music Archives - Aaron J. Trumm

Home Studio Acoustics Primer

This article on home studio acoustics was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also – notification: I sometimes use affiliate links. Some purchases may earn me a commission! 🙂

Many musicians and home studio enthusiasts place top priority on expensive plugins, computers, monitors, and other gear. Those are great things, but the well-initiated know that when it comes to making a home studio great, acoustics is where you can get the most bang for your buck.

Whether you’re recording and want to capture a better sound or mixing and want your mixes to sound great elsewhere, properly treating the room you work in is the best way to supercharge your results.

You may think acoustic treatment is the sole purview of expensive, professional facilities, but that’s not the case. In fact, it’s relatively easy to make a significant improvement to your acoustic environment, even on a budget – if you understand a few basic concepts.

We’ll go over some of those here to get you started improving the sound of your home studio.

Home Studio Acoustics: Why Treat?

If you’ve ever walked into an empty bedroom, you know why acoustic treatment is so important. In a hard cube with six parallel surfaces, sound reflects and interact with each other and the direct sound, causing peaks, nulls, comb filtering, and all kinds of undesirable acoustic phenomenon.

If you’re recording or mixing music, this obviously poses a problem. Since its unlikely you can rebuild the room a different shape, you’ll need to treat it to tame and control its acoustic characteristics.

Soundproofing?

Before we go too far, we should distinguish acoustic treatment from “soundproofing”. Soundproofing really means isolation – aka making sure your sound doesn’t leak into other rooms or bother neighbors (or vice-versa). Isolating a room is a very different job than treating it, and sometimes the two tasks are at odds. So, we’ll leave off isolation for another time, and just talk about treatment.

Absorption and Diffusion

There are two basic solutions to the problem of reflections interfering with each other and causing ugliness: absorption and diffusion.

Diffusion spreads reflections in an even manner, so interactions aren’t as extreme. In a big space, diffusion is an excellent way to create an even, beautiful sound which is not too “dead”. Many types of diffusors are used in big recording or concert spaces to create live, even sounding spaces.

Unfortunately, diffusion requires a lot of space to work and most home studios are just too small. So strategic absorption is most likely your best bet.

If it’s not obvious, absorption simply means absorbing all or most of a sound wave when it gets to a surface, rather than letting it bounce off and cause problems in the room. So, we’ll look at absorption from here forward.

Lows and Highs

While low and high-frequency waves are technically the same animal, they need to be treated differently, mainly because of their size difference (low-frequency waves occur literally over a longer distance).

For treatment purposes, think of low frequencies as anything below about 400 HZ and especially below 200 HZ. That’s the bass and low-mid bass area. For reference, middle C is 262 HZ.

Low frequencies are usually more problematic because you can’t hear them interacting just by clapping or yelling in a room. These frequencies build up or cancel each other out in different spots in the room, causing listeners to hear the bass inaccurately during mixing, or mics to pick up less than ideal low-end information during recording.

Low-frequency interaction might cause a room to sound boomy, a bass drum to sound dull, or a mix to sound thin, to name just a few examples.

High-frequency problems can be heard as ringing, resonating, boxiness, echo, phasing, or other audible phenomena. In recording, these problems can cause instruments to sound flat or extra boomy, make vocals sound ugly and lifeless, or even give a reverberant quality that you don’t want.

In mixing, uneven high frequency reflections may skew the stereo field, or create a wash of sound which makes it hard to hear the difference between left and right, how reverbs and delays sound, or even just how details interact in the mix.

Simple Solutions

As mentioned above, the quickest and often the best solution to these problems is simply to absorb reflections.

High Frequencies

At high frequencies, this is simple. Think of a high-frequency sound wave like a ray of light. It bounces off a wall at the same angle it approaches. In many cases can easily see where you might need high-frequency absorption, but here are some quick tips:

Floor or ceiling – Floor coverings can make an incredible difference in a noisy room very quickly, but professionals often leave floors uncovered and treat the ceiling instead.
Reflection-free zone – in a mixing room, it pays to absorb high frequencies in the area surrounding the mix position. Directly to your left, right, and above you are the areas that cause the most problems. You can also treat the wall behind your speakers, but not every pro does this because speakers don’t necessarily fire backward. Many pros leave the wall behind them live, or if the room is big enough, they use diffusion.
Even out a recording space – In a recording space, there’s not necessarily one area you’d like to sound good. You don’t necessarily have to treat every surface – in fact, that may create an undesirable deadness. Instead, evenly space acoustic panels around the room to tame reflections and even the response.

Low Frequencies

Because of their length (often longer than the room), low frequencies act less directional than high frequencies. Still, they do reflect and interfere with each other, and the solution is almost always to absorb them.

