MUSIC PRODUCTION
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A
I remember there were a few into dubstep. I, myself, just started music production. I'm mainly into songwriting and recording (vocals and keys). I've just started (which you already knew) playing around with mixing.
I don't really have the pro equipments yet. My room doesn't even have those acoustic panels. I use the following equipments:
Scarlet Solo USB audio interface
AT 2020 xlr condenser mic
Korg Micro Keys MIDI controller
Sony MDR 7506 monitor headphones
& Garageband (I'll get Logic when I get a keyboard/arranger).
I will share my music projects here when I get them done. As I have a fulltime job, I only get to work on music every few days (I work 15 days a month though
so lots of downtime). I wrote a few songs, and I'll make em arrangement after understanding the basics of mixing and recording. I'm very new to all this (never too late to start! lol) so I have not much of a portfolio to share.
I joined the sound ministry at our church (with Joseph Prince) and they have equipments I've never seen before lol for live monitoring, broadcast and recording. So I'm trying to learn as much as I can before I officially start. I had my orientation last week.
I know there's a few more in here that are into this stuff too, they're just either shy or too lazy to post
I don't really have the pro equipments yet. My room doesn't even have those acoustic panels. I use the following equipments:
Scarlet Solo USB audio interface
AT 2020 xlr condenser mic
Korg Micro Keys MIDI controller
Sony MDR 7506 monitor headphones
& Garageband (I'll get Logic when I get a keyboard/arranger).
I will share my music projects here when I get them done. As I have a fulltime job, I only get to work on music every few days (I work 15 days a month though
so lots of downtime). I wrote a few songs, and I'll make em arrangement after understanding the basics of mixing and recording. I'm very new to all this (never too late to start! lol) so I have not much of a portfolio to share. I joined the sound ministry at our church (with Joseph Prince) and they have equipments I've never seen before lol for live monitoring, broadcast and recording. So I'm trying to learn as much as I can before I officially start. I had my orientation last week.
I know there's a few more in here that are into this stuff too, they're just either shy or too lazy to post
Here's some Reverb plugin tips for traditional Rock, Pop, Blues, Country, Gospel, etc. style arrangements:
In the early days of analog recording, instruments and vocals were recorded a couple feet away from the mic. This allowed more of the sound of the 'room' ambiance to be recorded with the instrument or vocal (memories of heavy room echoes on vocals, like singing in a bathroom).
Today, most recording is close-mic, meaning the instrument or vocal is up close to the mic, and it is a 'dry' sound, very little if any of the room's sound recorded with it. Recording close mic'd helps prevent phase issues caused by other instruments in the room bleeding into the mic. So this became the preferred method for major studios and modern recording. It went further with individual sound booths to separate mic bleed from other instruments even more, and it still excluded room ambiance even more, making the result a very dry recording.
Because modern reverbs are able to reproduce whatever type of room ambiance your heart could desire, dry close-mic recording became a standard.
So just slap on a reverb plugin, pick a preset you like, and go with it? is that what the studios did and do? Not exactly. Picking the type of reverb and preset is just for starters. It's important to know a little of how real reverb in a room works.
In a small club setting, when you hear the vocalist, do they sound like they're within a foot from you? No. Even with no reverb added to the sound system, the room's reflections are going to affect how you hear that vocalist, whether they are five feet from you, or forty feet from you. Those reflections are then added to the sound of the vocalist, either with a PA system or without. And those reflections will be returns from bouncing off the walls, floor, and ceiling in the room, so they will have a slight time delay based on how large the room is.
So how do you use reverb plugins to get closer to the natural way we actually hear it? slap on a reverb plugin and then a delay plugin? Not necessarily. You use 3 different reverb plugins, each set to a specific setup.
1. The first reverb - this is a very short reverb, used just to move the instrument/vocal back away from the mic a little, just so the instrument/vocal is not right up in your face. By short, it means the reverberation time is set very short, something between 10 - 30 milliseconds. And only a little of this verb is applied, just enough to move the instrument/vocal back a little. The type of reverb to use is the 'early reflection' setting which most reverb plugins feature. So the purpose of this first reverb is to create 'Distance'. You don't want the highs of this reverb to be bright, so you apply an EQ high cut filter and filter some of those highs. It should barely be noticeable, like if you turned it off you'd know something was missing, but it wouldn't be obvious.
2. The second reverb - this is another reverb, but of a different type than the first one. A good one to use here is a 'plate'. The purpose of this reverb is to simulate 'Depth', like creating space between the instrument and the back of the mix. Again, this reverb should not be obvious, so you also cut back on its highs, you don't want it to attract attention to itself. Also be careful of the low end, make sure it's not too 'fat', using an EQ low cut filter. Also make sure the reverberation time (or length) is set to match the tempo of the song. If the tempo is fast, you don't want to hear the verb bleed over between notes. If the song tempo is slow, you don't want it too short where you hear it cut in and cut out.
3. The third reverb - a 'Hall' reverb for this one, to create Height. Instruments closer to us, we hear more of the reverberations bouncing off the ceiling, which gives us the sense of height in the room. So with this one, it's OK to boost the high end with a shelf EQ starting around 3kHz up, about 1dB boost.
