This guest post comes from Steve Hillier, a songwriter, DJ and record producer, who has worked with everyone from Keane to Gary Numan. Steve is also a journalist and music technology expert, writing for Future Music & BBC Worldwide. Steve teaches Music Business and Logic Music Production Online at Point Blank Music School
Master the use of reverb and your lifeless, two-dimensional mix will become a three dimensional panorama, says Steve Hillier.
Things that people do wrong with their music:
1. Write a composition starting with the drums. This is madness. Can you imagine Lennon and McCartney waiting for Ringo to set up his drum kit before writing their next Beatles smash? Obviously not.
2. Compress everything. At least twice. Anyone doing this in their mixes should stop now. Modern DAWs have an internal dynamic range that’s comparable to a pin dropping versus the sound of the big bang. Try using it, rather than squashing your music to the flatness of a pancake being sucked into a black hole . Compressors are like guns…only the sane should ever pick one up.
3. Use reverb badly, or not at all…
Unlike compression, everyone likes reverb. How can I say this with such confidence? Because nearly everything you’ve ever heard has been covered with reverb. Everything. Reverberation is what you hear when the sound from an event, such as a gun shot, bounces off a reflective surface, such as a wall, and then into our ears. It’s a fundamental attribute of how we experience sound, and our brains have evolved to use the information contained in reverb to help us survive in our everyday lives. If we’re hearing lots of sounds with long reverb tails on them, that suggests we’re in a large room, such as a church. Lots of short ‘early reflections’, we’re probably in a small room. Everything we hear has some reverberation on it before it ends up in our ears (we’ll ignore scientists who work in anechoic chambers for today).
Too many novice programmers don’t know how to use reverb, so they shy away from it, leaving their mixes dryer than Stewart Lee. Or they go the other way and use completely the wrong reverb sound, and get wetter than a Michael McIntyre show. Maybe programmers are confusing acoustic size with acoustic impact? Imagine this text on your page is your tune:
This is your mix,
This is your mix with the correct use of reverb on it,
Here’s your mix with a little too much reverb on it,
And here it is with way too much!
The effective use of reverb will make a component of a mix sound bigger, fuller and more comfortable for your audience. Without it, the sound will be tiny and illogical; think about it, in real life when will you ever hear a big dry sound? The answer is never. Ever! On the other hand, too much reverb and the mix will be wet and flabby, too big for anyone to comprehend.
How to use reverb:
So what do we do then? First, you need a decent reverb unit or plugin, don’t use just any old reverb plugin. I have a theory that the reason that reverb went out of fashion was related to the fact everyone used way to much of it in the eighties. And many of them were using horrible cheap digital units*. There’s no excuse for that today. Invest some money and buy one each of both of these:
A convolution reverb unit works by generating reverb tails based on impulse responses, recordings of reverberations from a real-world environment. They sound amazing; the best are extremely realistic and open up a world of possibilities. But you’ll need a traditional digital reverb too, probably a plugin based on classic hardware form the past. Since the late 1970s and up until about five years ago pretty much all reverb on records was simulated in some way, often by a microprocessor delaying audio, feeding it back into itself, doing some clever filtering and sticking it out the other end. It sounds great, if a little synthetic. But who cares? This is the sound of records, and they still sound great now.
Here’s how I use reverb in my own work. Your mileage may vary but most mix engineers I know use this approach or a variation on it:
1. Set up three reverb plugins as send effects on a bus, not as insert effects. The first will be short (less than 0.5 sec) and come from a convolution reverb using a room impulse response. The second will be a traditional digital reverb sound, such as a plate reverb, set to around 1.5 seconds decay. The last will be a ‘third option’, normally reserved for vocals and normally another plate or hall sound.
2. I then balance my sounds without reverb. Please note that I only use the bare minimum of compression at this point too!
3. When I’m happy with my mix, I then start placing my sounds in an imaginary three dimensional space. The shorter reverb sound places the drums and other high energy or rhythmical sound sources at the front of my stage, the larger reverbs put those sounds slightly further back and into a supporting role. The more reverb, the bigger the sound but also how far away it is.
Thinking of your mix as a three dimensional illusion is crucial for a comfortable and exciting result. Without reverb, your mix will sound like it’s stuck inside the speakers. Reverb brings the sounds alive and gives them the opportunity to leap out of headphones!
Why do so many programmers get this bit wrong?
What this all comes down to, time and time again, is the disconnect that bad programmers have between their brains and their ears and their music. They get into the habit of searching for answers to why their work isn’t working with the same cognitive tools that they use to explain why their internet router isn’t connecting to their laptop. This is not how music works. Our ears and our hearts should guide 99% of our musical work, the remaining 1% comes from experience and knowing how to use our equipment. So, from here on, start listening carefully to what’s going on around you. Listen to the difference between the sound of talking voices in a car and in the street. That’s reverb. Listen to the difference between the sound of tune in a club or in your iPhone headphones. That’s reverb. Listen to the sound of you brushing your teeth in a tiled bathroom. That’s reverb. And then, listen very carefully to the difference between your lifeless, static, two-dimensional mixes and three dimensional panoramas of the artists you most admire.