In theory, material that absorbs high frequency waves would also absorb low frequency waves – if it were thick enough. The problem is, in order to effectively absorb lower frequencies, panels would need to be very thick – think eight or more inches. Since most people don’t want to give up a foot of space around their room, low frequencies are usually dealt with differently. Consider these few principles to treat low frequencies:

Corner traps – Bass tends to build up in corners of the room, so this is a great place to absorb. Corner traps of various types are available for this purpose, and ideally should be used in every corner of a room.
Panel traps – A panel trap is a low frequency absorber which uses any of a number of resonating membrane techniques to absorb low frequencies while reflecting highs. This kind of absorber is very handy for taming the low end of a room without making it to dead sounding at high frequencies.
Absorb more – In most rooms, you can’t absorb too much of the low frequencies. So, look for areas beyond just the four vertical corners where you might use various kinds of low frequency absorbers. You can absorb too much high frequency information, depending on your goals and taste, but low frequencies should be generously treated until the room responds the way you want.

Further Study

We hope this primer has helped you get a grasp of the basics behind tuning up your home studio acoustics, but acoustics is a deep science, and we thought we’d give you a few more resources to jump to, so you can further your study.

First of all, check out the “Master Handbook of Acoustics”, by F. Alton Everest, for a deep look at treatment, isolation, and even building for acoustic purposes. For a look specifically at building your home studio, try “Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros”, by Rod Gervais. Finally, to get a deep dive into the physics of sound, try Thomas Rossing’s “The Science of Sound”.

Let us know in the comments your favorite techniques and acoustic products, and don’t be afraid to share pictures of your home studio treatment!

If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram

In-Person Recording Sessions – Let’s get together!

Or do we need to anymore?

This article on in-person recording sessions 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! PS: you may find affiliate links in this post and I may get a commission if you buy something. 🙂

Let’s face it: COVID-19 did a number on us. Live performances all but stopped, toilet paper became a precious jewel, and getting together became a risk-takers-only proposition.

So where did that leave in-person recording sessions? Right where it was, it turns out.

It hasn’t been technically necessary to get together in the same room to record music since…since the 40’s, actually.

That was when Ampex was working with Les Paul on multitrack technology. By 1954, they’d produced the first 8 track. Since then, there’s been no reason you couldn’t record a guitarist and bring in a singer weeks later.

Even as far back as the 80s, you could use ISDN to record full-resolution audio from great distances in real-time. For a few years now, remote collaborations have been as normal as walking down the street – more so, maybe, during COVID. You can jam together online, manipulate shared DAW sessions in the cloud, or shoot wav files back and forth via Dropbox and co-write on Zoom.

It’s cheaper this way, too. A vocalist can spend a few grand to set up a specialized vocal studio, a drummer can do the same, a mixer can mix from a bedroom, and nobody has to pay for studio time.

When COVID-19 hit, one potentially good thing it did was dispel any myth that we’re required to put on clothes, drag ourselves down the highway, and arrive at a place somewhere to do something. Now remote collaboration is normal in every industry. Some people intend to keep working from home forever.

So, is it even necessary to get together to record anymore?

Not technically. But as our illustrious editor-in-chief Paul Vnuk, Jr. puts it, “long-distance relationships suck”.

And that’s the rub. Humans aren’t built to sit in a vacuum and talk to blips and bloops that look vaguely like other humans. We’re built to be close, and music has always been the ultimate form of physical/spiritual connection – second only to something else we don’t mention in family magazines.

Those of us who were around for the beginning of the internet saw this discrepancy immediately. Yes, you can talk to someone in Timbuktu in your underwear. Yes, you can make music and send it all around the world. You can even create a romantic relationship in a text-based adventure game…

But none of that even comes close to real life. We even made a point of distinguishing – hence the term “IRL”. “I’m laughing IRL” – in real life – we’d say. Musicians and performers spent hours and hours and thousands of dollars promoting things online – only to find out the power of being in a room dwarfed the power of online promotion. You could sell as many CDs in an evening out as you had all year online.

And take it from someone with experience – both from being online and on tour a lot – long distance relationships do suck.

So, we shouldn’t expect getting together to play and record music go away. In fact, it seems likely it’ll surge as the pandemic eases. Sure, we’ve learned a whole lot about the infinite possibilities, and we know we can get a lot done from far away.

But we’re hungry for connection. Musicians miss musicians. We miss being in a room where we can hear each other, look each other in the eye, adjust and flex immediately. We miss being able to say, “let’s try it this way” and hearing the result right now – not in 5 minutes when the file downloads.

Yes, we’ll have to put on pants and shower. We’ll have to lug drums and amps and crap across town, and it’ll feel stupid and inefficient at first, and we’ll miss Survivor and some of us may even have to wear masks. But even if we’re not playing out, we’ll still do it to make records. We’ll get together with whole bands in big rooms like they used to do in every other decade, and we’ll play music like they’ve always done: with in-person recording sessions.

