recording

Tune That Room

November 4, 2019 by Aaron

aaron trumm, acoustic treatment, acoustics, budget acoustic treatment, home recording, recording, recording magazine, soundproofing

The art of DIY Accoustic Treatment

This article first appeared 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!

Ask an amateur recordist where they spent the most in their studio, and the answer is likely a piece of gear. Ask any PROFESSIONAL audio engineer what the most important thing in the studio is, and they’ll say acoustics.

Anyone who’s mixed in a boxy room knows how hard it can be to hear what’s going on, and plenty have experienced the sadness of a poorly translated mix that’s boomy, tinny or muddy in other places. Or, you may have noticed the terror of vocals recorded in an empty room – that hollow, boxy sound that should be reserved for bad indie movies and tele-conferences.

The reason for these problems is sound reflecting and interacting, creating nodes (where a given frequency is cancelled by its out-of-phase reflection), peaks (the opposite condition), comb filtering, ring, flutter and plain ‘ol reverb. The size and dimensions of a room determine where and at what frequencies problems occur, but any normal room has 3 pairs of parallel surfaces, which is the worst possible situation for acoustic interaction.

These facts are becoming more apparent to musicians, and there are fewer square boxes with $10,000 DAWs and no treatment. There are still plenty of expensive studios built to spec, but what about bedroom studios, renters and low budget recordists? Can they build a trustworthy space they can use to get great results? Yes, and it’s not that hard.

Before We Begin

First off, let’s distinguish “acoustic treatment” from “sound proofing”. “Sound proofing” means ISOLATION, which is different than treatment. Isolation means making a room that lets no sound in or out. Doing this effectively takes structural work (which renters can’t do), and is a very different physical phenomenon than treatment. Treatment is making a room sound and function better as an acoustic space, by taming or eliminating reflections INSIDE the room that cause problems. We’re talking about treatment, not isolation, and the great thing is we can do all of our acoustic treatment ourselves.

We also won’t talk about measurement. While measuring a room’s acoustic response with testing equipment and by calculating modes and resonances using room dimensions can be useful in some situations, generally the solutions are always the same. So measurement is outside scope of this article.

Low Frequencies First

Figure 1 – The author’s incredibly terrible early attempt at treatment

Often home recordists just tack a lot of acoustic foam or egg shell mattress on every wall (figure 1). This can be ugly, and it doesn’t work very well. In a room like that, you might clap your hands, hear no reflections and think you’re done. The problem is clapping can’t tell you what’s happening with LOW FREQUENCIES. When you tack up acoustic foam, you’re only dealing with high frequencies. To illustrate, consider this chart:

Material	125HZ	250HZ	500HZ	1000HZ	2000HZ	4000HZ
OC 703	0.17	0.86	1.14	1.07	1.02	0.98
OC 705-FRK	0.60	0.50	0.63	0.82	0.45	0.34
Sculpted Acoustic Foam	0.11	0.30	0.91	1.05	0.99	1.00

Absorption coefficients – 2 inch thick material applied directly to a wall.

Absorption coefficient is a number that represents how much sound is absorbed by a given material at a given frequency. In this small chart you can see that at 2 inches thick, all these materials have pretty pitiful absorption below 250HZ. You can also see that Owens Corning 703 and 705 rigid fiberglass (or equivalent) does a better job than typical acoustic foam.

There’s a better approach, and that’s to build from the ground up, frequency wise. Start your design with LOW frequencies. Low frequencies (below about 200hz) behave differently than higher frequencies, so the solutions are different, and it’s low frequency reflections that cause nightmares like boomy rooms, weak low end response, or untranslatable mixes.

There are a couple of common misconceptions to address here. One is that if you listen at a low volume with near field monitors, the room isn’t a factor. Actually, sound is always reflecting and interacting, and those reflections must be dealt with. Another is that low frequencies don’t have time to “develop” in a small room and thus aren’t a problem. In reality, low frequencies are always present and reflecting off walls, even in a small room.

So what to do? For all frequencies, there are two options: absorb or diffuse. It’s mostly impractical to diffuse low frequencies, so we need to absorb them. Since that’s not a matter of throwing up some foam (unless it’s 10 inches thick or spaced 16 inches from the wall), we need other solutions. First, start with the corners. Low frequency build up occurs in corners, so the first and most obvious place to start absorbing is vertical corners. There are several ways to do this, but they all boil down to spanning and/or filling the corner.

An easy, relatively inexpensive and effective way to do this is by spanning a corner with Owens Corning 705-FRK rigid fiberglass (figure 2). These come in 4’ by 2’ foot panels, so in a typical room, it takes two to go from floor to ceiling. 705-FRK (FRK is a paper backing with a foil face) is dense – 6lbs per square foot – and isn’t as good for high frequency absorption as 703 (3lb density), but spanning a corner with it is great for low frequency absorption. A 4 inch thick panel is best here, but 2 inches works too. Optionally, fill the space behind the panel with fluffy fiberglass. Face the backing into the room to reflect high frequencies if you don’t want the room too “dead”, which will improve low frequency absorption a little.

Figure 3 – Fiberglass triangles for a superchunk bass trap

Another method, the “superchunk”, is more costly, but it’s even more effective and easier to make pretty. A superchunk is made using OC 703. Cut the panels into triangles (figure 3) and stack the triangles into the corner. Then cover the entire structure with some kind of acoustically transparent material (muslin, burlap, anything breathable) to make it attractive and keep the fiberglass contained (figure 4).

A warning: Fiberglass, while not toxic, is itchy and breaks off into airborne pieces. Wear sleeves, gloves and a mask when working with it.

There are also commercial “superchunk” products. Auralex makes a “bass trap” which is a corner piece of acoustic foam and RealTraps make a corner trap which is exactly a superchunk module with the addition of a “limp membrane” face, which increases low frequency effectiveness, just like the FRK.

If your budget’s REALLY tight, and you’re willing to compromise on effectiveness, you can fill a corner with a lot of things. I once filled a corner with old clothes and contained it using pegboard (figure 5). This isn’t as effective as a superchunk or 705, but it’s certainly better than nothing. You could also stack fluffy fiberglass bails in corners without even removing the packaging. It’s ugly, but effective if you have room.

Figure 5 – An odd bass trap in the author’s former studio

Vertical corners aren’t the only corners in a room. There are also the floor/wall corners and wall/ceiling corners. In most rooms, you should absorb as much low end as you can afford to, and you really can’t do too much, so consider doing something there (figure 6).

Figure 6 – A drum studio with corner traps and ceiling traps

Corners are a great start, but probably not enough. Especially with LF absorption, effectiveness is about treating a high percentage of the surface area in the room. As mentioned above, it’s effective to put up very thick material or space it out from the wall a good ways (think 4 inches with a 16 inch gap). That takes a lot of space and still isn’t very effective below about 125HZ, but there are other solutions.

Figure 7 – An untreated beam ceiling is a great opportunity

In an unfinished space with support beams (figure 7), you can put a couple nails in and rest a piece of 705 on them, creating a ceiling trap. You should probably cover that with fabric (figure 8).

Figure 8 – Beamed ceiling in process of treatment

Optionally, fill the space above with fluffy fiberglass. For a no budget alternative, foam and old clothes might work (figure 9).

Figure 9 – Poor man’s beamed ceiling treatment

Panel Traps

All of the solutions we’ve discussed so far are called “velocity absorbers”, because speed drives sound into the material, and that’s dampened when waves hit it. Panel Traps work on a different principle and are called “pressure absorbers”. Placed at room boundaries, they take less space and can be effective to lower frequencies (figure 10).

