Analog vs Digital
The Analog vs Digital war battles on and will likely continue through the ages, however year by year digital has tightened the gap and is getting warmer all the time. Some of the softsynth reproductions of “analog” warmth has been pretty impressive as well. Although I’m not planning on taking sides, I am going to defend digital a bit for all the heat it seems to get from so called “analog purists”. I am also not planning on getting into the math on this one. That kind of stuff bores me to tears and defeats the point of this little blog.

Digital strengths vs Analog strengths

The Art of Mastering Audio by Bob Katzs makes some good points on this subject. Being one of the most respected mastering engineers, I take what he says as coming from years of experience in both the digital and analog world. This is what Bob has to say:

Analog recordings tend to excel at producing accurate detail in the lower frequencies and get less detailed and fuzzy at the higher frequencies.
Digital recordings excel at accurate reproduction of the higher frequencies and get fuzzy on the bottom end.

Bob uses this analogy to give you an idea of how this works:

Analog recordings would be like looking up at a skyscraper from the bottom whereas Digital would be like looking at the same skyscraper from the rooftop down.

From this perspective you can see where both digital and analog could both be used to good effect, depending on what you are going for. You can say that analog has a pleasant muddiness (I’m using this term loosely so don’t throw a fit) and digital has a sharper sound overall.

Imperfections

The thing many of us love about analog is that it’s imperfect and thus more human. The artifacts created in an analog recording keep a recording a bit more dynamic and unpredictable whereas digital recordings come across much more sterile and with virtually no artifacts or imperfections. Many producers keep this in mind when recording in the digital domain and do their best to inject some variation and unpredictability to the recordings. Many high end virtual instruments and fx plugin’s do a good job of recreating analog-like artifacts and “analog” warmth. If you know the right tools to use in the digital domain, you can fool most people most of the time.

Mastering

Many people think that a professional mastering studio only uses analog equipment to do their work but this isn’t the case.

Most engineers agree that taking your wav or aif file master recording, running it through analog equipment and then back into the digital domain will usually do more harm than good even if they are using excellent converters. More often than not, if an artist wants everything mastered in the analog domain, they will deliver their reel to reel masters to the mastering house, otherwise the work will most likely have the best results staying in the digital domain.

For Studios on a small budget, the cost of comparable analog gear, the converters and all the highest end cables would not be worth it. Also remember all the maintenance to keep the equipment working top notch. That isn’t cheap. On top of that, you can’t expect to have an artist come back to you years after your first session and have presets that will deliver identical results. Analog gear can’t be expected to get the same results day after day because its not crunching numbers like in the digital domain. There will always be a little chaos added to every piece of analog gear. This can be wonderful during the recording phase but can make it very difficult to master an album over the course of months or years.

The Real Test

Go ahead and go through your CD collection and pull out your warmest analog recordings. Pink Floyd? Stevie Wonder? Air? Notice the difference you hear in those recordings. Notice all the warmth from the tape saturation. Notice the difference between that and the most obvious digital recordings and these old recordings. Some of you might prefer the clean modern sound and that’s totally fine. To each their own.

The most important point that I want to end with is that digital must be pretty damn good at reproducing analog sound since the best CD you’ve ever heard is still a 16 bit digital representation. It might not be vinyl, but most of what you listen to these days ends up digital at some point. In fact, don’t doubt that some of your vinyl is just an analog representation of a digital recording.

This blog wasn’t meant to answer all the questions in the analog vs digital debate but rather to open up a healthy conversation on the topic. These days there is so much great technology at our fingertips whether it be Analog or Digitally produced that it’s hard not to be attracted to both. Even with free software you can create release worthy music. Don’t get hung up. Use what you’ve got. If it sounds good to you, roll with it. When it comes to your art, it’s your opinion that matters most.