*Actually, the MIDIverb does have some great uses and you can probably pick one up for nothing at a jumble sale now if you look hard enough. Just don’t use it as your primary reverb tool.
For more inspiration on using reverb have a look at these videos:
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This guest post comes from Steve Hillier, a songwriter, DJ and record producer, who has worked with everyone from Keane to Gary Numan. Steve is also a journalist and music technology expert, writing for Future Music & BBC Worldwide. Steve teaches Music Business and Logic Music Production Online at Point Blank Music School
This guest post comes from Barry Gardner, mastering engineer at SafeandSound online mastering
The 24 bit advantage
These days almost all digital audio workstations have the option to record and operate at 24 bit resolution. In fact it is highly likely that the vast majority of musicians and engineers are already setting their DAW’s up to work at 24 bit. 24 has a number of advantages over operating at 16 bit. I am going to explain a very important advantage which may not be as obvious. It relates to mixing reference levels on your stereo master output bus. Firstly we have to look at record levels because this is where the initial advantages occur. When you record at 24 bit resolution you have a much greater theoretical dynamic range. This means that the noise floor of the recording in the digital realm is much lower than recording at 16 bit. It is theoretically 48 dB lower than at 16 bit. So as a consequence there is no need to record anywhere as hot as when using 16 bit. In fact, a suggested recording level for 24 bit would be to have an average signal level of -18dBFS. You could even have peak signals at this level without detriment to audio fidelity. With peaks at -18dBFS at 24 bit your noise floor is still theoretically 30dB better than that at 16bit. An additional bonus effect is that to obtain peak levels of -18dBFS your mic preamps, compressors and mixer channels will be operating at a lower electrical level which means a cleaner and clearer recording. (more…)
One of the challenges we face as home studio enthusiasts is creating lifelike music with a realistic three dimensional soundstage. When recording direct with guitars and synthesizers there is no interaction with the instrument and the room, the sound comes out of nowhere and it can be a challenge mixing several of these disembodied performers into something that sounds real. Recorded music is an illusion, you can shape it however you want, these tips should help.
Room Mics
Space and depth are tricky things to fake. Your best chance is to capture it with some microphones. Guitars: When setting up to record electric guitar use both close and far microphones. The far mics (aka room mics) pick up the natural early reflections and reverb of the room. The blend of close and far mics will be the balance of front to back positioning in the mix. Drums: If you are recording real drums, set up a couple mics as far back from the drums as possible, up in the ceiling corners can work well. You can even try pointing them away from the drums so they pick up only the reflections off the walls. Keyboards: Electronic instruments like keyboards and synthesizers can be treated in the same way as the guitars. Run them through an amp with some room mics.
If your recording room is not giving you a long enough reverb, you can try compression to increase the sustain.
Re-amping
Re-amping is taking a prerecorded track (usually direct) and running it out or the recording system into an amp or PA and recording it again with some mics in a real space. This is one of the most effective ways of faking it. Rather than using a reverb plugin which tends to push things too far away or is just unrealistic, an instrument into amp to a microphone in a room doesn’t get any more real. Re-amping is the next best thing. Use a re-amp box for the best results. Guitars: Same as above, run the signal into an amp and mic it close and/or far. If you want to use a virtual amp, you can do it with or without cabinet emulation depending on what you want to do. Virtual instruments: I have a good friend that programs synths in Pro Tools then runs them through some real amps. He places the amp several feet from a shelf with his record collection and mics the records rather than the amp with a stereo pair of condensers. This makes a virtual instrument sound so much more authentic just by getting some air moving and sound bouncing off things. Virtual drums: Make a blend of drums and send it out of your audio interface and into a lively room. You get the benefits of MIDI drums but a lot more authenticity by using your own room mics. As always, experiment with mic position for the best results.
Echo
Staying inside the box, you can add echo to place an instrument in a space. By echo I mean a short delay effect that gets darker (highs reduced) with each repeat. This will not be an entirely realistic space but it can work well for vocals as an alternative to reverb, it tends to clutter less. A little goes a long way. If you keep this mono the sound will appear to be reflecting off a wall somewhere behind the source.
The Haas Effect The Haas Effect is a psychoacoustic concept that explains how humans localize sound. In other words, this is how we figure out what direction a sound is coming from. We can fake this with any simple delay and level control. By panning and faking a single reflection on the opposite side we can make an illusion of where this sound is coming from. Depending on the level and timing of the reflection, that places the source closer or farther from that imaginary wall and us as a listener. Very interesting stuff. This is also a great way to stereo widen something and this is a staple of my bag of mixing tricks.