A panel trap is a little more complex to build, but it’s decently cheap and easy. The main difference is that a panel trap is a sealed box with a thin plywood face and fiberglass inside (figure 11). They’re usually sealed to the wall, but can be made to stand alone, as long they’re located at a boundary. I’ve built several, once with futon slats I found in a dumpster! While panel traps take a little more effort to make, they’re an awesome way to increase low frequency absorption with little space, and since they’re reflective at high frequencies, won’t make a room too dead sounding. Plus, you can paint on them and make them pretty.

There’s a great tutorial on how to build panel traps by acoustician Ethan Winer. I highly recommend referring to it: http://ethanwiner.com/basstrap.html

The Highs

Once you’ve dealt with the lows, it’s time to deal with highs and mids, and the physics here are much easier. High frequencies can be thought of like a ray of light – they bounce off of reflective surfaces at the same angle they come from. Any surface that shouldn’t reflect, you can absorb or diffuse.

Diffusors spread reflections in an even manner. They’re a great way to even things out while preserving liveliness. You can build several types of diffusors or buy them, sometimes for a decent price (figure 12,13). If you’ve got no budget, you can create some semblance of diffusion with book cases and other random items. While an acoustician would say this isn’t true diffusion, in practice it works ok if things are various sizes.

Real diffusion is a great way to even out the sound of a room and keep it live, but it doesn’t work in small spaces. A typical bedroom is too small for effective diffusion, so strategic absorption is often the best bet. For that reason, that’s all we’ll say about diffusion.

High frequency absorption is the easiest to deal with. 2 inch OC 703 absorbs beautifully down to about 400HZ, and there’s a trick you can use to increase absorption even more. Mount panels away from the wall. The ideal distance is the same as the thickness of the material, so mounting 2 inch panels 2 inches away from the wall or ceiling is perfect (figure 14).

Figure 14 – Absorbing panel spaced from surface

Where to mount them depends on the room and your needs, but if you’re treating a mix/control room, you should start with a “reflection free zone” (RFZ) around the main listening area. You can see where to treat with a mirror, or just sit in your chair and look left, right up and down. These are parallel surfaces you should treat. You should maintain left-right symmetry, and you should treat that area of the ceiling, but leave the floor alone. If there’s carpet you’ve got some high frequency absorption already, but that’s not ideal for various reasons, so leave the floor as is if it’s wood or another hard material. You can always throw a rug down for extra deadening.

There are a few options for materials here, and if you have to settle for egg crate foam, do it. If you have to nail a bunch of blankets to the wall, go for it. Ideally, make panels using OC 703, and cover them with an attractive but breathable fabric. Spacing of these panels from the wall can be as simple as four wood blocks from a scrap heap (figure 15).

Figure 15 – Spacer blocks salvaged from scrap heap

If you’re treating another kind of room – say a recording room or home theater – then you probably want an even sound everywhere. If you space high frequency absorbers around, alternating with either panel traps or plain wall, you’ll start to create a kind of “pseudo diffusion”. If you have no budget, don’t be afraid to nail blankets to walls, just remember: the thicker the better.

Creating a booth is pretty easy if you have a closet. You can pack the closet with clothes, hang blankets from the walls, or use a more professional approach and install fiberglass panels. In a booth, you want the deadest sound possible, and that’s about all there is to it.

I keep mentioning rigid fiberglass because it’s the best sound absorbing material and it’s cheaper than acoustic foam products, but if you can’t spend money, there are plenty of alternatives. You can even go around your neighborhood and ask if anyone has anything “soft” they need to get rid of! This can work great – but it may not lead to the prettiest space.

Modularity And Aesthetic

We’re talking about DIY acoustic treatment here, rather than permanent professional studio installations. So you may have to move your studio when you move to a new space. Or if your “studio” is a shared space, you might have to try for a pleasing look. Even if it’s not, you may tire of working in a space that looks like the inside of an egg-carton or a construction site. There are plenty of ways to treat a room and make it ugly, and plenty of ways to permanently install treatment and effectively ruin the room once you leave, but it’s just as easy and not necessarily that costly to do things in a way that doesn’t leave a mark, is easy to move, and is nice to look at.

Figure 16 – High frequency absorbors designed to hang like paintings

In my current space, everything is built to move. All of my high frequency absorbers are small painting size boxes with pretty frames and colorful fabric faces (figure 16). They hang just like any picture (figure 17).

Figure 17 – HF absorbors hanging like paintings.

Ceiling treatments are lightweight and hang from tiny hooks (figure 18).

Figure 18 – HF ceiling panels in author’s studio

My “superchunk” is really 4 small modules that I can take out and move (figure 19), and my panel traps are standalone boxes set on the floor or hung with picture wire, with decoupage designs by an artist friend (figure 20).

Figure 19 – Modular superchunk corner trap.

Figure 20 – Author’s panel trap with art by an artist friend

The room doesn’t necessarily look normal (figure 21), but it’s certainly not crazy making like my first attempts 20 years ago. In fact a lot of people mistake my HF panels for art.

Figure 21 – The author’s one room studio space.

Just Do It

Nothing we’ve talked about here is much different than what would be done with a big budget, except structural work. Other than that, acoustic treatment on a budget can be as good as any expensive installation. You can hire contractors and consultants to design and build, or you can follow some pretty straightforward principles and do it yourself. It’s one place where you really needn’t compromise, and it’s the one place where you really shouldn’t. So have fun and get your room tuned up!

Studio Deliverables

August 5, 2019 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, aaron trumm, audio recording, deliverables, recording, recording magazine, recording studio

Come away from the studio with more for your money

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

When people talk about making money with music, they talk about two sources: Gigging and CD/Download sales. If you have a great live act and you’re very popular, gig money can be significant, but it’s no secret the sales side is hardly ever big, and much has been made of its imminent demise. That part’s debatable, but it’s a fact that record sales have never been the main revenue stream for major labels or the companies that own them. Not to mention, few of us are rock stars, and believe it or not, some people don’t want to be! In short, the rock star business model is non-viable, and even labels know this. Thankfully, there are many other ways to generate revenue from music.

Alternative music income is talked about a lot, but what can musicians DO to maximize income? In this piece, I’ll focus on the first part, the part without which nothing else can happen: the product. Specifically, what do you need to leave the studio with in order to maximize earning potential? Or, what are the studio’s “deliverables”?

When I think about all the hopeful bands that have come and gone in studios I worked at, who went away with only stereo mixes, I cringe. They’d leave the studio with a brand new set of 10 songs, mixed to perfection, hoping to make it rich. Not only is that not enough, that’s the ONLY part of the recording that probably isn’t valuable financially!

So if beautiful amazing songs sung with passion and purpose, mixed by the best mixer in town aren’t what you want to leave the studio with, what is? First off, of course you need those main mixes. You might refer to these as album or straight mixes. These are the songs that go on your CD, go out to iTunes, go your website and go on the radio…right? Not quite.

Radio mixes

Your album mixes aren’t necessarily the ones that go on the radio. So your first new deliverable is radio mixes. Obviously, you need mixes with no cuss words. With a DAW, it’s no problem to do a “save as” and save a radio mix, where the engineer cuts words from the vocal, or reverses them, or does some other magic to “censor” your song. Even better, write a version of the song with no cussing, and when you’re overdubbing vocals, record the “clean” version with the same mic setup, same vocal style, etc. This is the method Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg used to make palatable versions of otherwise un-airable songs, which also didn’t sound edited or censored. The benefit was multiplied when anyone who bought the album heard a new, harder-core version of the lyrics.