Happy Music Making,

Jason

_________________________________________________

Follow me: http://twitter.com/AbletonVids

Website: http://www.musicsoftwaretraining.com

Tweet This Post

Spend less time on your music for more creative output
If you are anything like me you have gone through (or are going through) some creative struggles. You simply aren’t carving out the time you need to get any real music done. Does the idea of starting a new project seem like a waste, since you feel you never have the time to dive in deep enough to get anything accomplished?
I know exactly how you feel.
About 6 months back I made a 30 day commitment to myself to work on music 2 hours a day, everyday. It didn’t matter what I was doing as long as I was creating. I figured this type of discipline would be exactly what I needed to start purging through all of my unfinished ideas.

This went well for the first 5 days and I was pretty motivated the first 3 days of them. Then “life” happened and something kept me from meeting my day’s goal. From there I felt much less committed to my goal of 30 days. I had a couple spurts of creative action,  but felt like I had already failed on my committment. From there, I really dropped the ball for most of the month.

Although I would consider revisiting this goal perhaps later in the year, I feel this original goal just wasn’t very realistic for me (I say “for me” because some of you may feel this is pretty reasonable. If that is the case, go for it!).
This year I have a different approach for pretty much any goal.

Think of it like exercise. The idea is to set a habit first instead of thinking about maximum production and output. My new idea is to set a goal simple enough that it would be ridiculous to not be able to accomplish it everyday. The key here is EVERYDAY, not 5 days a week, not every other day..EVERYDAY. This is so important in habit forming.

When I decided I wanted to get in better shape, I decided that I would commit to 20 push ups and 50 situps. Nothing less, nothing more. This was pretty easy to accomplish and only took up a few minutes of my time everyday. Although I wasn’t noticing much if any difference in my strength, the strength of my daily habit was quite noticeable.
As the habit became a no brainer, I decided to start challenging myself to do more situps and push up, and then added a fairly easy weight routine. Soon enough I was not only noticing a difference, I couldn’t even think of skipping a day.
The point here is creating the habit first, and once that is in place, Then slowly build your resistance in small enough increments that it is challenging, but not so challenging that you would be tempted to skip a day…..
So back to music making..
My proposal to you is to devote yourself to just 15 minutes a day, everyday,  to music making. It doesn’t matter what it is you do, but make sure you are creating in some way.

If you are away from your computer or away from home, perhaps you can pick up a friends acoustic guitar, write some lyrics or hum a melody into a portable recorder. Whatever the situation, wherever you are.. no more excuses…. 15 minutes. that’s all.

As you build up the habit and you start to look forward to the process a few things will likely happen.

1. Your mind will start tuning into being creative and more ideas will start popping in your head.
2. You will actually become more productive in 15 minutes than most people are in an hour… this is the benefit of habits. Habits lead to greater efficiency.
3. You may find yourself going way past your 15 minute goal more and more often, but don’t let yourself slide on the 15 minutes you have to spend tomorrow.

I’m certain that if you follow this habit forming technique in your musical life as well as other aspects of your life, you’ll find yourself with many more accomplishments than you likely thought possible for you!
Here’s a Slightly different creative approach you can feel free to try
Once you have your habit in place, you may want to create more urgency in your creativity. This can be done by putting a limit on your creativity each day. Yes, I said to limit your time.

“I will only allow myself 30 minutes of music making today”.
This is a good way to keep your analytical left brain from second guessing everything you do and create enough urgency to accomplish much more in less time.

Isn’t THAT why death was created in the first place? If there was no death, very few of us would do much of anything because there would always be tomorrow.

Don’t wait until tomorrow, get started today and everyday. Start small to form a habit, then build resistance once you have the habit in place. Best of luck!
happy music making
Jason

———————————————————————
Share—
Jason’s Ableton Live Video collections:

Ultimate Ableton Collection part 1

Ultimate Ableton Collection part 2

Advanced Warping Video Collection

Recommended:
Nick Maxwells Sound Design Tutorials

Website:

http://www.MusicSoftwareTraining.com
Twitter: Follow me now!

http://www.twitter.com/AbletonVids

Tweet This Post

The importance of a reference CD for mixing

Are you in the market for a new pair of monitor speakers for your studio? Are you going to be working in other studios with monitors that are unfamiliar too you?
Have you ever mixed music on an unfamiliar set of Monitors only to find out later that the speakers exagerated the highs or lows, and now your mix sounds muddy or dull?

