The Stereo Bus Blog - Daily Music Production Tips

This post focuses on an experiment with my new Focusrite Liquid Mix, with which I mixed and mastered a song of mine that was in need of polishing.

First of all, I will be out of town until the 19th… meaning that I won’t be making any posts here at TSB until then.  But, I thought I’d offer you something to make up for it: free music!
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This post focuses on ways to use visual audio scopes to gain more understanding about what’s going on in your audio.

It’s important to state right off the bat that working with audio should primarily be an auditory experience.  In general people won’t be looking at visual representations of audio as much as they will be listening to the audio.  And ears are more accurate than eyes.  There are lots of situations where audio looks awful on a scope but sounds incredible.  Scopes can, however, be very useful for gaining a different perspective on your material.  Sometimes the speakers available don’t reveal as much of the lows or highs as is needed for the material, for instance.  Using scopes to dissect phasing, frequency response, and peak levels can further inform the impressions your ears are giving you.
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This post focuses on the use of analog tape’s warm, unique compression as an effect.

When engineers and producers started to make the switch from analog to digital, they found that digital was not only cleaner sound, but it was also somewhat unforgiving.  Most producers were quite fond of ‘driving’ the tape a bit by sending it slightly higher levels than the tape was normalized for.  Turns out that the sound produced by this overdriving was a subtle compression resulting from the saturation of the magnetic medium.  If you try to throw signal at digital above and beyond what it is normalized for, you’ll end up with brick-wall distortion.  This is one of the reasons why tape is considered by many to be warmer and ‘fatter’ sounding.  Drums, in particular, work extremely well with tape because the compression allows for a rounding of the transients and a certain punch not typically found in the digital domain.  I know some engineers who still track drums to 2 inch tape.

Digital captures exactly what it’s given, whether good or bad.  As a result, piping in warm, punchy signal from an analog tape machine will be captured warm and punchy.  So, if you have access to a high quality tape machine, why not take advantage of it?

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This post focuses on the use of MIDI Time Code (MTC) and MIDI Machine Control (MMC) to synchronize multiple DAWs together.

SMPTE timecode was create for the purpose of synchronizing audio systems together, such as tape machines, computers, and other time sensitive audio devices.  MIDI timecode is an extension of SMPTE timecode into the MIDI format and is very useful for synchronizing MIDI enabled devices, such as DAWs, together.  Some possibilities for these sorts of arrangements include using one DAW’s transport to control other machines, using transport controls on your keyboard or controller to control the transport in your DAW, syncing sequencers/samplers to your DAW, and tempo-synching filters in synthesizer systems.
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This post focuses on the process of getting the vocal chain right for the given performer.

The signal chain for vocals is probably one of the most important production choices in pop music.  Of course, it helps to have a healthy selection of devices to choose from.  Every voice has unique qualities, some of which should be emphasized and some of which should be de-emphasized.  The tools available to accomplish this are, in order of affectiveness: microphone selection, mic placement, and preamp selection.

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This post focuses on the topic of using direct injection/input to bring clarity to traditionally recorded tracks.

When you were first starting out in the world of audio, you probably tried something along the lines of plugging a guitar or bass directly into your audio interface or mixer.   I know I did this and learned very quickly that the tone that results is less than stellar or interesting.  It’s extremely dry, lacks harmonic content, and sounds brittle.  But, in the right situations, these very same qualities can be a godsend when blended with a regularly amped sound.  Hence we end up with the technique of blending DI sounds with their amped counterparts, which is most commonly used with electric bass.
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This post focuses on how to create your own cables using raw connectors and bulk cable.

There are some great advantages to making your own cables: you determine the quality, you choose the length, it’s usually cheaper, and you learn in the process.  Cables are one of the most marked-up categories of things sold in stores.  My first job was cashier at a CompUSA and I was shocked that the USB cables sold there had nearly a 1,000% mark-up.  It’s not much different in the audio world.  Cables are sold with high margins to make up for the low margins on more price competitive, expensive items. I find that I can save between 60-85% by making my own cables, when compared to cables of similar quality in the store.
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This post focuses on how monitoring with different kinds of speakers will help you achieve better mixes.

One of the things that sets professional studios apart from hobbyist studios is their collection of monitors.  Most studios have at least a couple pairs of monitors, from nearfields to farfields.  Many have boomboxes and ‘hi-fi’ stereos to give even more diverse listening options.  Having monitoring diversity helps reveal weak spots in the way the music translates from system to system.
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This post focuses on the technique of comping, or creating a composite performance from various elements of multiple performances.

It used to be that in order to get a recording of a performance the performers had to run straight through the material.  But ever since the invention of overdubbing people have been changing the way music is made and performed for recordings.  In the analog days, tape was cut a spliced together to create edits in the material.  Now this process is even easier with computers.  A standard practice for many producers is ‘comping’, or the creation of a track that incorporates the best sections of multiple performances.  This is in contrast to another common technique called ‘punching’, where a performance is overwritten for a while with new recording passes until the desired performance is captured (at which point the recording continues with the material already on tape).

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This post focuses on using ring modulators, vocoders, or other tone resonating devices to produce artificial chords.

Creating unique sounds is a constant challenge.  Sometimes things just sound too ‘plain’ and you need to pull something totally off-the-wall out of your hat.  In these situations, it can be really interesting to grab resonating devices such as ring modulators, vocoders, and even pitch-correction plugins for some unconventional usage.

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