Lyrics are not the only thing at play though. While not universally true if you include avant-garde shows, you might as well tell yourself that no one will ever air a song over 3 minutes. That doesn’t mean the 4:20 album version needs to be cut. That’s another opportunity to give a fan something more. But whenever possible, do yourself a favor: do another “save as”, and edit a version with less intro, a shorter guitar solo, whatever it takes to get in the 3:00-3:10 sweet spot. Just like with lyrics, it may help to perform this ahead of time.

Next up…

Alternative mixes

One of the biggest possible revenue streams requiring the least amount of fame, as well as one of the best ways to develop great industry connection, is licensing. This is another hot topic lately, and for good reason, but all you have to do is watch TV for an hour, and you will realize that however clean you made that previously raunchy lyric, you probably won’t hear it behind a movie or TV scene. You may want to write instrumentals, but first do another “save as” and print your mix without vocals. You can do one with the backing vocals in, but make sure you’ve got one that has zero words whatsoever. Great lyricists may resist this, but a song WITHOUT words is usually more valuable to a video production. Why? Two reasons: one, movies and TV shows have dialog, and lyrics clash; and two, your lyrics tell a story, and that story probably doesn’t fit. Without words, though, your track might go great with the story.

As an added bonus, if you’re a vocalist with no band, you can use instrumentals as performance mixes for live shows. If you’re very detailed, you might print an instrumental with less reverb on the instruments, for venues where the room is already pretty live. Don’t forget that DJs like to have acapella versions they can pair with alternative beats, so print a vocal only mix.

That’s not the end of alternative mixes. Remember when you edited the length of your radio mixes? You’ll want to do that again for licensing libraries. Start with 30, 60 and 90 second versions. While you’re at that, you probably want some 30-45 second promo clips for your website. Make both vocal and non-vocal versions of these.

That’s not all. Let’s say a big movie needs a song about being crazy, and your song is actually CALLED “I’m Crazy”? It’s perfect, but it has a horn solo, and the movie wants a bridge, no solo. No problem, if you’ve done another edit or performed a version that has a bridge and no solo.

You may also want an acoustic version, or, my favorite, a bunch of ready-made breakdowns. Do just the drums and bass, just the drums, a drumless mix…use your imagination. Remember to pay attention when you’re editing breakdowns to keep things sensical. A fade in may have worked in the full mix but not now. Maybe there’s a four bar drum solo which will turn into inexplicable silence in a drumless mix. Track wisely in anticipation of this. If your drums bleed into your vocals, you can’t use that track for your drum-free mix. You might have to TRACK multiple versions to have multiple versions available later. (For more flexibility and responsiveness, see the sidebar where I talk about separations.)

When it comes to alternative mixes and breakdowns, the point is to leave the studio with a lot of material in hand, so you can respond to industry needs quickly. You don’t want to be stuck waiting for studio time to reprint an instrumental if you’re asked for it. Not only is that inefficient, it’s not as cost effective as leaving the session with what you need.

The point is to maximize the amount of valuable material that comes out of what you were doing anyway. To that end, there are a couple of other things to consider; things you may not need to spend costly studio time on, but could prove valuable.

Lead sheets, tabs and sheet music

It took me a long time to see any value in having written music as part of the package of material that goes with a release, but they can be crucial. If you’re a solo artist who needs musicians for live settings, lead sheets or sheet music are critical for efficient learning. Tabs and sheet music are also publishable, giving you a possible new revenue stream, and if you’re submitting demos to publishing companies, they often require lead sheets and lyric sheets. It’s very valuable to have proper musical documentation. For natural improvisers, this can be tedious, but I highly recommend putting in the effort.

Video and photos

Behind the scenes footage or footage of performances in the studio may not always be directly monetizable, but it’s well known by now that YouTube is a critical part of a musician’s promotional arsenal, and there is SOME possibility of revenue from YouTube advertising. Not to mention that pictures and video clips are a huge value-add for websites and other promotional material. Heck, you might as well shoot your next 8×10 glossy with a cool mix desk background while you wait for the engineer to set up mics.

Surround

I’d be remiss not to mention surround sound. It would be false to claim that surround mixes are a necessary part of a production’s deliverables, because for the most part they’re not asked for, and there’s virtually no consumer market, but if you happen to be in a studio that has the capability, doing another “save as” and creating a 5.1 version of a mix could be a cool addition to what you offer. I highly recommend starting with the finished stereo mix and enhancing from there (although one could argue other methods), since you want to create the same basic musical experience. Especially if you’re going after movies, 5.1 versions could be valuable. But do consider your potential cost/benefit ratio before doing surround.

Documentation and project files

Last but not least, never leave the studio without copies of ALL your project files, raw tracks and any notes or documentation. Copy the folder the DAW project is in, and make notes of the software version, hardware, and especially the plugins used. You need this material in your hands, not just stored at the studio. You never know if the studio will lose your stuff, or if you may be halfway around the world needing to fix something at the last minute. Unless it’s owned by a label (in which case this advice is for them), you put yourself in a much better place by keeping your material on hand.

Hopefully now you can see how much more value you can pull from your studio time. If you’re efficient, it won’t cost much more to get everything you need. Then your living needn’t be tied to your fame, and that, in my humble opinion, is a huge relief! Happy monetizing!

SIDEBAR: Separations

Since I work in various DAWs, I’m a huge fan of separations. I leave the studio with full separations of a mix, so I can call it up and deliver breakdowns or alternate edits at will in any software, without going to the studio. I also sometimes send full separations to the mastering engineer, so he has better control.

Full separations means every track is separated; kick, snare, guitar, vocal, etc. These tracks can import into a DAW, set at zero with no processing, and the mix sounds exactly like the finished stereo mix. It’s easy to mute a few tracks and create a breakdown, or edit an new version. You can also take the separations to a totally different studio to do surround versions later.

With separations, even if you don’t have the same rig as the studio, you can do breakdowns and re-edits to your heart’s content without having to go back. This is a great way to be able to quickly deliver what’s needed to a client without having to own a full-fledged studio yourself.

Exporting full separations, however, can be a long process. Some software (and tape) can only mix-down in real-time, which means you have to mute all but one track and mix-down over and over to achieve full separations. 24 tracks equals 24 passes, which for a 3 minute song is 72 minutes – over an hour of studio time. Also, if you’ve got processing like EQ or compression on the final stereo buss, running just one track through that processing will hit differently than the whole mix, so your final set of separations may not be what you thought. Some software like Sonar allow you to export all busses at once, so strategic buss assignment can speed things up, but you still need to be careful about overall processing.

So, proceed with caution, but consider the value of getting separations, or the alternative: get your own copy of the software and plugins in your favorite studio, so you can call up projects as is and deliver new edits. You don’t need the whole studio to do this, only the same software.

Changing Of The (Pick) Guard

June 14, 2019 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, guitar, guitars, modern music, nquit music, recording, recording magazine

Modern use of guitars is changing

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

A curious thing has been happening lately in my studio. I’ll hire a killer guitar god, bang out a session, throw down a great mix thinking “ohhh yeeaahh” and when I seek feedback, I’m told the track sounds dated or old. For a little while, it was every time there was any kind of guitar involved. Once it was pointed out, all those tracks sounded stale to me too. What gives?

