What are some reasons that a mix collapses when summed to mono?

It sounds like you are not switching back and forth often enough. Don’t wait until you are committed to a balance to check mono. Make it an every-five-minute-auto button-push thing. After a while, you will get the hang of it.

Things to watch for when hiring an an online mixing company:

No names, no numbers, and no references. Any “studio” that does not say who actually pilots the sessions, does not give any way to contact them other than a general delivery e-mail – i.e. is totally anonymous – and does not offer up any references whatsoever is on the same level as any plumber, car mechanic, dentist or lawyer operating under the same conditions.

Would you hire any of those services anonymously and without references?

How do I get my mix to sound good in ALL systems?

but I almsot always mix loud on the main monitors or very loud on the bookshelves if the bigs are not useable. I PARTICULARLY ride solos or make big level changes while listening loud. And I don’t believe in making sounds small… I like every sound as full range as possible. The secret of a good mix, in my view, isn’t in the techniques and tricks… it’s in being able to tell what you’re listening to and then BALANCING everything.

Tags: mixing

I haven’t updated Hometracked regularly the last few weeks because I’ve been busy working on a project with my frequent collaborator Rich Brewer.

Rich and I realized a month ago that we have a lot of unrecorded and unproduced material between us. Enough, we hope, for a decent album. So we’ve decided to record the album, and document as much of our work, both creative and technical, as we can. It’s Hometracked in practice.

Check out The Morning Rain if you’d like to follow our progress.

Tags: hometracked

A good general rule for EQ: Make your cuts narrow and your boosts wide.
That is, when removing frequencies, remove only what you need to. On a parametric EQ, use a high Q value, and identify specific problem frequencies. The less you cut, the more natural the result will sound. Conversely, when you boost a frequency range, narrow band EQ filters can introduce ringing. Broad, gentle boosts (i.e. low Q value) are less obvious, which again yields a more natural sound.

If you can’t play a part, don’t record it.
Practice until you can play it, or change the part so it’s easier to play. If you don’t nail the performance, it will show in the recording.

Stock your recording space with spare parts
Stuff breaks, but with a good emergency kit on hand, it doesn’t have to mean the end of a recording session. This is especially true if you record other people: Don’t trust the guitar player to remember a spare E string, but count on him breaking the one on his guitar.

The essential emergency kit: A multi-tool (like a Leatherman,) guitar strings and picks, drum sticks, band aids (!), instrument and microphone cables. And duct tape. No recording studio should be without several rolls of duct tape. You can keep a busted guitar together with enough duct tape. (Don’t ask.)

See Also: More Recording and Mixing Tips, Cut narrow, boost wide

Tags: EQ, tips-digest

Whether via search or link from a web forum, every few months I find myself back at the fantastic Sound On Sound article Using Equalisation. And as with Equal Time, the Electronic Musician I linked to before, I get something new from the Sound on Sound piece every time I read it.

The article covers the basics of using an equalizer to shape your sound. But it also describes some of the more subtle psychoacoustic issues that a rise from EQ use:

Another psychoacoustic effect which can be manipulated with EQ is the perception of distance. This is because the air damps high-frequency sounds more than low-frequency ones. If a sound source is very close, this effect is negligible. However, the further a sound has to travel through the air, the more the high frequencies are damped. Therefore, if you roll off a little high end from a sound, it seems further away. This technique is often used to bring a lead vocal to the front of a mix otherwise dominated by backing vocals, for example. The backing vocals are cut a little above 10kHz or so, while the lead vocal is given more energy above this frequency.

Tags: EQ

The EMI/iTunes deal to offer DRM-less files at higher quality, for a higher price, raises a question best addressed in Slate.com’s Are iTunes’ Premium Downloads Worth It?

iTunes will soon offer premium music files, which come without copy protection and have a bitrate of 256 kbps instead of the usual 128 kbps. The luxury tracks will cost 30 cents more than the standard downloads. Will people be able to hear the difference?

I’ll spoil the ending: Most listeners don’t notice a difference between the two encoding rates. That conclusion should interest indie artists who offer downloadable music. The question of which bit rate to use seems important, but if most listeners can’t tell the difference between files encoded at 128KBps and 256KBps, can it really matter?

Depending on your music and your situation, it might. The most important questions to ask yourself are:

How important is the high-frequency detail in your music? MP3 (and AAC, WMV, et.al.) encoding at lower bit rates severely affects high frequencies. If your music is treble-heavy, its quality will likely suffer noticeably at anything below 160KBps.

How much bandwidth do you have? Audio compression is a classic quality/size tradeoff. Lower bit rates yield smaller files, which transfer quickly and use fewer resources. But they don’t sound as good.

How discriminating are your fans? Some folks turn their nose up at bit rates less than 160KBps. Especially if you record classical music, or music in any genre with intricate detail, your listeners may be accustomed to, and expect, higher bit rates.