Not all instruments need all three reverbs. For a kick drum you'd want to be more careful with the low end from 200Hz downward, and reduce the 350Hz area some to prevent muddiness. Same with synths on the low end, be careful applying reverb on the low end of anything that sounds boomy. The 250Hz to 400Hz area is where just about every instrument has some frequencies that can pile up and create muddiness.
Which instruments get what? -
kick, toms - Distance verb mostly.
snare - Distance and Height, you don't want the snare back too far.
bass guitar - very little Distance and/or Depth
electric guitars - Distance mostly, and a little Depth for placement, or a little delay.
piano/keys - Distance, and Height, and a little Depth just for placement.
synths - Distance, and Depth
vocal - Distance and Height
Another reverb tip, one used by Abbey Road studio - apply an EQ prior to each reverb plugin. Set the EQ low filter up to 600Hz, and the high filter down to 10kHz. The reason is that when every instrument has a lot of reverb on it, all those frequencies can pile up to create a muddy sounding mix. So the idea is to only use just whatever amount of reverb the instrument/vocal needs, along with a smaller footprint. This gives each instrument better separation.
In the early days of analog recording, instruments and vocals were recorded a couple feet away from the mic. This allowed more of the sound of the 'room' ambiance to be recorded with the instrument or vocal (memories of heavy room echoes on vocals, like singing in a bathroom).
Today, most recording is close-mic, meaning the instrument or vocal is up close to the mic, and it is a 'dry' sound, very little if any of the room's sound recorded with it. Recording close mic'd helps prevent phase issues caused by other instruments in the room bleeding into the mic. So this became the preferred method for major studios and modern recording. It went further with individual sound booths to separate mic bleed from other instruments even more, and it still excluded room ambiance even more, making the result a very dry recording.
Because modern reverbs are able to reproduce whatever type of room ambiance your heart could desire, dry close-mic recording became a standard.
So just slap on a reverb plugin, pick a preset you like, and go with it? is that what the studios did and do? Not exactly. Picking the type of reverb and preset is just for starters. It's important to know a little of how real reverb in a room works.
In a small club setting, when you hear the vocalist, do they sound like they're within a foot from you? No. Even with no reverb added to the sound system, the room's reflections are going to affect how you hear that vocalist, whether they are five feet from you, or forty feet from you. Those reflections are then added to the sound of the vocalist, either with a PA system or without. And those reflections will be returns from bouncing off the walls, floor, and ceiling in the room, so they will have a slight time delay based on how large the room is.
So how do you use reverb plugins to get closer to the natural way we actually hear it? slap on a reverb plugin and then a delay plugin? Not necessarily. You use 3 different reverb plugins, each set to a specific setup.
1. The first reverb - this is a very short reverb, used just to move the instrument/vocal back away from the mic a little, just so the instrument/vocal is not right up in your face. By short, it means the reverberation time is set very short, something between 10 - 30 milliseconds. And only a little of this verb is applied, just enough to move the instrument/vocal back a little. The type of reverb to use is the 'early reflection' setting which most reverb plugins feature. So the purpose of this first reverb is to create 'Distance'. You don't want the highs of this reverb to be bright, so you apply an EQ high cut filter and filter some of those highs. It should barely be noticeable, like if you turned it off you'd know something was missing, but it wouldn't be obvious.
2. The second reverb - this is another reverb, but of a different type than the first one. A good one to use here is a 'plate'. The purpose of this reverb is to simulate 'Depth', like creating space between the instrument and the back of the mix. Again, this reverb should not be obvious, so you also cut back on its highs, you don't want it to attract attention to itself. Also be careful of the low end, make sure it's not too 'fat', using an EQ low cut filter. Also make sure the reverberation time (or length) is set to match the tempo of the song. If the tempo is fast, you don't want to hear the verb bleed over between notes. If the song tempo is slow, you don't want it too short where you hear it cut in and cut out.
3. The third reverb - a 'Hall' reverb for this one, to create Height. Instruments closer to us, we hear more of the reverberations bouncing off the ceiling, which gives us the sense of height in the room. So with this one, it's OK to boost the high end with a shelf EQ starting around 3kHz up, about 1dB boost.
Not all instruments need all three reverbs. For a kick drum you'd want to be more careful with the low end from 200Hz downward, and reduce the 350Hz area some to prevent muddiness. Same with synths on the low end, be careful applying reverb on the low end of anything that sounds boomy. The 250Hz to 400Hz area is where just about every instrument has some frequencies that can pile up and create muddiness.
Which instruments get what? -
kick, toms - Distance verb mostly.
snare - Distance and Height, you don't want the snare back too far.
bass guitar - very little Distance and/or Depth
electric guitars - Distance mostly, and a little Depth for placement, or a little delay.
piano/keys - Distance, and Height, and a little Depth just for placement.
synths - Distance, and Depth
vocal - Distance and Height
Another reverb tip, one used by Abbey Road studio - apply an EQ prior to each reverb plugin. Set the EQ low filter up to 600Hz, and the high filter down to 10kHz. The reason is that when every instrument has a lot of reverb on it, all those frequencies can pile up to create a muddy sounding mix. So the idea is to only use just whatever amount of reverb the instrument/vocal needs, along with a smaller footprint. This gives each instrument better separation.