Needless to say this was quite disturbing, because I love a sick guitar track. I love putting one on a record even more, but that’s mainly because I can’t play the guitar to save my life. I’ve had guitars since I was 16 (that’s 27 years but who’s counting?), but I can play an e chord and that’s it. So maybe this whole trend where guitars aren’t as central is good for me?

This really got me thinking, and almost immediately, I started seeing article after article about the decline of guitar sales (over the past 10 years, electric guitar sales have gone down to about 1 million annually, from 1.5 million), the death of rock and roll, and so on. Everyone has an opinion about why, and the guitar-making giants have their opinions about how to slow or reverse their apparently imminent demise. I’m more interested in making hot tracks, telling amazing stories and moving people to dance, yell, sing or cry.

So the question for me became “why does this instrument sound old?” and “what do I do about it?” Do I remove guitar from my productions? Do I use it in a different way? How do I coach a guitar player who wants to keep up with the latest trends?

Well first, let me say this: Trend chasing isn’t always important. Straight forward, guitar driven rock and roll will be relevant as long as there’s someone who’s moved by it, which, Beethoven will tell you, will probably be forever. Trend chasing is also dangerous to creative flow, and can be detrimental to originality, leaving a person forever one step behind the edge. In other words, I don’t copy the latest hot acts. I AM the latest hot act, and I encourage you to think the same way.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can talk about the role the guitar plays now, as opposed to the role it played 10, 20 and 50 years ago, and more importantly, some ways to keep it fresh in the studio.

But Why?

First it might help to understand why my track with the shredding 16 bar guitar solo and nifty keen twice dubbed, stereo spread distorted rhythm track sounds old, and why I would gravitate toward that, even though I don’t play guitar. Well, because it IS old. It’s something that we’ve all heard a thousand times. That’s not a bad thing at all! But that’s the basic reason.

A rock band has this basic line up: Drum kit, electric guitar, electric bass, vocal. There may be piano, synths, other vocals, but that’s been the foundation for long on 70 years. I haven’t been around THAT long, so why would I be slave to that? For the same reasons I make music that’s very different from that, and there are two big ones:

1 – Guitar driven rock-n-roll has been the most important musical thing in the world for longer than I’ve been alive. Of course I want to emulate that, it’s what I think matters.

2 – Guitar driven rock-n-roll is hard to record. Until maybe 10 or 15 years ago, you really had to BE somebody to have the money and access to record that music. Of course I love it when I can sound like that, it makes me feel successful.

Ironically, these are also reasons that straight forward guitar driven rock seems to be getting less and less important. New musical trends are often initiated by people who lack the resources to do things the old way. Hip-hop is a great example. Grand Master Flash used two old turntables because that’s what he had. EDM is today’s version of hip-hop. Samples, synths and “fake” drums are easy and cheap to create, and an intrepid kid with a crappy laptop can make music that way. She may not even have the resources to learn how to play a guitar, let alone the scratch to get a big ol Marshall stack to play with, but she’s got a laptop.

And of course, the young and creative tend to want to push past what they’ve heard before.

So, now the pop landscape is dominated by sounds other than your basic 4 piece rock band band.

But the guitar isn’t dead by any means. I didn’t say sales had gone down from 1.5 million to 0 – a million is still a lot! But at the cutting edge, it’s being used differently. So I’ll spend the rest of this piece talking about how, and present a few ideas for using it in fresh ways in your productions.

Acoustic

While I have noticed a drop off of new and hot electric guitar driven rock, I have noticed a significant pick up in the number of acoustic driven acts and songs. Ed Sheeran uses nothing but an acoustic guitar and a looper on stage. Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson are older examples, but they’re still relevant, and they’re acoustic guitar people. Satellite radio has an entire channel dedicated to “coffee shop” versions of hit songs. And in my productions, my favorite killer guitarist has recently given me a few latin influenced nylon string acoustic tracks that absolutely no one said sounded dated (even though THAT tradition is way older than rock and roll).

So idea one is pretty simple: go acoustic. And if you can get creative with technology like looping, effects and genre mixing, you might discover a completely new sound. Tommy Emanuel is incredibly creative with a series of effects pedals and wildly different playing techniques, all using an acoustic guitar. For another older example, look to Ani Difranco’s array of oddly tuned acoustics.

Even a plain acoustic guitar somehow remains a more timeless sound, probably because it’s another example of something that a creative person with no money and no band can use to show up anywhere and move people.

Texture

Matt Bellamy (front man for Muse) was quoted this year by the BBC as saying “The guitar has become a textural instrument rather than a lead instrument, and I think that’s probably a good thing.” That’s an astute statement, and if you listen through a bunch of hit music today, even hip-hop, you’ll be able to pick out guitars that sometimes don’t even sound like guitars. Big, reverby swells and pad like sounds, boops, beeps, noise tracks, even crazy effects and odd techniques that sound like synths are all possibilities. After all, the guitar is actually a super versatile instrument. You can bend the strings, you can break all kinds of fretting rules, and you can add effects like crazy. And the cool thing is, a great guitarist can switch from texturing to rhythm to traditional lead relatively easily.

Check out “Last Danger of Frost” by Steve Kimock for some crazy textural yet melodic guitar work, or listen to U2’s “Beautiful Day” for textural work that also serves to create a groove.

Throw Back Farther

One of the problems those of us of a certain age have is that we throw back – to our youth. That’s the surest way to sound and feel old. But throw back art is almost always in vogue, when it’s ACTUALLY old. Instead of throwing back to your youth, throwback farther. Throw back to your parents or grandparent’s youth. Think at least 40 years back. Have you noticed that 70’s movies are getting cool now? 80’s rock hasn’t made it back just yet, but it’s starting to poke it’s head in the room.

So when it comes to guitar, try thinking back to the 50’s. Portugal The Man.’s “Feel It Still” uses a really 50’s feeling spring reverb’d bass/guitar combo to give the track a retro feel, but the use of newer technology and drum technique in combination with that, as well as a very un-fifties lyric set and modern female vocal makes it feel weird, fresh and cool. Bruno Mars’ entire act is a purposeful throw back to old school funk R&B and it works because there are slight differences in the production style and culture that connect it to now. The guitars in these productions are clean and funky. They generally aren’t distorted or bluesy sounding. Take off the distortion, throw in a wah pedal, and see what happens.

And of course, if you or your guitar player friend are steeped in older traditions like classical guitar or flamenco, you can come up with brilliant new combinations that ground themselves in the past yet pull you forward into the future.

Jump Forward

Here’s another idea. Use the guitar as a tool to create EDM-like grooves or technological wonders that combine recording technology with the instrument. Recently a radio promoter and artist manager told me that a song sounded great except for the guitar, which he said would be an easy fix, just use the guitar in a new way. He pointed me at an act called Nvdes, which is ostensibly guitar driven, but on many tracks you wouldn’t necessarily know it. Their use of the guitar doesn’t always sound like a guitar, but it’s not necessarily textural or secondary. Often a guitar creates their groove, but it’s just – well, different.

Post Malone’s “Better Now” starts with a barely identifiable guitar which forms the foundation of the groove, similar to The Edge’s work on “Beautiful Day”. At least – I THINK that’s a guitar!