And we’ll also make a whole lot of music remotely, with people from other countries and towns. We’ll do both, and that’s the beauty of it.

No, we don’t need to get together to make records anymore. We never did. But we’re gonna.

I record remotely and may one day appear live again in the real world, like a real boy. Help coax meout via Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram @AaronJTrumm

Following the Competition (aka chasing music trends)

This article on chasing music trends 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! PS: you may find affiliate links in this post and I may get a commission if you buy something. 🙂

I was reading some literature on the insurance business and came across this headline:

“Following the Competition Isn’t an Innovation Strategy”

Amen! But a friend pointed out:

“It might be an income strategy, however – and knowing the difference between the two is the difference in surviving the arts or not.”

There’s the Rub

I was struck by how accurately this exchange describes a problem I’ve had with the music industry for a long time. So many times, gatekeepers ask for something they’ve heard before, and artists who need to put food on the table attempt to copy the vibe of some currently famous act.

Some musicians are incredible at it. In fact, it is true that a tidy living can be made – especially in sync licensing – with the ability to match a vibe without plagiarizing. The game is simple in theory: use the same formula but write a different song. This behooves video producers because rough cuts are often made against hit songs but when it comes time to secure licenses, the expense is too great – or labels refuse a license outright.

What’s a content creator to do but try to find a cheaper option that matches the vibe? The closer the better. Musicians who excel at this have an almost endless stream of available income. So, buyers ask for “something really close to Ed Sheeran but also modern, fresh and new” or “a modern hip-hop track ala Drake”. But this kind of keeps us all chasing music trends.

Of course, the very second you emulate a current sound you’re already behind the curve. In the 80’s and 90’s, if you bought a new synth and used a preset you’d sound like Prince, because he bought them all first.

This isn’t new. Ray Charles started his career this way – playing in clubs, matching the sound of famous acts like Nat King Cole. He was known for being a chameleon of sorts, and his talent made this doable.

But that’s not what made him a household name. To do that, he had to create something never heard. The same is true for any big name from Queen to Zappa to Marley to Eminem. It’s the courage – or maybe the naivety – to break the mold that makes innovation happen. Not sticking to what worked for someone else.

But I gotta eat!

You can’t fault a person for doing what works financially. In fact, high-minded adherence to artistic purity has been the ruin of many an artist. Smart professionals don’t put their ego in the way of cash flow. If a company wants to pay to license a 2-inch corner of your 40-foot avant-garde canvas or use just the kick and snare of your seminal rock opera in an ad, why not let them?

One of my songs exclaims “I’ll be high-minded and pure as soon as I’m sure that I’m not about to end up dead”.

This is why Dr. Dre makes rappers do a clean version of every cuss word before they leave the studio. Its why there are song structure formulas at all. It’s not a bad thing, really, to consider the audience. After all, art is a shared experience. Take it from a 28-year veteran – working in a vacuum gets old. And like it or not, money makes the world go ‘round. After all, we gotta eat.

Striking a balance

We all have to eat – and we have to keep the lights on if we want to make music. But that doesn’t mean we have to fall into a rut or make generic sounding tracks that fit whatever formula we’re emulating. The key, it seems, is to strike a balance between this chasing music trends crap and being super unique.

Forgetting about business for a minute – isn’t money just a measure for how much we’ve impacted people? Maybe the balance is struck by caring about others and what moves them as much as what moves us.

Perhaps the game is to search for the next new sound which is different, but different in a way we didn’t realize would work. Something that moves us both because it touches something we already know and something we hadn’t found in ourselves yet.

I for one ignore licensing briefs when they come across my desk. I’m awful at matching vibes. But I do listen, and I care deeply how what I do affects others. I may never make a mint in sync, and who knows if I’ll ever change the world. But I can try.

I am no Ray Charles, which is my only hope. Discuss it all with me on Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram @AaronJTrumm

Oh – btw – here’s a book I just found that’s sorta kinda about this? I think I might read it. It’s called Two Beats Ahead: What Musical Minds Teach Us About Innovation. Hmm! 🙂

Mastering Good Stage Organization

February 1, 2023 by Aaron

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

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, carvin, carvin amps and audio, good stage organization, how to organize your stage, indie music, live music, music, music tips, nquit music, stage, stage organization

This article on mastering good stage organization was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also – notification: I sometimes use affiliate links. Some purchases may earn me a commission! 🙂

Picture this: your lead singer gets excited and decides to do an Irish river dance during your guitar solo. In an ecstatic frenzy, he leaps and careens. The crowd goes berserk. People scream, people dance, your solo turns into an exalted triumph never before seen in your state…

…Then the singer tangles his foot in your cable, lurches forward, unplugs your cabinet with a screech, and bashes his forehead through the kick drum. The room is suddenly silent while you wonder why your strings make no sound. The greatest rock-n-roll moment in your band’s history? Maybe. But the show is also over – bloody and awesome as it may be.

