snapshot” of a space (a possibly unfair potshot at convolution reverbs). TSAR also boasts a “true stereo” response, which simply means it responds to a stereo input in a more realistic way. IE: if you pan an input hard right, the reverb won’t just be heard in the right speaker.

TSAR is another simple reverb. It’s got a few faders and only one algorithm. There’s no low-cut option, but you can always add an EQ to your chain to do what you need to there.

In the end, TSAR makes the cut because of its excellent sound quality, relatively low CPU usage, and of course because of its sheer popularity in our surveys. TSAR is a fair-priced, effective and high- quality solution.

There You Have It

In all honesty, we could have gone a hundred ways with this. There are a plethora of awesome reverb plugins out there. Companies like UAD, Waves, Liquid Sonics, and Eventide are just the tip of the iceberg. Even your DAW’s stock reverb plugins are likely to be awesome. That said, the five above showed up repeatedly in surveys, always get great reviews, and when we tried them, they all sounded magnificent in some unique way.

So, go out there and try some, and let us know your favorite!

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

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.

Cull the Herd (where do I submit my music??)

May 10, 2022 by Aaron

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

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, flypaper, home recording, music business, music submissions, nquit music, professional audio, professional music, recording, soundfly, where do i submit my music

The Definitive Guide to Deciding Where to Submit Your Music

This article diving into the question “where do I submit my music?” first appeared in FlyPaper by Soundfly. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to check out their courses. You can get a 15% discount code on a subscription using the promo code AJTRUMM15. Also you may come across affiliate links and I may make a commission if you buy.

You can’t be everywhere all the time. Still, it’s hard not to fall into the trap of trying to do just that. In the music business, there are thousands upon thousands of gatekeepers, promotional outlets, and other “opportunities” where you can submit your tracks. Since promoting music is largely about submitting and submitting and submitting again, you can’t simply ignore this aspect of the business.

That said, there is no way you can realistically submit to everything, so you need to pick and choose. How to decide who should get your music can be a bit tricky to figure out. Plenty of people will advise you, and everyone accepting music will recommend you submit to them, but the truth is the right plan is different for everyone.

Knowing that your time is precious, here are some things to consider when evaluating whether to submit to a particular opportunity or company.

General considerations

Every category of submission opportunity has its own unique considerations, but to start with there are a few things to think about, no matter who or what you’re pitching to.

First off, think about your goals. Do you want to find new fans to go to your shows? Are you trying to make money as quickly as possible? Are you building a brand around a musical act, or are you a producer trying to produce instrumentals and make a living?

It may seem obvious, but you don’t need to submit to every category for every goal. For example, if your only goal is to place instrumental cues in video productions, you don’t need any press or radio connections. In fact in that case the only category you need to worry about is licensing.

Next, there are a few universal considerations to think over in every case.

Genre

Make sure the people you’re submitting to work with your genre. It may go without saying, but lots of musicians don’t bother to research this crucial aspect, and waste a lot of time in the process, not to mention annoying the people on the other end and damaging their own reputation.

Reputation

How reputable is the company or person you’re submitting to? Is there any risk to making a deal with them? We’ll talk about submission fees in a moment, but also consider whether the company will be hard to deal with, or whether the time you put in to deal with it will really be worth the effort.

Potential return

This consideration is closely tied to reputation. If the entity is a major player with a great reputation, you may stand to gain a lot more than with other companies. If the potential reward is big, you may be willing to go to more trouble.

Submission difficulty

Speaking of effort, some submission processes are easier than others. Sometimes it’s as simple as sending an email with a streaming link to your music, and sometimes you can find yourself spending an hour or more per song filling out forms and checking boxes just to be considered. When it comes to business efficiency, this can be a make or break consideration.

Submission cost

This is probably the stickiest and most contentious consideration. Quite often, pay-to-play is a red flag, but there are situations where it’s ok. If there is a fee, you should be sure that the company has a great reputation, and that your music is really on the mark for their needs. You also need to consider the potential return more seriously. It may only cost five bucks to submit a song to a brief, but if you’re playing a numbers game and submitting song after song, it can add up.

Also, submission fees could indicate something very important that you should consider seriously. They could mean that the company’s revenue model is based on your submissions. Companies like this will often encourage you to submit too often, overstate the potential of your return, or do any number of other shady things to keep you paying in. It also means that this company doesn’t really need to believe in you or your music to accept your music.

If you think a company might be worth it even though they charge submission or membership fees, check with peers and try to find out if anyone is actually making money. If your friends like the company, but can’t point to any revenue generated from them, that’s a big red flag.

When it comes to venues, you shouldn’t pay to play. If you’re renting a space, that’s a bit different, but don’t pay regular venues a fee to submit or play.