Reverb
Finally we get to Reverb plugins, which was likely your first choice for creating the illusion of space and depth. Reverb is very hard to get perfect. The balance of level, reverb time, pre-delay and damping are all critical. We tend to like the sound of reverb and use too much, especially as it seems to hide our mistakes (not the way to fix mistakes). The reverb in a room rarely overlaps the performance or is even noticeable as a discrete element until it’s inappropriate for the music. The speed of the music is also definitely a factor with regards to how much reverb can be added without becoming cluttered, muddy, indistinct, etc. A huge lush cathedral verb just does not work with speed metal, but a smaller wooden recording room with a short decay will enhance without drawing attention to itself. That’s the trick and it can be very time consuming.
There is also the possibility that your music DOESN’T need to be in a realistic space. Clever use of unrealistic space can be the thing that makes your music stand out from the rest. Spring and gated reverbs don’t sound like anything naturally occurring but are undeniably effective tools in the correct circumstances. NO reverb, NO depth, and NO space could also be the perfect solution for your musical style.
Below I’ve compiled some of my favorite tips that have helped me over the years on the path of learn to mix. I swear by them and guarantee they will help your home studio productions.
For a less cluttered mix, use hipass and lowpass filters to better define the range of each instrument. The free BX_Cleansweep plugin will be your new best friend.
Automate everything. With the powerful automation functions available in your DAW there’s no reason to set levels to be just “good enough” for the whole song. Fine tune balances for every section, phrase or syllable if you have to. Same goes for sends and effects.
Left, Right, or Center. Nearly every element of your song can be assigned to one of those 3 panning positions. Don’t fret about finding the perfect pan position for every instrument, or try to make it completely lifelike. Anything other than hard left or right and center will translate differently on every system. You can save those in-between positions for a few select elements.
Take breaks to rest your ears and reset your perspective. Mixing is hard work, every couple hours you need to stop, relax and refresh your body. Interruptions and distractions don’t count as breaks.
All edits completed first. Drum editing, vocal comping and tuning, pocketing bass to kick drum. Those things should be taken care of before the mix stage otherwise you will not be able to develop and maintain a creative flow for the mix.
Experiment. Skip the presets and what seemed to work last time. Take things to the extreme, make things distort, use guitar effects for vocals. Try out all your tools and see what makes them break. Just have fun with it. On your way you will find some unique sounds that can only be found by avoiding the presets.
I wrote this article for the latest Revolution Audio newsletter. Check them out if you’re looking for recording gear in Canada.
Vocal Processing And Mixing Tips
Last time I shared some tips for recording great vocals, now lets get them sitting right with the rest of the track.
Cleanup – Before anything, clean up the vocal tracks. Go through and trim the silence around each phrase. Remove any noise, thumps, clicks, pops and gasps. Fade in or out on each edit.
Pitch Correction – Gentle pitch correction with software like Melodyne is a big part in getting that professional sounding vocal we all strive for in our home studio productions. Be careful with this! Doing it right takes time and practice. Over tuned vocals are about as bad as out of tune vocals (you can hear both on American Idol).
EQ – There are no rules and every voice is different but here are some starting points. A high-pass filter (low cut) can be used to clean up the very lows (below 100Hz). 200-600Hz can be gently boosted or cut depending on the voice to add thickness or compensate for proximity. 1kHz-3kHz is usually where the clarity of the vocals is. Above that is brightness, bite, air but look out for sibilance. How much you can boost here depends on the song.
Compression – When it comes to controlling vocal dynamics, using two compressors doing less individually often yields the most transparent result. Use a compressor with fast attack and high ratio (10:1) working just on the peaks, ignoring everything else. The second compressor is set with a 4:1 ratio, a slower attack and release and threshold set so it is always compressing about 2-4dB.
Reverb – Reverb is an effect you’ll want on a separate channel (aux track in Pro Tools, FX Channel in Cubase) rather than having it right on the vocal track. Use a send to add the reverb to the vocals. The reverb time should be related to the tempo of the song, it can really clutter the mix if it’s not. Hall and Plate are the most common types of reverb for vocals. Shaping the reverb sound with EQ is recommended.
Automation – Automating the volume level of the vocals is absolutely essential to getting the vocal to sit right where you want it throughout the song. Automating the reverb send for the vocal will allow you to have just the right amount at any time. You can also automate effects like chorus and delays for the vocals to keep things interesting through the song.
iZotope Nectar – A great all-in-one tool for vocal processing is iZotope Nectar. Eleven effects in one plugin including EQ, Compression, Auto and Manual Pitch Correction, reverb, delay and more.
