Too Old To Drive

Old Adelaide drivers !!!! Absolutely the worst on the planet.
My wife has had a new car for only five months and already had two idiots hit it. The last one was the most frustrating. In her seventies and not capable of reversing out of her own driveway without smashing into a parked car !!!
When talking to wife about it she commented "My insurance company will love me, I've had so many accidents lately". About time to hand over your licence before you kill someone you senile old fool.
To think that they actually give insurance discounts for older drivers !! Why? Sure they drive less, but when they do get behind the wheel it's absolute devestation......

Duplication Frustration.

Here's a little tale for those of you already in the music business or just starting out.

Had a customer back in the studio telling me about his duplication woes.....

The duplicators have a mastering facility on their premises and were really upset that it was mastered somewhere else first. "They won't do a very good job" was the statement made at the time !!! (Interesting that such a blanket statement was made. Do they assume that nobody else is capable of mastering outside of their business. A very arrogant point of view indeed).
Additional comment were made about my customer having their artwork done somewhere else as well. You guessed it, they also have an in-house artwork facility.

"Tell me" I said to my customer, "You've had listening copies of the master for over a month now. Do you like it?"
"Yeah, it's great !" Came the response.
"You've played it to other people and they think it's good?"
"Everyone that's heard it loves it" said smiling customer.
"Well, at the end of the day if you, the customer, is happy with the results and the reaction from other people. Where's the problem?"
"The problem is that this guy is an arrogant dick, you don't know where else I can take my music for duplication do you?" said my very frustrated customer.

So here's the moral of this little tale.....

Never assume you know more about someones music that the artist. It's their creation and they are highly tuned in to the results.
Making blanket, criticising statements about their choices prior to and whilst seeing you is asking for trouble. What you are in fact doing is insulting their judgement.
Offer suggestions but don't criticise.

It's very common in this industry to bag other studio's work and equipment choices. This is a very slippery slope to get onto. (In fact I am probably a little guilty myself by posting this article, which is why no names have been included).

Accept the part of the creative process you have been offered. It is a privilege, no matter how much of the total project you are given.
.
.

Fonic Acoustic Treatment

For those of you living in Australia I highly recommend Fonic acoustic treatments.
My own studio is kitted out with their products and they are great.
Look good and improve the sound no end.

Available through Billy Hyde on request or many dealers in QLD.

Here's a link to their website if you want more information.
.
.

Forums are like crack cocaine

I keep doing it, I don't know why. It's not good for my mental health and yet I persist.
The studio keeps me busy. Customers walk out with big smiles and a great audio product. I've been recording now for more years than I care to think about and in that time learned one or two things.

So, due to a leg operation I find myself with a lot of free time on my hands and decide to post some comments on audio forums in the hope of speeding up the learning process for a few good people.
Mostly what you get back is nitpicking from people that seem to be looking for any minor point they can find disagreement with. Why? Do they somehow feel that it boosts their own credibility. If you were new to the audio game then all this argument is bound to cause confusion.

Recently I put forward the point that blowing big money on an expensive preamp is pointless untill you reach the limitations of more accesable gear. Training your ears takes time and until you can truly say that you are recording the best possible sound with what you've got then your better off investing in a wider choice of microphones etc..

All I got back was the argument that I must think that all the reviewers of high end preamps are idiots !!! HUH !!!!
Totally missed the point of what I was saying.

So that's it.. I give up. Let them bun fight about minor technicalities of each others posts.
I'm going cold turkey and back into the studio to make more money and good music.

Vocals - Chase the volume not the compressor.

Ever wondered why your vocal track seems flat and uninteresting?
Sick of trying to get that perfect compression setting that makes a vocal shine?

Well, here's a different way to look at it. Don't rely on compression. That's right, it's possible to have an amazing vocal track with very little compression if any at all.
In fact, most of the time a compressor is the problem. You see, in order for a vocal track to shine it needs to be open and transparent. Full of emotional variances and tonal movement. Compressors, especially in the wrong hands, tend to flatten a performance and remove a lot of the vocals character. Ironically, right on the bits that have the most expression. Think about it, when a vocalist is raising their volume they are making a point. If your compressor is working it's hardest here, you are killing it.