Specific considerations

Once you’ve gone through the major considerations above, there are some category-specific things to consider.

Reach

Applicable to press, radio and somewhat to label submissions, the question of reach is simply how many potential fans can this outlet reach? For press type outlets, check into their readership, website traffic or subscription numbers. For radio, what’s their listenership? For labels, look at how big their other artists are, what their overall budget is, and how many connections to press, radio and other outlets they have.

In the licensing realm, you’ll want to consider how many placements they have under their belt, and how widely exposed those placements are. A company that has thousands of placements in small YouTube videos spots may the biggest overall reach, but one that has dozens of national ad placements may also be a powerful ally.

Focus

Who you’re able to reach is as important as how many people you can get to. If your submission is genre-appropriate, you’re already in a good place here, but it’s worth it to further consider a company’s focus. If you’re looking at a label for example, they may have a very wide reach but be spread too thin. A magazine may claim to be national but only have a few readers in each city. Especially if your goal involves getting people to your shows, you’re better off submitting to press, radio and labels who are strong in the areas you want to play. Genre-specific blogs and playlists may be better for finding fans than generalized publications and shows.

When it comes to licensing companies, consider your own goals. Your basic genre may be on point, but if your goal is to produce songs and sing them, you may not want to spend much time with libraries that focus on instrumental cues. Some licensing firms are all around companies, and some specialize in very specific areas like advertising or film and TV. Consider where your music has the best chance of being used and go for the companies in that area.

Relationships

When you’re considering an agent or a manager, their biggest asset is industry relationships. Don’t just consider how many people they know, though. Consider how deep and lasting their relationships are, and how trusted they are.

Payment

Payment isn’t something you need to consider for promotional opportunities like press and radio. But if you’re submitting to labels, licensing companies or venues, you need to know not only WHAT they will pay, but HOW.

Consider the percentages they offer and what the terms are. This is especially important in licensing. Many licensing agreements are super unfavorable, with really long payment terms, clauses that allow non-payment for certain usages, or any number of odd chicanery that might not suit you. If you can, read their terms before you submit. If you can’t live with their terms, there’s no reason to submit.

Similarly if you’re submitting to a venue for performance, find out ahead of time how they deal with money. Do they pay a guaranteed amount? Do you share the door? Are you allowed to sell merch? Again, try to get some idea what you’re likely to make before you submit.

Exclusivity

Exclusivity is a consideration mainly for licensing submissions. Label deals are always exclusive, agent/manager relationships are generally exclusive, and exclusivity isn’t a question in promotional settings.

However, in licensing, exclusivity (or the lack of it) is a major consideration. There are a lot of opinions on what’s better – an exclusive deal or a non-exclusive – but when it comes down to it, your needs will determine what works best.

For the most part, artists are not asked to sign licensing or publishing deals that tie up everything they do. Usually, exclusive deals in this realm apply to individual songs or groups of songs.

Generally, if you place songs with licensing agents or libraries non-exclusively, it means that you’re free to place the same song with other companies, or shop it directly to productions yourself. The one main drawback is the risk of having multiple companies pitch your song to the same production. This can get awkward, so many licensing-focused musicians try to pick only one company in each niche (advertising, film, etc).

There may be an advantage to accepting an exclusive deal, though. Usually, an exclusive deal with a licensing company or publisher means that company will work harder to place the song. If the company is a good one with a lot of clout, it may be a no brainer to accept an exclusive deal. Just remember to vet the company first. There are a few bad companies out there offering exclusive deals, and you don’t want to be locked into one of those.

Competition

Finally, consider your competition. A healthy amount of competition isn’t bad, but too much could be. Anyone worth submitting to is getting hundreds of submissions, so you’ll have to deal with that no matter what, but there are a couple of scenarios where it’s a bigger concern.

Those situations involve licensing and labels. Specifically, consider how much other music is rostered on a label or licensing company. Are you one of a few powerful, handpicked greats that the company really believes in, or are you one of thousands? Being a face in the crowd isn’t always bad, but especially when it comes to any kind of exclusive deal like a label deal, you need to be aware of how much this company will really be putting into you.

If you’re offered a deal with a failing label owned by a struggling major superstar, for example, there probably won’t be many resources left over for you. Similarly if a licensing company is offering thousands of artists exclusive deals, that’s not likely to go well for you.

None of this is to say you should shy away from competition. If you have a chance to submit to an advertising brief worth $200,000, by all means do it! Sure there will be more competition, but you could win! Just be judicious about putting yourself in positions where you don’t have that chance.

Go forth and submit

It doesn’t take much time to consider these factors before making submissions, and when you do, you’ll save yourself a lot more by doing so. You’ll also find your success rate is better, and you’ll have more time to do what you really love, and that’s making music. So go forth, and efficiently submit your music!