More often, this foot-tangling disaster happens five minutes before go time, in which case you’ve got no show, no sound, and no epic moment.

This is just one reason you may want to take the time to master good stage organization.

Other Reasons To Get It Together

Besides trip hazards, there are some other reasons proper stage organization is smart. First, you’ve got a better shot at great sound if you’re not running audio cables alongside power cables, due to 60hz hum. Second, planning your stage setup well can make it easier to hear yourself and keep your loudness in check. An organized stage also looks better, and after all this is a show. Not only that, a clean stage goes a long way to making performers feel comfortable and confident. Finally, a well-organized stage is a breeze to set up and take down. And that gives you more time to work out your sound!

Keys to Good Stage Organization

It’s not necessarily rocket science getting organized, but here are a few tips to get you started.

Make a plot – Create a consistent layout on paper, defining where each player will be, where drums, amps and keys will sit, even how cable runs should go. Be sure to allow for performance space, and keep in mind how your members like to perform. Does your singer throw themselves around? Is your bassist prone to jumping into the crowd? In almost every venue, you’ll have to make some tweaks, but at least you’ll have a plan. A proper stage plot will also be necessary to land bigger gigs, so you might as well have one. Here’s a convenient little app to do that.
Set up gear in order – Establish a consistent order of operations for setup, rather than setting up willy-nilly. The order is up to you, but it’s probably a good idea to setup the biggest elements first. One good setup order might be drums, amps, keys, mic stands, power cables, speaker cables, and mic cables.
Try Wireless – While wireless systems can come with their own set of obstacles such as interference and reliability issues, there’s no better way to eliminate clutter than to implement wireless solutions like Carvin Audio’s EM900 wireless in-ear monitor system or wireless hand held mics like Carvin’s UX1200MC. Even guitar purists who prefer high quality cables have been known to make the switch to wireless and never look back.
Flex With The Venue – Sometimes your setup is just too big (or small) for a space. Consider a few alternate drum rigs, cabinets, and even band lineups for various sized rooms. This will not only help you organize your space, but it can work wonders for getting your volume right for the room.
Use Gaff – Anywhere you need to run a cable across a pathway, be sure to use gaff tape to secure the cable properly. Similarly, you might want to tape down pedal boards or keyboard pedals so they don’t slide around when you step on them – or when the singer’s Irish boogie encroaches on your rig.
Go Slow – Finally, give yourself time to set up slowly and with purpose. It can often be hard to get into a venue early due to circumstances out of your control, but if possible, get there early and take your time setting up. This way you can follow your plot, run cables strategically, place gear in its right place, and generally keep organized. If you’re in a rush, these things tend to get forgotten.

Stay Organized, Stay Professional

In the end, great stage organization is the key to presenting a professional show, and to being efficient enough to create a professional act (even if you’re an amateur). Organizing your space and your time will have an amazing effect on your look, your sound, your business, and your level of enjoyment.

So, get organized and while you’re at it, let us know your best space-saving stage tips in the comments!

If you have questions or want to talk, just hit me up on Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram

Start With the Drums: Cleaning Up Your Stage Sound from the Ground Up

This article on cleaning up your stage sound was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also – notification: I sometimes use affiliate links. Some purchases may earn me a commission! 🙂

We’ve talked at length about why you might want to turn down on stage, and how that can improve your stage sound overall. This conversation usually centers around guitar cabinets. There is ample justification for that, as an out-of-control guitar can be problematic, especially in a small room.

But the ongoing volume war doesn’t always start with the guitarist. After all, there is another instrument that gets pretty loud and at almost every frequency.

No doubt you guessed it’s the drum kit. Drums are by nature loud, explosive, transient beasts, and that’s without adding in the cymbals. Add in the wildness of a typical rock-n-roll drummer, and things can get out of hand fast.

It’s no wonder then that guitar, bass, and vocal P.A. usually end up cranked up to eleventy twelve.

So, one of the best ways you can create a clean, solid stage sound that is audible, tolerable, balanced, artful – and still powerful – is to start from the ground up with the drums.

Cleaning Up Your Stage Sound: Volume First

It’s probably obvious, but the first thing you want to do is talk to your drummer about volume control. The best of the best can keep a solid beat and get a good tone at a variety of volumes. If your drummer has this skill, great! If not, try working on it in rehearsal. Try practicing fully acoustic with no vocal amplification and task the drummer with finding a way to groove so you can still hear.

If a room is particularly small and it proves difficult to cut enough volume with playing technique, try changing sticks. Softer, lighter sticks or even bundle sticks may do the trick. Brushes may even work depending on your genre, but that will obviously change your sound quite a bit.

Then again, adjusting your vibe to a space might be the perfect way to get it right. Experiment with different set ups – an all acoustic setup with hand drums, cajon, or any number of alternate rhythm sections might work, for example.