With today's digital work stations there is absolutely nothing preventing you from achieving a balanced, open sounding vocal track. Start by copying and replacing the original vocal recording in your mix (must keep all originals untouched).

Solo the vocal track and play it through. Any parts that seem overtly loud or quiet should be highlighted and the amplification adjusted accordingly. (Do this in edit track mode if possible)
Start with 2dB adjustments until you get a feel for how much each part needs. Never be afraid to undo a change and try again with a different amount.
We are not looking at making the peaks all the same height or the bulk of the waveform looking the same.....
THIS IS AN EAR BASED ADJUSTMENT.

The reason you do this soloed is to get a well balanced vocal regardless of what the music is doing. Quiet and loud passages of music will fool your ears into making erroneous adjustments.

So, when you have completed this process and played the soloed vocal a few times to satisfy yourself that it's reasonably well balanced, play it with the mix.
If you still feel the need to compress the vocals, the discovery should be that you require very little to achieve a dense, transparent sound.
.
.

J B Ferox - VST Tape simulator

Digital recording is cold. Let's face it folks, we gained an amazing signal to noise ratio but lost something on the way.
In my never ending pursuit of lush sound in a digital world I've tried lot's of things.

Tubes add a certain harmonic distortion to sounds which is nice...but that's not IT.

Compression can do wonderfull things to sound from fattening to making something really groove...but that's not IT.

It starts with a clean optimum level recording, but with digital you really have to fight the peaks if you want lush and smooth.
What I mean by that is ordinary limiting of the peaks in your audio is not going to give you the warm fuzzy feeling your looking for.

Back when tape was the recording medium that ruled, there was a constant battle to keep the noise level down. Thus, you recorded as hot as you could to the tape. A byproduct of this was that extreme peaks were reduced simply because the tape could not record them. So, with nicely distorted and squashed peaks, the bulk of the important stuff was recorded at optimum levels.

With digital it's ALL recorded (if you don't clip), peaks and all. Not only that, the nature of peak level metering in today's hardware/software means a lot of stuff is not even recorded at optimum levels (more on that in future articles).
Just limiting the peaks actually affects the good stuff immediately after them. It's the nature of limiters, they are stupid and release time dependant. Additionally, tape has a certain amount of noise which actually helps carry the sound. Seriously. A certain amount of noise in a recording can actually be a good thing, dithering being a classic example.

So, finally the point of all this waffle.... A good tape simulator will not only tame your peaks in a way that prevents the good stuff being compromised. It also adds the distortion and noise characteristic's that make us feel warm inside.

J B Ferox is an excellent FREE one available on the net here.

Download it and do a little test. Drums are perfect for this due to their massive peak to RMS ratio. Find or create a snare track, limit it with ANY limiter you care to use. Now do the same thing with Ferox and see which one sounds better.
My money is on your choosing the tape simulation.
.
.
.
.

Auratone - the industry backbone !?

Quite a statement to make but hear me out (well, read me out).

There's always lot's of discussion on the net about which monitors to use in your studio. Is X better than Y? What about NS10's? Should I use a sub woofer?
All valid questions, but the thing is most people don't listen to your mixes on any of this stuff.
Your most important monitoring device should be a small MONO aurotone speaker or something equivalent.
You can spot them in lot's of pictures of REAL recording studio's, that little box in the middle of the desk above the meter bridge.
A lot of mixing gets done with just this single speaker and here's why.......

- Mixing in mono gives you a very acurate perspective on your phase issues.
- Small, single driver speakers tell you a lot about what's happening in the mid frequencies.
- If you can get it sounding great on this it only get's better in stereo.
- In mono there is a lot less ear fatigue during the mixing process.

The sad thing is that the original Aurotone's are no longer manufactured.
The good news is that there is a very good replacement available and here it is....

Avantone mixcubes. Very classy, very good, NOT that expensive.
Check out there website here.
.
.

A bit of fun... Gil Elvgren

A bit of fun....