How do you tune your ears and get the perfect mix in most studio environments without spending any extra money?

I have been introduced to a fantastic way to solve this issue.  After reading Michael Stavrou’s “Mixing with your mind” . I had a huge “aha” moment that has never left me. I will admit upfront that I’ve been a bit lazy about what I am going to share, so commiting to this will be a challenge we can all share. Also I figured that this tip is too valuable to not write about. I certainly am accustomed to having reference songs when I am mixing but I haven’t quite taken it to this level. I look forward to us sharing our collective results sometime in the future.

Reference CD
A reference CD should be a collection of preferably unmastered songs that you know a mixed well. since you know your reference CD really well, you will easily be able to distinguish the differences in monitor systems. some may be a bit brighter, some may be a bit darker but you will now have a reference that tells you when a song is mixed just right. This will really come in handy when you work in others studios, or when you move my studio to a different location. Also if you ever help someone set up their studio, your reference CD can reveal what placement works best for their monitor speakers.

Somebody else’s reference CD would most likely be useless to you as you really need to have a close relationship with each song on the CD. You need to have heard it enough times to immediately be able to pick up on a control room’s strengths and weaknesses. You and only you will know how your reference CD should sound. As you become more and more comfortable with this CD of yours, you will want to hear it on as many systems as possible. Each new environment will teach you more about the room you are working in and also about the subtleties of your reference CD itself.

advantages of a reference CD

*regardless of the sound of your monitor speakers, you know what a good mix is supposed to sound like in that studio

*It beats lugging around a ton or gear everytime you have a project outside of your own studio

*Enormous time saved in discovering advantages and disadvantages in an unfamiliar studio environment.

*This can save you alot of unnecessary spending on new gear.

How to create a reference CD:

The songs you use for your reference CD are very important, but only you can determine which songs fit the bill. Create a collection of your best unmastered mixes. Mastered material is not a realistic sound that comes out of a mixing studio. Masters have a risk of making you play the loudness game on your mixes, over EQ’ing andovercompressing.  You also run the risk of your mastered material masking the transients you are going for. It’s important to use your own mixes because you will be familiar with all the little nuances that’ll reveal the most to you. If you have no mixes of your own that you are yet proud of, you might consider using mastered material just as a more general reference, but once this leads you to better sounding mixes, ditch the mastered song as your reference.  You will only need small 60 second-90 second clips of each song you use. 6-8 songs should be plenty. Some songs should reveal the accuracy in the highs while others might be a good way to test how much extra reverb the room is creating. Another song could reflect the dimension or imagery of the room. Still another might reveal the best location to pick up accurate bass response. The better you know your CD, the easier it will be to familiarize yourself with the strengths and weaknesses of the room.

Once you have made your CD, you want to listen to it in as many professional studios as you can. Most studios will be happy to show off their control room if they think you may be a potential customer. Soak in all of that information. The more studios your hear your CD in the better. Make sure to make this the first thing you do when you walk into a new studio. You don’t want your ears to have too much time to adjust to the new environment. When you come back to your home studio, you may find you want to make some adjustments to your own monitor placement and settings.  Also NEVER play your reference CD in a home system or a car stereo system. This will only stand to ruin your perspective of what sounds professional and what doesn’t.

Dial in your monitors:

Although I haven’t yet used a reference CD to it’s full extent described above, I have used reference songs in another way.

Everyone hears a bit differently, and everyone has a certain amount of tolerance of different frequencies. When I am using an unfamiliar set of monitor speakers, or working in a new location, I will play a reference song to hear how the speakers sound. Although I know, for example, that the hi-hats on this reference song sounds perfect to my tastes, it may come across through these speakers as too harsh or bright, or too dull.  If this is the case, I will see if the speakers have EQ adjustments on them for highs or lows and adjust them until it sounds good to my ears. Alternatively, I can make small adjustments to a master EQ on the master track of my Digital Audio Workstation (Ableton, Cubase, Pro Tools etc). By doing this, I will have a better idea of when a certain frequency is right. Once the mix sounds great to my ears, I will turn off the master EQ and then mix the song down.