Or…Metal It Up

When I talked about guitar driven rock’n’roll before, I neglected something important. Metal. Metal is still metal. It’ll always be metal, and metal is for guitarists. But even then, the genre has been pushed, morphed and split. Metal guitars combined with rappers ala Rage Against The Machine, Limp Biskit or Linkin Park, ethereal female vocals like Evanescence, or even with traditional Scandinavian folk are all examples of odd metal pairings that push that genre. Try Cellar Darling for a curious mix of these things like textural work, ethereal female vocals and traditional driving metal guitars. Or if you want a true blending of genres, try The Sidh (one could even argue against calling them metal). The point is, if you want you can just go ahead and double down on guitar and metal things up, and you can still be inventive!

Mix Up The Mix

It’s not just about playing style. You can experiment with new mix techniques too. Right now, minimal and spacious is trumping big wall of sound kind of material, so instead of a double tracked stereo guitar, you might try a mono track, panned just a little left or right. Instead of a huge full spectrum distorted guitar, try just a little fuzz, eq’d tightly into a smaller frequency footprint, to leave room for other instruments to play a bigger role in the overall picture. Or go bigger than ever, or super reverby, and neglect the other elements of a traditional band, to create something that’s truly and only guitar driven. The idea here is if you haven’t heard it, try it.

Other Elements

Finally, as you try to freshen up your guitar sound or tweak a dated sounding track, you might consider that the culprit may not be your guitar at all. The guitar may be the most important element of a traditional rock band, but it’s not the only element. What would your song sound like with a blues-rock guitar track, but a drum machine style rhythm track? How about no drums, or a cello instead of a bass guitar? The possibilities are endless.

Speaking of drums, this conversation is larger than the guitar. Drums have also seen a similar shift in their usage and role in modern music, and next month, we’re going to tackle that subject as well. We’ll talk about how a drum kit can sound dated, and what to do with that, as well as alternatives to the traditional trap drummer that could freshen up not only your tracks, but your stage presence as well. Don’t worry drummers, we won’t leave you behind!

Until then, happy shredding, all you six string samurai!

Aaron J. Trumm can play e-minor and sometimes a version of a minor on a guitar. Check him out at aarontrumm.com and talk to him on social media @AaronJTrumm.

Drums!

June 30, 2008 by Aaron

aaron j. trumm, drums, music, nquit, recording, snare

Man the hardest part about a production is the drums. Well, that is, if you want real drums. It really is HELL. Because you have to find a drummer that can do the job, find a kit (hopefully that drummer can do it), find the studio time at the right studio, book it, get it right. With money it’s easier, but really if you’re not in a normal “band”, the drum part of a production is simultaneously the most crucial-make-or-break part, and the hardest part to get right.

But with the net and digital audio and stuff, I’ve been experimenting with collaborating with people by sending them a rough mix and asking for a guitar part or whatnot, and recently I realized “there must be professional drummers with well equipped drum recording studios out there who will remotely collaborate!” and sure enough, I’ve found at least one that I’m trying out.

I don’t know if this remote collaboration trend is ENTIRELY healthy though. Not having to relate face to face and be together is yet another example of the computer “age” ruining our connectedness. But I’m doing it, partly because I fear people on occassion, and partly because fuck it let’s try. At least I’m not text messaging anymore. And I am going to do some collaborating with REAL people here in town.

Nevertheless it’s exciting to be able to collaborate this way. I have several tracks out there pending possible work from several friends who are spread out all over. I’ve gotten one back so far, a couple of tracks in the very newest Third Option project. My girlfriend is napping in my bed right now, perhaps I’ll set up a mic and wake her up and say “hey sing for me”.

If only she would learn screamin lead rock guitar…

Procedure for recording M.C. Murph’s “Martyrs And Heroes” CD

November 17, 2006 by Aaron

martyrs and heros, recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 16 and 24 Track ADAT
Mix Destination Format: DAT
Final Format: Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 24×8
Outboard Processing: Ensoniq DP4 effects, BBE Sonic Maximizer, Dual Tube Pre-Amp,
DBX Compressor, Furman Compressors.
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660, Ensoniq Mirage
Mics: AKG D1000E, AKG 414
Editing: Sound Designer 2, Masterlist

Procedure:

Tracking: All instrument tracks were tracked direct to ADAT from synth sequences.
Tracks were separated for mixing flexibility, so the sequencer had to be synced to
the ADAT. I used two methods: I output midi clock from a BRC ADAT controller for two songs
and I used a JL Cooper DataSync to output midi time code to the sequencer for the rest.
(DataSync connects to an ADAT’s 9-pin sync output and converts to midi time code.)
Sequences were run multiple times while synced, with 1 to 8 tracks selected and all others
muted (to track more than one sequencer track at once, I used panning and aux outputs to
separate tracks). Mirage provided most movie samples. For five songs, vocals were overdubbed
using the 414 and a tiny bit of compression. The rest were overdubbed with the D1000E, no
compression (one track was recorded on with a bad board, bad mic, totally distorted, eq’d “telephone”
style…this gave the effect I was looking for). All tracks went to tape dry and flat.
Mixing: All mixes were done with 16 or 24 tracks ADAT and the Mackie 24×8.
The main mix inserts were routed through a dual tube preamp and then the BBE Sonic Maximizer.
Some kicks and snares were compressed. No vocals were compressed at mixdown.
Editing: Mixes were transferred digitally into Sound Designer 2, trimmed, and
some gain lowering was done (where there were only a few 0dB readings, I knocked them
down 1dB, so that they could be boosted in Masterlist)
Fade outs were added and songs were imported into Masterlist, where they were ordered, gain
corrected and transferred to a running master DAT. The DAT was sent to the pressing plant
for CD duplication.

Procedure for recording M.C. Murph’s “Artistic Apocalypse” CD

November 14, 2006 by Aaron

artistic apocalypse, recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 8 Track Darwin (harddisk), 16 Track ADAT
Mix Destination Format: DAT
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 24×8
Outboard Processing: Ensoniq DP4 effects, BBE Sonic Maximizer, Dual Tube Pre-Amp,
DBX Compressor, Furman Compressors.
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660, Ensoniq Mirage, Kurzweil K2000
Mics: AKG D1000E, AKG 414
Turntables: One very crusty Realistic stereo system turntable.
Mastering: TC Electronics Finalizer
Editing: Sound Designer 2, Masterlist

Procedure:

Tracking: Most instrument tracks were tracked to Darwin through an Art tube-preamp.
Tracks were separated for mixing flexibility, so the sequencer had to be synced to
the ADAT. I used Darwin’s MIDI out to generate MIDI Time Code and sync the sequencer to that.
Sequences were run multiple times while synced, with 1 to 8 tracks selected and all others
muted (to track more than one sequencer track at once, I used panning and aux outputs to
separate tracks – although most were done one at a time because I was running them through the tube). Mirage provided some movie samples and drum sampling…for some drums, I sampled the other synths with Mirage and layered the two sounds (Mirage can change a sound quite a bit). Also Mirage provided some synth tracks (like the piano on “Rule Rope”). Vocals were tracked using the D1000E, no compression to tape. All tracks went to tape dry and flat. Some samples were edited directly inside Darwin. Some vocals were edited, chopped up, cut and pasted, etc. inside Darwin, especially the Artistic Apocalypse remix, which was rearranged by cutting and pasting the vocals to different spots in time. The exact time they needed to be pasted from and to was determined by checking the time code on the sequencer corresponding to the correct measure. Using multiple versions within Darwin allowed for more than 8 tracks. Tracks were transferred to ADAT digitally for mixdown. On “Whinerz”, vocals were run through a variety of settings on a Yamaha practice guitar amp with distortion, and cut and pasted to different tracks of Darwin for stereo effects, etc. A real snare (recorded by the D1000E) was used along with synth snares on “Magnetic Poetry” and “Quietly Manic”. The K2000 was used for the “One In A Million Chance” interlude and for an extra snare on “Magnetic Poetry”. The Yamaha guitar was used as a bass and as the distorted guitar on “You Took Something Away From Me”. For the distorted guitar, it was tracked twice, each channel panned hard left or right, for a stereo effect. For the intro beat to “You Took Something Away From Me”, the entire mix was run through headphones, which were mic’d. Only the intro vocals for “Rule Rope” were done with the AKG 414. The breakbeat on Disappear was recorded to Darwin from a .wav file and pasted carefully to loop it. The crusty turntable produced scratches on “Magnetic Poetry” and “Steam”. The breakbeat from interlude one was recorded to Darwin off CD and edited and pasted to loop and vary it. The record noise on “Banetai” was sampled to Mirage from a cassette and looped. The kicks and snares on “Banetai” were sampled to Darwin from CD and triggered via MIDI.
Mixing: All mixes were done with 16 tracks ADAT and the Mackie 24×8.
The main mix inserts were routed through a dual tube preamp, light compression and then the BBE Sonic Maximizer.
Some kicks and snares and basses were compressed. Most vocals were compressed at mixdown. Extreme “telephone” style eq and an old radio type effect were used on the vocals for “Majority Of Men”. Multi layered snares and kicks and synth patches were buss mixed to single (or double, if stereo) tracks before being transferred to ADAT for mixdown. “The Pair” was buss mixed into 8 tracks from over 24 before being transferred to ADAT.
Editing: Mixes were transferred digitally through the Finalizer then into Sound Designer 2, trimmed, and
some gain lowering was done (where there were only a few 0dB readings, I knocked them
down 1dB, so that they could be boosted in Masterlist)
Fade outs were added and songs were imported into Masterlist, where they were ordered, gain
corrected and transferred to a running master DAT for backup. The masterlist audio was burned to a CD, which is the master to be sent to the plant
Notes: Only 8 tracks (Darwin) were available for tracking.
This didn’t matter much because the sequencer was synced to ADAT. The whole sequence
could always be heard from the sequencer, even if all ADAT tracks couldn’t be
monitored at once.

Procedure for recording Third Option “Frosted Mini Wheats” CD

November 13, 2006 by Aaron

frosted mini wheats, recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 8 Track Darwin Harddisk
Mix Destination Format: DAT
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 12 Channel VLZ
Outboard Processing: Art SGE Mach II Efx Processor
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660, Ensoniq Mirage
Mics: AKG D1000E
Mastering: TC Electronics Finalizer

Procedure:

Tracking: Most instrument tracks were tracked to Darwin through an Art tube-preamp. Mirage and Darwin provided sampling capabilities. Samples were taken from movies, original poetry, PlayStation games (Overblood) and even a cassette of a play version of The Crucible.
Mixing: If seperated, most of the songs would’ve been something like a 24 or 32 track mixdown. But I only had the 8 tracks of Darwin to work with. So I ping-ponged, trying to stay very careful along the way. The singing vocals were double and tripled up (there were four of Tamara and two of Aaron), and then a stereo mix was created of those tracks. The drums were made another stereo pair, and basses and synths made up other pairs, etc. Sometimes I would deviate, but this was the general rule of thumb.Kick/snare/hats etc. were usually seperated, mixed on the Mackie, and run through the Art tube. The Art tube has only one channel so they would be transferred in sync one channel at a time. Interestingly, when you do this, it spreads the stereo spectrum out a bit. It’s a great effect, but sometimes it’s not good for things that you might rather feel very dead center (like kicks or bass or even vocals). I could listen to synth tracks “live” (played back by the sequencer) while mixing a couple of basses, for example, to make sure that in the context of the whole, things were coming out ok. Some pairs were mixed digitally inside Darwin to make room for this method.I sort of reinvented the trance wheel on this. For some reason at that point I had never really heard a trance record, or I guess any dance club music on CD, because after beatboxing for about an hour one day, I had the “revelation” of progressive trance, which is pretty stupid considering it had been around for years! Nevertheless, the whole project was about writing techno instead of rap songs for a change (even the concept of “writing” techno is a little odd, I guess), and doing this “revolutionary” thing where all the songs just morph into one another. *sigh* Still, even though it didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t even remotely inventing anything, it turned out a bit different, because my process was inevitably odd. I didn’t have the normal techno tools, which seem to usually involve progressive style looping and generation and tweaking of parameters over time, and I didn’t even really know how people did it (I suppose I still don’t, really, now that I think about it), so what I did was write a song on the sequencer, using some drum patterns and such like I always did, then improvising some piano over time, and mixing it down. Then I started a whole new sequence, and started it off using themes from the other song, more like a composer might do, and then morphing the riffs. I used similar synth patches (sounds) in some cases and different ones in others, but totally wrote, tracked and mixed the song seperately. I did this for all the songs, all the while strategizing in the sequences how the BPMs would be matched up and how many measures they would overlap (usually six). I would offset each song so that tracking to the Darwin, it was already at the right place in time and would overlap with the previous song. I used one project in Darwin, using virtual reels to create new songs. When I eventually had a mix down of a song, I would just copy it to the clipboard, and paste it in place into the “main” reel. The first song was on tracks 1 and 2, the second song on 3 and 4, and so on, looping around and around the tracks. Meanwhile, I had another master “volume” sequence on Cakewalk which would just be used to do the crossfades (Darwin’s internal mixer responds to MIDI volume and pan messages). I would carefully map the tempo changes that might happen within songs onto the master sequence to keep the SMPTE time and measures lined up, and create the fade ins and outs using the very powerful event editor in Cakewalk. Over time I kept adding to this master sequence as I mixed new songs. Interestingly enough, when the sequence was about 30 minutes long, it wouldn’t sync to tape if started after about 30 minutes. I had to take it out of sync mode and put the transport at the same spot as the Darwin transport and play them manually at the same time to get an approximate audition of the crossfades. This worked fine, because they didn’t need to be sample accurate in time. Eventually, I would sync the sequencer to the main project, and it would follow along for an hour, creating crossfades while a master CD and DAT was being dubbed off the SPDIF output of the Darwin (which outputs the result of the internal digital mixer). This worked fine, and I went back onto the DAT to create new track markers, then dubbed another CD for the master to be sent to the plant (so that there would me more than one track 🙂 ).
Mastering/Editing: I explained the bulk of the final edit down above, but mastering was a little tricky because of lack of space on Darwin (it has 1 gig, which is pretty much full at 70 minutes of stereo audio plus a couple other multitrack projects). I also hadn’t really forseen wanting to remaster the mixes before I had alreay set up a whole crossfade sequence, etc. This is because I didn’t expect to get an opportunity to borrow the Finalizer. I thought I might get a short time in the studio where the Finalizer lived, so I planned to run the whole project through a setting on the Finalizer that would hopefully do them all some good (this would be a lot quicker). As it turns out, I got to take the Finalizer home, and given this opportunity, I couldn’t stand to take such a short cut. So, using virtual reels in Darwin, I ran mixes through the Finalizer and back to Darwin. Since Darwin of course is in sync with itself, I could just paste the new mastered mix over the old in the main reel, and voila. Where it got tricky was I could only do one at a time, and I had to delete the old one. This doesn’t sound that tricky right now, but it really wasn’t easy to deal with for some reason. The crossfades didn’t need that much tweaking, but I was glad I did each song seperately, because the settings on the Finalizer were vastly different from song to song.
Notes:

Ultimately, FMW has never been duplicated en masse. The artwork and masters were at the plant, and I got a call saying they couldn’t do it because of all the samples. Funny thing is, I don’t think they listened to it. They mentioned the liner notes, and I think if I hadn’t given credit on the liner notes, they never would’ve known. Funny thing is, only a couple years before, they had pressed Artistic Apocalypse, where I used the same technique of using movie samples and giving it credit on the notes. But in those couple of years, the industry landscape changed dramatically, and it was no longer alright to use samples of that nature simply by giving credit. In the days of Martyrs And Heroes and No Apocalypse (my first CD’s), you could use a sample from a movie or something, as long as you gave it credit. At least that was the word on the street. Apparently the law was unclear about it. Now it’s a bit clearer, and the answer is, no damn samples ever any time, which sucks, because the only people who get to do that kind of art are either major labels who have access to the people, or people who never get to actually reproduce the work. So now, we will dub a copy of Frosted Mini Wheats if it gets ordered, but no duplicated CDs. I spent awhile trying to track down sample clearance, but no one even responded. Finding the people, in most cases, was impossible. Later on, with Cult Of Nice, I had one sample, and was by some miracle able to contact the people, pay them a fee, and actually obtain clearance. There have been several times when songs from Cult Of Nice were rejected from liscensing organizations because of samples, only to have me write back to them saying “THAT’S NOT A SAMPLE, that’s original poetry, performed by us!!” Even if something SOUNDS like a sample (which was the whole point of Cult Of Nice – poetry that sounds like samples, but is original), people go berserk. That’s how much the landscape changed in those 2 years.

Procedure for recording Third Option “Monkey Set” CD Mix Set

November 12, 2006 by Aaron

monkey set, recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 8 Track Emu Darwin
Mix Destination Format: DAT/CD
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD-Rs
Mixer: Behringer DDX3216 32 Channel Automated Digital Mixer
Outboard Processing: Internal to the Behringer mixer
Synths: Alesis S4, Boss DR660 Drum Machine
Software: Propellerhead’s Rebirth, Cakewalk
Mics: Shure 55SH (50’s style mic)
Mastering: Behringer Ultrafex

Procedure:

Tracking:This 20 minute mix set was pretty much a one day project. I sat in my home, not in the studio, and played with the settings on Propellerhead’s Rebirth in realtime for around 20 minutes and let that be the basic foundation. Because it was brand new to me, I didn’t even KNOW that you could simply export things as a .wav file, so I brought the 8 track harddisk recorder Darwin (by EMU) upstairs and took the 1/8th inch stereo out from the computer’s normal soundcard into 2 tracks of Darwin with a Y cable. Then I just played back the Rebirth song to Darwin, and took Darwin downstairs. I lined the Darwin tracks up to where they’d be in sync with Cakewalk. Then I set up a single sequence, and where there were relatively major changes in the sections on the Rebirth song, I created a new drum pattern, which I recorded in stereo on two tracks of Darwin, to sort of spice up the drums. Then I’d do the same with a synth track. In the beginning it was some airy thing, I played improv’d stuff, made sure it was all in time in Cakewalk, and then recorded it to Darwin. There was an organ solo of some kind in there, various little spice ups, not too crazy.Then I spent a little while coming up with various little poems and a little rhyme and even a little melody in that section, about a metaphorical monkey, who I pictured as a sort of cracked-out Curious George, and set up the Shure mic, and just winged it. I tried to just have some various voices and experiment with saying things like I’d never said them. Recorded that and a couple of backing vocals onto Darwin (mostly in the beginning), and then mixed down.
Mixing:Pretty easy mix. The Rebirth song was pretty well balanced, the vocals didn’t seem CRUCIAL anyway *laugh*, so I went through a couple passes, did weird things to most of the vocals like telephoning or using metallic effects, just experimenting with the Behringer’s effects, really, automating the drum channels to sort of move a little bit so they’d sit, and the same thing with the vocals, and ran it. It probably took an hour or two to do the whole 20 minute mix.
Mastering/Editing:There wasn’t really a mastering or editing stage, other than, once I’d set up my mix, I took the Behringer Ultrafex and tweaked the overall sound like I like to do. Later when I dubbed the thing to disc to send to get a few copies made, I did a little compression via the Behringer’s compressor, and left it alone otherwise.
Notes:

This was an experiment project, basically. I made some copies because what I came up with was fun, if not ultra songwriterish and crafted to ultimate perfection. The mix actually sounded pretty dang clean, especially for how fast everything was done. The point of the project was the whole thing of taking Rebirth tracks and integrating them with some more stuff. This was my first venture into using any sort of soft synth. It was fun, although Rebirth is certainly a different tool, and hard to get used to really making it do something unique. I wouldn’t call this project groundbreaking when it comes to the use of Rebirth! 🙂 My favorite part of the thing is the metaphoric monkey, frankly, and nobody seems to understand that whole trip.

Procedure for recording Third Option “Still” EP

November 11, 2006 by Aaron

recording, still

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 8 Track Darwin Harddisk
Mix Destination Format: DAT
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 12 Channel VLZ
Outboard Processing: Art SGE Mach II Efx Processor
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660
Mics: AKG D1000E
Mastering: TC Electronics Finalizer

Procedure:

Tracking: Most instrument tracks were tracked to Darwin through an Art tube-preamp.
Mixing: Still was done like Frosted Mini Wheats. If seperated, it would’ve been something like a 24 track mixdown. But I only had the 8 tracks of Darwin to work with. So I ping-ponged, trying to stay very careful along the way. The singing vocals were double and tripled up (there were four of Tamara and two of Aaron), and then a stereo mix was created of those tracks. The drums were made another stereo pair, and basses and synths made up other pairs, etc.Kick/snare/hats etc. were seperated, mixed on the Mackie, and run through the Art tube. The Art tube has only one channel so they would be transferred in sync one channel at a time. Interestingly, when you do this, it spreads the stereo spectrum out a bit. It’s a great effect, but sometimes it’s not good for things that you might rather feel very dead center (like kicks or bass or even vocals). I could listen to synth tracks “live” (played back by the sequencer) while mixing a couple of basses, for example, to make sure that in the context of the whole, things were coming out ok. Some pairs were mixed digitally inside Darwin to make room for this method.
Each remix was either a slight rearrange in the sequence and retrack and remix (maybe keeping audio tracks like drums from the main mix, always reusing vocals from the original tracks), or in the case of the Murphurd’s Slow and Unrequited Love Mix, it was a matter of taking the main mix and slowing it way down to a quarter of its original speed, and then laying drums from the Phase Motion mix on top of it. Since it was half of half the speed, they sync’d up beautifully. Then I layered back in a Tamara vocal track and retracked a vocal myself. This was the one remix that was a full blown audio remix, as opposed to a rearrange and start over. It had no newly recorded tracks. What was screwy about slowing it down is that Darwin has no DSP features. What I did was hold the jog wheel in one spot for over 20 minutes and dub the slow output to a DAT, then back to Darwin, sliding it into place so it would be in sync. Darwin also doesn’t show a wave, so that was a matter of listening, placing a marker in hopefully exactly the right spot, doing math, and doing a move function, and then moving it a frame, or a half a frame, or a 1000th of a frame at a time until it felt like it sounded right. You can’t just slide around in Darwin, you have to push “action”, “move” and tell it how far and in which direction to move.
Mastering/Editing: Mixes were transferred digitally through the Finalizer, back to Darwin, and eventually dubbed to tape. The Finalizer was borrowed; this and Frosted Mini Wheats was the first mixing/editing/mastering for release done in the NQuit studio.