Ultimately, though, your ears are always the best way to judge how your music sounds, and this is true of choosing a compression bit rate. So to better understand the options, why not perform a listening test? Some examples (two of which are linked from the Slate article above):

• PCWorld’s 256 vs. 128 kbps: Can You Tell the Difference?
• CDBurner.ca’s multi-format, multi-rate listening test
• Gabriel Bouvigne’s test at bit rates from 96K to 320K
• Digital Pro Sound’s test comparing constant and variable bit rates

The consensus is that 128KBps or 160KBps is sufficient for most music and listeners. But test your own music at different rates, and be sure you’re happy with what you offer your listeners.

[Aside: if listeners won’t notice a difference between Apple’s encoding rates, Bob Lefsetz raises another question: What was Steve Jobs thinking?

Steve Jobs makes a deal for variable pricing with EMI, breaking his FOUR YEAR STANCE!! That was the beauty of the iTunes Store, one price for everything, no confusion. Didn’t Mr. Jobs warn the labels not to confuse the customer by having variable prices?

I think he’s spot on that the real story behind the dropped DRM is Apple’s concern over EU pressure to license Fairplay.]

Tags: MP3-compression

Here, Mark and Howard from The Turtles educate us on dealing with a record label:
Now, aren’t you glad you’re an independent artist?

Tags: video

Most often, we use compressors to tame the dynamics of a recording. Like all recording tools, though, compressors have less-obvious uses for shaping sound.

A compressor raises the level of quieter elements in a signal. This tends to “fatten” the recorded sound, which can add a lot of character, especially on drums and vocals. However, the effect is most pronounced when the signal is heavily compressed, and over-compression usually kills the dynamics of a performance.

What is parallel compression?

Parallel compression offers a good compromise. In its most common implementation, parallel compression refers to mixing a dry signal with a heavily compressed copy of itself. The dynamics in the dry signal are preserved while the compressed signal adds body and character to the overall sound. It works for any instrument, but on drums and vocals in particular, the added character can really bring a track to life.
(more…)

Tags: compression, drums

Unless they have cheap wireless internet on the cruise ship, it’ll probably be quiet around here for the rest of the week …

Tags: hometracked

For those of us on a budget, “cheap” ribbon mics (referenced in the last post) make for a great introduction to recording with ribbons.

Most of the cheaper ribbon mics are manufactured in China. Among the most popular: Apex, Shiny Box, and Nady. I have a pair of Apex 210s that make great drum “underheads” (as recently discussed on the TapeOp messageboard.) The rolled-off high frequencies yield a much more controlled cymbal sound, a plus for anyone recording drums in an untreated basement.

If you’re unfamiliar with ribbon mics, here are two great magazine articles describing how they work, and when you might want to reach for one:

From Electronic Musician, Ribbon Revival:

The benefits of ribbon miking are often characterized as a smooth and natural timbre without sibilant highs, full low-end response at any distance, and high-SPL handling. Low noise and superb transient response are additional benefits, especially when a ribbon is paired with a quality microphone preamp. (See the sidebar “Preamps for Ribbon Mics.”)

From Mix Magazine, Ribbon Renaissance:

The qualities that make them prized are many: “Warm,” “musical” and “syrupy” are words often used to describe a ribbon mic’s trademark sound, which is attributed in part to a gentle proximity effect that becomes pronounced within a few inches of the mic, as well as an inherently flat frequency response with a smoothly attenuated top end. They’re naturally bidirectional, perfect for both mid/side (M/S) and Blumlein stereo recording techniques. In addition, the low mass of a ribbon diaphragm allows for fast transient response. Ribbons also offer a wide dynamic range, useful on everything from capturing low sounds from stringed instruments to handling extreme SPLs at high frequencies, making them an ideal choice for miking brass and percussion.

If you’re handy with a soldering iron, the Chinese mics also lend themselves to some easy modifications that can dramatically improve their sound. The easiest involve removing the internal mesh, and upgrading the microphone’s transformer.

More details here and here

The transformer mod is straightforward. two wires on primary, two wires on secondary. Desolder, mount new transformer, resolder.

On the Cinemag transformer, the primary pair is red/brown wires, the secondary pair is the orange/yellow wires, with the white wire connecting to ground.

So the upgrade is simple as desoldering the existing wires, mounting the new transformer, and connecting the new traffo wires to their appropriate spots.

Tags: diy, microphones

The cheap ribbon mic thread on Gearslutz features recorded samples from a few of the different “cheap” ribbon mics that have appeared recently:

There are three main things that make a ribbon mic sound good or bad
– The ribbon motor
– The housing
– The transformer
With a cheap ribbon, you can easily alter the latter two, but you are stuck with the ribbon motor.

The Shiny Box ribbon mics, in particular, are often recommended in the low end gold (inexpensive equipment that outperforms) discussion. Other low end gold that most folks seem to agree on: the SM57, the Audix i5 and D6, and the Studio Projects B1.

What’s the difference between gain and level:

On a mixer, the “Gain” – which can also be called “Input” or “Trim”, depending upon the mixer brand – sets the signal level at the input, or start, of the mixer channel strip, and the “Level” (or “channel fader”) sets the signal level coming out of the “end” of the channel strip.*

Tags: microphones