In many cases, you may just want to bring smaller drums. Opt for the 16” kick instead of the 22”, the lighter snare, and one small tom, as opposed to the full monster rig you might bring to a big stage. Or – gasp – you could use electronic drums (sometimes?).

It’s Not All Volume

Raw volume is just the beginning, and you can go a long way with simply adjusting the pure loudness of your drummer. But just as in studio mixing, it’s not all about fader levels. You can get a lot more bang for your buck in a space if you look at competing frequencies and raw noise.

First, consider the cymbals. A little bit of high frequency sizzle can go a long way in a small room, so think about reducing the size and number of cymbals, and again, help the drummer practice various ways of playing them.

Next consider the ring of the drums. Left unchecked, many drumheads resonate and ring out for a long time, and while that may be desirable at times, you can tighten up your sound by dampening them. Judicious use of moon gels, wash clothes, foam rubber dampers, and other accoutrement can help tremendously.

With drums hitting and dying back, you not only leave room for other instruments to cut through, you also stand a better chance of being tight rhythmically, as room reflections won’t make such a soup of the beat.

During set up, spend time tuning the drums to the room so that resonances are in check, windows aren’t buzzing, chairs aren’t travelling, and so on. And finally, manage creaks and pops and wiggles with proper floor covering, kick pedal lubrication, and so on. The more you can remove excess noise, the more room you have for musical elements.

Worth It In The End

It’s not a lot of bands who take the extra time to address how drums work in a room, but when its done, everything else tends to fall in place. Guitars can sit in the mix, bass can thump, and vocals can cut through without over-compressing. Drums are really the key to cleaning up your stage sound.

In the end it may take some extra thought, planning, and effort, but starting with drums to clean up your stage sound will definitely be worth it – even for the drummer.

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

The Value of Real Musical Instruments in the Time of Computer Magic

This article on real musical instruments 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! PS: you may find affiliate links in this post and I may get a commission if you buy something. 🙂

It wasn’t long ago that you could spot an amateur a mile away by the cheesy sound of their fake drums and lame piano samples. Back in the dinosaur age – aka 15 years ago – you couldn’t make a record if you didn’t have a bunch of great players, instruments, and a tricked-out studio to record them in – unless you were specifically making “synthy” music.

Oh, how times have changed. Now even the most experienced of us are hard pressed to tell what’s “fake” and what’s not. You can create a convincing drum track from samples or pre-recorded loops (which aren’t actually fake…), piano soft synths are phenomenal, and many film scores are done entirely with virtual instruments. Even sick basslines are often virtual (see Charlie Puth’s “Attention”, done with Trilian Bass Module).

Not only that, but certain genres of music aren’t exactly trending toward “organic”. So, is there even any value in recording real, live instruments? This month’s theme should tell you where we stand on that.

Real Musical Instruments Do Have Value!

Real instruments aren’t getting replaced any time soon, for a variety of reasons. Some of the biggest include:

Convenience – Sometimes creating a virtual track that sounds “real” takes a lot longer than just plugging in and playing – especially for a great player.
Live music – Not all recorded music gets played live, but when it does, it’s still cooler to actually play it than call up a track.
Some fakes don’t cut it – Horns are a great example of an instrument which is still really hard to get right virtually. As a backing track maybe, but solo horns are still just better in person, as are guitars (mostly).
Collaboration – It can be a lot more satisfying to work with other people than all alone – unless you’re Deadmau5. Using real players is a great way to do it.
Human performance – Even the best pre-recorded drum loop is still a loop. Sometimes a drummer – or a bassist, or a guitarist, or a pianist – just gives you that extra something.
Really real stuff – Some genres are still not cut and paste, computery genres – Jazz ensembles, for example.
Fun – It’s super fun to mess with big things like cellos and Hammonds and oboes and microphones and rooms and knobs! Why would we stop doing that so we can look at a screen all day?
Skill – Some people are better at playing and conceiving music with instruments than with a computer – and not just old farts.
Who’s going to record the loops – Many drum loop libraries are actually recorded by drummers…you see where this is going.

These are just a few of the reasons real instruments still have value – and why it’s still important to study and improve the technique of recording them. But it’s not really an either/or situation. The fact is that now more than ever, recordists have a multitude of tools at their disposal, and there’s no rule about which instruments should be “fake” and which should be “real”.

Combine Real Instruments with Everything!

Use EZ drummer and a MIDI bass line and record your shredding with a PRS and a virtual amp, then get a real cellist to overdub a track and top it off with a virtual choir – nobody cares! As the great Andrew Scheps has said, “all that matters is what comes out of the speaker”.

It means that all of it – from vintage Steinways to ultra-modern soft synths – is valid. It is indeed a beautiful thing that a whole world of sound is available to anyone with a laptop and an idea, and nobody wants to go back to the days where only rich folk could make something great come out of the speakers.