Before trying this technique myself, I would find my mixes were sounding a bit on the dull or muddy side. This is simply because my ears are pretty sensitive to high frequencies, so I wouldn’t mix them quite as loud as I should have for a great sounding mix.

Be very careful with this technique as it doesn’t take much to lose more than you gain. Small adjustments on a medium to wide Q can be all you need. If you find yourself changing your EQ by anymore then 2-3 DB, you may want to consider purchasing another pair of speaker monitors after all.

I hope you are able to use these tips to improve your mixing results and save you money or at least give you some things to consider before you fork over your cash needlessly.

Happy music making,

Jason

Tweet This Post

Audio mastering tips

I want to help you understand more about the process of audio mastering. This process may be foreign to some of you. Others may understand it’s importance but don’t really “get” what mastering really is.

Mastering in basic terms is the process that makes your demo sound more professional and radio ready. Now when I say demo, I am not saying your recording and mixing process are not professional. What I am saying is that any song by any artist that is not mastered is essentially a demo and not “radio ready”.

Mastering will make a dramatic difference in the following:

*More Warmth without muddiness

*More Punch

*More Clarity

*The ability to hear each instrument in it’s own space

*More loudness without distortion or over compression

*A more 3 dimensional sound

*Less noise

*A reduction in frequencies that make your speakers work harder than necessary or that are  too harsh on your ears.

Mastering uses the best in digital or analog equipment to bring your songs to life. In general the mastering process involves proper use of  Compression/Limiting,  Noise  Reduction, Harmonic Exciters and EQ’s. The most important tool is a trained ear and this is something that takes some time.

Here are some tips about how to prepare your song for mastering:

*Do not compress or limit your final mix. You will be tempted to do this to make things sound louder, but this is counter productive for mastering. Remember, the mastering engineer can’t undo what you have done, so less is more. Of course it’s fine to compress and effect your individual tracks and instruments, but just don’t put one blanket compressor over the whole mix.. bad idea!

*Your final mix should peak at between -6db and -3db. You do not want it to even come close to clipping. Digital clipping is a nasty thing.

*Make sure your song is properly named on a data cd and that your email and phone number are written on both the CDR and the CD case. You would be surprised how easy it is to misplace an unlabeled CDR and not be sure which case it was supposed to go with.

*I typically like when a band or artist send me a song of a band they really like the production and mastering on (make sure that band sounds similar you your sound). This gives the engineer an idea of what results you are hoping for and takes away alot of guess work.

Although I highly recommend that you pay a professional to master your music, I will give you some tips that may help make your songs sound a bit more professional.

*Remove frequencies below 20-25 hz to keep your speakers from working too hard.

*You may want to lower 40hz a few db to see if it gives your mix a cleaner sound.

*There are a few programs that can steal the EQ curve of one song and apply it to yours. Free Filter, HarBal both do this pretty well. Waves and Izotope also have this feature on some of their effects.

*Use a multiband compressor to keep things under control, but make sure not to  overdo it. The bass frequencies can handle a 5:1 ratio and the other frequencies you can use between 2.5:1 or 3:1. Keep the threshold where there is only a few db of actually compression going on. There should be times in your song where the compression is not activated at all. Often times you can compress the lower mid frequencies a few db more which will also help to lower the volume in that area. This can make your mix sound less muddy and more clear in many (but certainly not all) cases.

*Try lowering frequencies around 500hz by a couple db’s to get rid of mud

*Use a multiband harmonic exciter to bring out the clarity and warmth of certain frequencies (once again, don’t over do this).

*Raise the overall volume of your mix using a limiter sparingly. 2-3db is usually good.

I hope this has been helpful and I would love your feedback.

Til next time,
Happy music making,
Jason
————————————————————————————–

I have been a Mastering engineer for 11 years now and you can find out more details about my services, pricing and before/after samples of my work. This is my Mastering myspace page until I get my new website up and running. Click Here.

_______________________________

If you found this newsletter useful, make sure to tweet or stumble it!

http://www.MusicSoftwaretraining.com

Follow me on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/AbletonVids

Tweet This Post