Procedure for recording Third Option “Cult Of Nice” CD

November 10, 2006 by Aaron

cult of nice, recording

Basic Setup:

Initial Recording Format: 24 Track ADAT
Mix Destination Format: DAT/CD
Final Format: CD Master and Duplicated CD’s
Mixer: Mackie 32×8
Outboard Processing: Lexicon Reverbs, Art SGE Mach II Efx, 1178 compressor, Furman compressors, DBX Compressors, Alesis Quadraverbs, Zoom vocal efx
Synths: Alesis S4, Yamaha TG100, Boss DR660, Ensoniq Mirage, ASR-10, Casio CT770, somebody’s toy 20 key Casio
Mics: AKG Tube 414, Groove Tubes, AKG 414s, , Shure 55SH (50’s style mic), SM57s, SM58s, 757s, AKG D1000E
Mastering: TC Electronics Finalizer, Alesis Masterlink

Procedure:

Tracking: This project was way more straight forward than previous projects. Songs were written and arranged using Cakewalk in my NQuit studio, and synth tracks were tracked to Darwin through the Art Tube Preamp, sync’d to the sequencer with MIDI Time Code. Then, we’d take the Darwin to Rock Romano’s Red Shack and sync the Darwin to the ADAT chain there, and track live grand piano, live drums and vocals.The piano in Woman’s Poem was tracked in Albuquerque, at Washburn Piano. I called the NM Symphony and asked if they had a way to record pianos, and a guy came out with a couple of pretty good mics and we recorded it straight to Darwin. I had a mix set up on two tracks to listen to in headphones and voila.Some pianos were recorded at the Red Shack straight to Darwin as well. These were some of the ones where I was engineering and playing and was by myself, and didn’t have time to run back and forth between the control room and the piano (although I did do some of that). The intro piano on track 1, “Cult Of Nice”, was strange, because it plays for about a minute or two wild (no sync or click track or anything) and then links up with the beat when the beat comes in. I kind of just practiced a couple times, working out an arrangement that would be the right length (unless played at some WILDLY different speed than usual), and had to just sort of feel the beat come in and lock to it on the fly. Everyone in the session was very excited when, on take 1 of actual recording, it happened, it worked, and I did it! I got punched in the arm in excitement. It was great.
On The People United, the vocal snippets “go on go on” and “the people united will never be defeated” were samples from Possibility. I used ASR-10 to sample and then loop them, playing them back at a slightly higher pitch than original.

Bodies, which is the “hidden” track (actually it just hides because it has no liner notes mentioning it) was tracked all at the NQuit studio to Darwin, whilst drunk. All the vocals are improvised straight to tape.

On Possibility, the crowd chanting “the people united can never be defeated” is about 30 of me, voice varied and submixed, and about 10 versions of Tamara and a friend Rebecca doing the chant along with mine. Eventually they were all submixed into a stereo pair (or actually, maybe even one track – wow) for mixdown. Everyone kept saying we needed to bring more people in, but it wasn’t necessary. The drums in the intro section are live drums. This was the first ever time I’d even attempted to play live drums on a track, and only the 2nd or 3rd time I’d even touched a kit. I didn’t come out virtuoso, but I pretty much got what I wanted. The track has a 3/4 section, then in the build up is 4/4 and speeds up, which I used tempo changes in cakewalk for, and had to follow along with the drums. Later I ran those drums through a pitch shifter, making them lower and fatter and weirder.

Also on Possibility, a lot of the sounds that sound like maybe techno sounds are actually real piano. For example, when the beat comes in the last time (which incidentally adds two live drum tracks that I played, and then cut up and added a delay to complicate the rhythm), and there’s a “boop (boop boop boop)”, that’s piano. For this song I did some playing with taking a Shure 57 and putting down deep in the middle sound hole of the piano, then running it straight through three guitar pedals, out to a guitar amp, micing the amp. The pedals were Boss pedals; a stereo delay, a distortion, another overdrive of some kind, if I remember correctly, and a wah-wah pedal. I had the pedals next to the regular piano pedals so I could use them and the sustain pedal and what not. It was really cool, the only big problem was that even sticking the amp in the closet across the room and closing the door, I was always tetering on the brink of extreme feedback. I could barely use the overdrive or it would go nuts.

Another thing fun about Possibility was the eery sort of synth stuff in the beginning, plus the “vroom” synth build up, much of that was done with this tiny little toy Casio which for some reason had pitch and mod wheels, but was a toy and a HALF. It was one of these things with like 20 keys that’s about a foot and a half long, that you give to a kid. But it had this cool thing it would do, so we used it.
Mixing: Mixdown happened via ADAT, sometimes with Darwin in the chain, and the Mackie 32×8. Straight forward, multitrack mixing, using inserts for compression, efx, etc. On Ash, I first took a bunch of vocal tracks of the poem, all recorded at different times, from DAT and put them on an ADAT tape, and submixed them to a stereo pair, fading them in and out manually while it recorded, to get the effect of one poem starting, then fading away, then another version coming in but not in the expected place in the poem, sometimes even going backwards in the poem. I think eventually, you get the whole poem. Fades and little EQ or efx changes were done on the fly manually. In some cases it would take a bit of rehearsal, and I even got Tamara to help with a couple that I didn’t have enough hands for 🙂
Mastering/Editing: Mastering was straight forward. Finalizer out to DAT and CDR. Most tracks I did a sort of mastering/mix version where I ran through the Finalizer and tweaked the sound right at mixdown, but then also did a version with no Finalizer. Whether I ended up using the mix/master version or remastering the “raw” version varied from track to track. I edited using an Alesis Masterlink, which burned the Red Book CD master.
Notes:

Tamara was very hard to record. She was relatively new to the studio and her voice would just POP up for one word and give these incredible spikes. Also, the AKG Tube mic, while great for most people’s vocals, was WAY to tinny and sibilant for her. We used various other mics, like the regular 414 or the SH55 50’s style mic that we would use live, or even the groove tubes. At that time, there was a broken Neumann U47 in the studio – how sad! Also, oh dumb of dumb, it took me awhile to realize there was were Urei 1176 and 1178 compressors in the studio, so most vocal compression was done with the DBX compressors, which I liked, but not like the 1176. Oh well.

Tune That Room

Studio Deliverables

Come away from the studio with more for your money

Changing Of The (Pick) Guard

Modern use of guitars is changing

But Why?

Acoustic

Texture

Throw Back Farther

Jump Forward

Or…Metal It Up

Mix Up The Mix

Other Elements

Drums!

Procedure for recording M.C. Murph’s “Martyrs And Heroes” CD

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Procedure for recording M.C. Murph’s “Artistic Apocalypse” CD

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Procedure for recording Third Option “Frosted Mini Wheats” CD

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Procedure for recording Third Option “Monkey Set” CD Mix Set

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Procedure for recording Third Option “Still” EP

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Procedure for recording Third Option “Cult Of Nice” CD

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