But if you’re a player, don’t count yourself out just yet. After all, the technology to record a real, live instrument is also much more accessible now, so there’s a lot of need for great instrumentalists too – and people who can record them.

Still, at the end of the day, who’s to say what’s “real” or “fake”? If it sounds good it is good, as they say -which is a case for virtual instruments and old-fashioned playing.

It’s all just a matter of making something beautiful with whatever tools you have.

I can play a few things, program a few things, and I spent decades waiting for it to be “ok” to use MIDI drums on a track. Talk to me about it at Facebook @AaronJTrumm or Instagram @AaronJTrumm

Proper Stage Volume: Why (and How) You Might Want to Turn Your Amp Down on Stage

This article on proper stage volume was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also – notification: I sometimes use affiliate links. Some purchases may earn me a commission! 🙂

It’s no secret house sound engineers fight with guitarists about proper stage volume for amps, especially in small venues. It may even be a bit of a cliché to mention it. “Turn it down!” often becomes “I’ll turn it down for you!” and “I need it louder!” turns into “I’ll just sneak over here and turn this up…”.

Whichever side you fall on, it turns out both sides have valid concerns, and everybody just wants to achieve the best sound possible. So, let’s look at how and why you might achieve a good balance with house sound, while still achieving the great tone you’re after (and maybe not having to take forever setting up!)

The Can’t Hear Myself War

Here’s the crux of the situation on a stage, especially where a loud rock band and a small venue are concerned: Everyone need to hear themselves (and each other), but no one can!

This actually usually starts with the drums, which are almost always too loud for a room. We’ll tackle how to start at the bottom with this problem in another article, but suffice it to say, if you can tame your kit, the sound engineer/guitar feud will be easier to manage.

Focusing on the guitars, the major problem the sound engineer faces is guitars tend to overwhelm vocals, keys, and other similar elements very quickly. Since the P.A. is the only amplification these elements have, if the guitar amps defeat that, there’s no way to hear anything else in the room.

But The Tone!

The best way to handle that from a purely house audio standpoint is to eliminate the guitar amps, and put the guitars directly into the P.A. This means everyone on stage can get what they need in their monitors, and the house mix can be controlled.

Unfortunately, that can all but ruin the tone many guitarists seek, and that can destroy a band’s signature sound.

To make matters harder, most guitarists achieve their tone by “opening up” the tubes in their amps – by turning them up to eleven. In this scenario, when the engineer asks you to turn your amp down, it means changing the tone.

But in almost every venue outside of a big stage, this volume level will fill the room, blast the audience’s ears, and make the mix impossible to achieve. Even amps that are completely absent from the P.A. mix can’t be overwhelmed in many cases, which means if you turn up to eleven, you’ve just defined your sound as “guitars only, with a guy lip syncing to nothing at the front of the stage”.

If that’s not enough on why you might want to consider lowering your stage volume, consider a few other factors:

Your ears – Hearing loss can occur after only 2 hours of exposure to 80-85 DBs. A typical guitar cabinet measures 115db one meter from the speaker.
The singer – Maybe vocals aren’t your concern, but if your singer can’t hear, they’ll scream. If they scream, they’ll lose their voice, and your next gig may be cancelled.
The audience – In a small venue, guitar amps can overwhelm and hurt audience’s ears quickly, which may cause them to disengage.
Your band – If the guitars are too loud, the bass will turn up. The drums will play louder. The keyboardist will crank the volume. Eventually everything will sound distorted and no one will know who’s who.

Achieving The Balance

So, what’s the solution? You may not want to hear this – but turn it down. Fortunately, there are a number of ways you can reduce your overall volume without ruining your tone.

Elevate Your Amp – If your number one problem is hearing yourself, start by elevating your amp closer to ear level, or pointing it toward you.
Use a smaller or lower power cabinet or a preamp pedal– In many smaller venues, you can opt for a smaller amp such as Carvin Audio’s V112E extension cabinet, or use a preamp pedal like Carvin’s VLD1 Legacy Drive – or this little badass:

Use a post-phase-inverter master volume (aka PPIMV) – An amp using this technology places the master volume after after the phase inverter, allowing you to keep a cranked-up tone while controlling output volume.
Use an attenuator – Patching a power attenuator between the amp and speaker cabinet can also help reduce volume while maintaining tone.
Use an amp shield or baffle – If you’re not having problems hearing yourself, you can use a shield to reduce overall stage volume while maintaining your tone.
Point it back (or to the side) – Known as “backwashing” or “sidewashing”, pointing your cabinet toward the back or side wall may work to reduce in-your-face volume and help tame the sound engineer’s mix.
Try a speaker simulator – Famously used by Rush’s Alex Lifeson, speaker simulators take input from an amplifier and feed it directly to the sound system.

It’s Possible

The encouraging thing is, it’s more than possible to achieve a best-of-both worlds, opened up, high quality guitar sound on stage, while still leaving room for the rest of the band and the sound engineer to help you put your best foot forward. For more discussion on proper stage volume, check out How To Improve Your Live Shows By Reducing Your Stage Volume, on this blog.

And let us know your best techniques for keeping the balance on stage!

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

How To Calibrate A Studio Subwoofer

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

If your studio is lacking the low-end punch you need to hear what you’re doing with the bass frequencies, you might want to add a subwoofer to your setup. You may have even picked up something like Carvin Audio’s TRX3118A active subwoofer, but what you may not have thought about is how to set the level of your new sub.

As it turns out, it matters a good bit how you do this or what you hear (and what you do to your mixes) could be skewed from the rest of the world. This could make your mixes worse rather than better.

Luckily, it’s relatively simple to calibrate a studio subwoofer properly. Let’s get to it!

Pre-Requisites

SPL Meter – It doesn’t take a lot to get a good calibration, but you will need an SPL meter, either standalone or an app on your phone.
Proper placement – We’re assuming you have placed your monitors properly, and that your mix position forms an equilateral triangle with your monitors. Your subwoofer’s position is more flexible, but it shouldn’t be in a corner, and it probably sits somewhere under the desk. Make sure you’ve settled on its position before you start.
Zero out the board – If you’re using a mixer, make sure everything is zeroed out and there’s no funny eq or effects doing anything to the main signal.
Tone generator – You can use a software tone generator, hardware generator, or a plugin in your DAW. Just make sure it can generate full-bandwidth pink noise.

1 – Make the connection

The first step is to connect your subwoofer. This may be obvious, but there are several options for how. Some subwoofers have an input and an output, so you can connect your monitors to the subwoofer, and the subwoofer to the audio output of your interface or mix console.

This may not be your preference, or you may not have this option, in which case you might send main outputs to your monitors and an aux output or other send to the subwoofer.

Decide this first and make your connections, using appropriate audio cables.

2 – Calibrate the monitors

Lo and behold, we’ll actually need to talk about calibrating your monitors too, because after all, we’re trying to get the right relationship between the monitors and the sub.

There are various calibration methods, and all are acceptable, but here we’ll use a standard 85dB at mix position when the output source is at 0dB. When we say output source, that could be your mixing console, or it could be your audio interface, if you’re sending those outputs directly to your monitors. At the software level, you’ll be setting your test tone (pink noise in this case) at unity as well.

To do this, we’ll actually calibrate each monitor separately, shooting for 82dB.

Step 1 – Turn down monitor inputs all the way (on the back of the speakers themselves). Turn output source down all the way.
Step 2 – Start playing full bandwidth (20Hz to 20kHz) pink noise.
Step 3 – Turn up output source to unity (marked as “0” or “U” usually – on an interface unity is often all the way up on the output level dial).
Step 4 – Hold your SPL meter at the place where your head would be during a mix session and slowly turn up the left speaker input (on the speaker itself) until the meter reads 82dB.
Step 5 – Turn OFF (leave input level intact) the left speaker and turn up the right speaker’s input level until the meter is at 82dB.
Step 6 – Turn both speakers on. With both speakers now playing pink noise, your meter should read 85db at the mix position.

3 – NOW calibrate the subwoofer

Now you’re ready to calibrate your subwoofer.

Step 1 – Turn off the monitors (don’t mess with the input level!)
Step 2 – Turn down your subwoofer’s input (on the unit itself) all the way.
Step 3 – Play full bandwidth pink noise again (at unity in your software).
Step 4 – Turn up the output source to unity again – remember this might be a separate aux output or send.
Step 5 – Fade up the subwoofer’s input level until the SPL meter reads 79dB at the mix position.
Step 6 – Turn your monitors back on and play some music with plenty of bass. Switch the polarity on your subwoofer and listen for an increase or decrease in bass response. Leave the polarity switch in the position that gives you the loudest bass.

4 – Almost done – don’t forget the crossover

Monitor speakers vary in their frequency response, and some may faithfully reproduce audio down to 60Hz or lower. At the same time, your subwoofer may produce only up to 80Hz or its range could extend to as high as 200Hz. First find out the specs of your monitors and your subwoofer.

Next, your monitors may have a high pass filter with one or more options for cutting off their response below a certain frequency. Your subwoofer may have a lowpass filter setting. You may have to experience with where you let the two cross over to get the best sound.

The best place to start is to set your monitors to cut off right about where your subwoofer cuts off. For example, set the subwoofer’s lowpass frequency to 80Hz and set the monitor’s high pass to 80Hz. If you have a truly variable cutoff (aka a fader or dial rather than a switch) then you have fine control to tweak the crossover. If not, you can experiment with different switch settings.

The key thing to listen for is cancellation or undue boosting. If you find a setting that makes everything sound worse, don’t use it!

Last thing

That’s it – now you should be properly calibrated, and the only thing left to do is listen to a lot of music and get used to the sound of your new system. The last thing we’ll mention is if you find that 85dB is just too loud for your room, you can set your monitors up for 79dB instead, and decrease the subwoofer’s level to 76dB.

Other than that, enjoy your new room!

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

OH! On a related note – if you’re interested in room correction, check out this video on how I do it!

Mixing In Headphones – Is It Possible?

December 27, 2022 by Aaron

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

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This article on mixing in headphones was written originally for the blog at Carvin Amps and Audio. I repost it here, and encourage you to check out Carvin’s amazing line of products! Also you could find affiliate links here, and I may make a commission if you buy from those links 🙂

The days of every record being made in a commercial studio are long gone. In fact, some producers weren’t even born in those days. Now, productions are made everywhere from multi-million dollar studios to bedrooms to airplanes. With so many people making recordings on laptops and without high dollar monitors or proper acoustic treatment, it makes sense that more and more mixing is being done on headphones.

Twenty years ago, though, suggesting headphones as a viable alternative to a traditional monitoring environment would have been blasphemy. So, is it still improper? Or can you expect to get a great mix in the cans?

Lost In Translation

The main goal in the mix stage of a production is to make a mix that sounds great (whatever that means for you and the song) across different platforms. Granted, a song is not going to sound the same on an iPhone as it does in Wembley Stadium, but it should still sound “right”. In theory, it doesn’t matter how you get there. In fact, the most tried and true way of achieving great translation is to check mixes on various listening systems – including headphones.

What’s The Difference, Anyway?

In years past, it was considered a no-no to mix in headphones because of a few key differences in the way headphones and speakers deliver sound to your ears.

Crosstalk

The main difference here is something called “acoustic crosstalk”. Said simply, when you listen to a mix on a set of monitors, both ears hear both speakers. Because there’s a difference in timing between when sound from one speaker arrives at one ear versus the other, your brain can locate elements in the stereo image simply based on a volume difference between the left and right channels. This doesn’t happen in headphones, as each ear only hears its own channel.

So, one of the key problems with mixing in headphones is stereo imaging, which can sound very different on the different mediums. There are a few ways technology attempts to make up for this, like HRTF (head related transfer function) processing and binaural recording, to name a couple, but nothing to date quite measures up to a real live set of speakers.

Of course, this stereo “illusion” created by acoustic crosstalk is affected by reflections off nearby surfaces such as walls, ceilings, and even the desk. This is why most mixing rooms try to create a reflection free zone (RFZ) around the monitors and mix position.

If treating a room properly isn’t an option, creating a stereo image can prove even more difficult, and headphones may actually be the better option.

Minute Detail

Here’s a fact not often admitted by purists: we’ve always used headphones in the mix process (just not exclusively). The reason for that is you can certainly hear minute details in the mix better in a set of cans. The two best examples of this are edit points and reverbs.

Edit transitions quite often sound perfect in the room monitors and glaringly obvious in headphones. It’s always a good idea to check and get edits tight using headphones. Reverb levels, meanwhile, can be much easier to dial in using headphones. A common technique for subtle reverb sends on vocals that you want to sound natural is to put on the headphones, and dial back the reverb level until you can’t hear its there unless you turn it off. In the cans, turning the reverb off will be obvious, and now you’ve found your sweet spot.

Yes, It’s Possible

Without putting too fine a point on it, yes it is possible to achieve a great mix using headphones, even if headphones is all you have. You may need to adjust your technique a little, but it’s doable. A few things you may want to keep in mind for best success:

Use headphones that are designed for monitoring and have a flat response – preferably open backed.
Familiarize yourself with the sound of your headphones by listening to reference tracks.
Check mixes elsewhere – your car, your phone, earbuds, a friend’s studio, a boom box.
Mix at low volumes. This is true for traditional monitoring as well.
Try a frequency compensation plugin like SonarWorks Reference 4 or IK Multimedia ARC – just be sure to apply the plugins to your reference tracks as well.
Try acoustic simulation software such as Slate VSX or Waves NX – or a crossfeed plugin like Crossfeed EQ.

Just as in traditional mix monitoring, the main factor to consider is you. Practice, practice, practice and don’t give up until it’s great!

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

Tips For Setting Up Quickly On Stage

September 12, 2022 by Aaron

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

aaron trumm, carvin, carvin amps and audio, live music, music, music tips, stage, stage setup, tips for setting up quickly on stage

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

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

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

Get Organized Today

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

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

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

Stay Organized Yesterday

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

Plan Ahead

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

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

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

Practice

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

Arrive Early

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

Manage Space

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

Focus

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

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

Load In Help

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

Keep Calm and Get Er Done

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

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

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