Joe Barresi on guitar amp miking
Friday, January 13th, 2012Uber Producer/Engineer Joe Barresi explains and demonstrates how he records electric guitars.
Archive for the ‘Tutorial’ Category
Time Adjusting a Multi-mic Performance
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011Several times in the past few years of doing the Home Recording Show podcast, we’ve had listeners write in asking about phase and often wondering why we can’t just move the tracks around after recording. Usually we answer saying that it can be done for guitars and a few other sources but never on drums and its not the same as actually moving the mic.
In the past month I’ve actually done this technique a few times on some tracks that were a little carelessly recorded and some others that just needed a little help. In all cases it has helped. Even if you’re super careful about mic positioning, this can be a very useful technique to know.
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Before I get into techniques and examples, I’ll give you the best reason I can think of for why shifting a recorded track is not the same as moving a mic.
Its not the same in any case where there is bleed or off axis sound. If you move the mic, you’re changing the off axis sound as well as the direct sound. If you time adjust, you’re just changing the relationship of that sound to another, the direct sound and bleed move together. If you time adjust by any large amount you could end up causing more problems because while the direct sound sources are in phase, the off axis sounds are not. You may also run into a situation where that causes an echoing effect when combined with other mics.
With that said, if there is already a problem with the tracks, its worth a try.
If you’re confused about what this is all about, let me play some examples.
Guitar Example
I was given some guitar tracks as part of a mix. There is an SM57 and an AT4033 on the amp. I don’t know the exact positions other than that the 4033 was a little further away. The mics sound ok on their own but are completely useless when combined.
Shure SM57
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Audio-Technica 4033
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Both mics combined.
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Inverting polarity on one mic.
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Techniques
As you can hear, there’s an obvious comb filtering issue and it doesn’t go away with the polarity switch alone.
At this point we have a few options
- get rid of one of the mics. The downside being that either mics is kinda boring
- time adjust by nudging the second file earlier
- time adjust by delaying the first track
Options 2 or 3 will have the same result. One method is not really better or worse.
I don’t like option 1. It makes me feel lazy.
With either option 2 or 3 I need to get a rough estimate of how much offset there is. This means finding a transient and zooming in close.
When it’s the same source with two mics the waveforms should be fairly similar. Find a transient on the first track and drag a selection to that peak on the second track.
Set your timebase in the DAW to samples and you should see how much of a delay you need to compensate for.
You can use either method to time adjust.
In Reaper there is brilliant feature that makes nudging the audio in this type of situation very easy. Reaper has an option to show a mono waveform of the combined active tracks within a folder. You can actually see the two waveforms stacked. Simply drag one of the tracks and line up the waveforms. As far as I know this only works in Reaper. [see image up at the top]
In Pro Tools you would set your nudge value to be the same number of samples we calculated earlier. Nudge either the close mic later, or far mic earlier.
If the mics were fairly close together it should be under 300 samples. In this case it was just 56 samples.
If you want to use a plugin for this, find one that works in samples and enter the value.
Let’s here how these mics combine after adjustment.
Time adjusted combined mics
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SO much better, and we have a sound that is more tonally interesting than either mic alone.
Ensemble example
Here is another situation. This is a 3 track live recording in Cuba I was given to mix and master. There are two Neumann M150s omni tube condensers in front of the musicians and a cardioid mic within the group to pick up vocals and percussion.
Original mix
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I found that shifting the tracks slightly improved the center image and made the recording sound a little more focused, it is a fairly subtle change. In this case I used the left side mic as the target, as it was latest and adjusted the right side by 194 samples and center mic by 513.
Time adjusted
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Drum kit example
If you’re still interested in this at all, you probably want to know how it works on a drum kit. Until today I haven’t tried.
I have a drum kit with 2 overheads, kick, snare and 3 tom mics. I’m going to use the snare as the standard and move the other tracks around to match.
Here are the drums with just levels, panning and polarity. No EQ or any other processing .
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On the drums, at least on this recording, the change was very subtle. The longest delay was 190 samples between the snare and overheads. Only 4ms. That’s a tiny amount. The result is a little less wide having removed the distance from the overheads to the snare.
After timing adjustment
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Sometimes it makes a huge difference, sometimes its subtle. I think its worth a few minutes of experimenting even when you are very careful about your mic placement.
This content was originally written for The Home Recording Show episode #141. Click here to listen and hear the discussion.
Guest Post: Analog Warmth
Monday, December 12th, 2011This guest post comes from Barry Gardner, mastering engineer at Safe And Sound online mastering.
You may also like his previous contribution to AGZ, The 24 Bit Advantage.
Analogue warmth, what it is, and how to inject it into your recordings and mixes.
Warmth in the context of audio production, is a hot topic. With the popularity of almost all digital signal paths, it has become much cheaper to record, mix and master your music. However many musicians, producers and engineers feel that there is sometimes an elusive sound quality missing from modern digital production methods. In modern times, three common techniques in music recording and production have changed since domestic and DIY audio production has proliferated. These are namely, the use of multi-track tape machines, large format analogue consoles and large recording studio spaces. These changes are the more obvious ones and have definitely changed the quality of audio.
Defining warmth in recordings and mixes.
Analogue warmth is subjective and difficult to describe in words and everyone’s interpretation is slightly different. However there are a few statements which appear to be commonly accepted as characterizing warmth within a mix or recording.
- A gelling of instruments, yet without compromising their own defined space in both tone and stereo image.
- A lack of harshness and rounded quality.
- A punchy and smooth sounding lower mid range.
- Not excessively bright and the brightness that is present is smooth.
- A punchy low frequency range.
To me personally, warmth can be a number of things. I can recall analogue tape recordings from the 1970′s which I would define as being warm. I can also produce something I define as warm with simple attenuation of high frequencies. In some instances a very rounded sound with a strong lower mid presence can sound warm to the ear. With this in mind I would like to suggest some pointers on how to create warmer sounding mixes and recordings.
What equipment and techniques can we use to enhance warmth?
All music recording starts with setting up microphones, experiment with different mic positioning or mic choices in order to get less bright recordings, although take care not to box yourself into a corner, double mic instruments with secondary ribbon or dynamic mics in addition to your usual choices.
A common source of warmth can be certain audio transformers which can reduce harshness in the upper registers and provide additional body in the lower mid range. There is a wide selection of vintage and retro styled mic preamps that utilize audio transformers at the input stage. Audio transformers are usually used at the inputs and outputs of equipment and can be found in many outboard equipment types such as equalizers and compressors as well as microphones. They are often overlooked in the quest for warmth.
One of the most powerful tools which is overlooked for generation of warmth is equalization, you have the power to sculpt and adjust sounds as is required. Do not be afraid to experiment with rolling off high frequencies to reduce harshness, presence and brittleness in a mix. You can also employ EQ on effects returns to soften them and make them gel better with the source.
Compression has the ability to smooth transients in recordings and fast attack times with 1dB or so of gain reduction can work wonders in smoothing out abrasive, harsh and aggressive transients in a mix. Analogue tape applied a natural form of compression when overloaded gently. It is a technique that can be used to good effect. Very gentle group or master bus compression can also provide a sense of “wholeness”.
In addition to these essential tools, in software form there is an emulation of virtually every piece of classic analogue studio equipment ever built. Often these software emulations rely on some kind of valve/tube saturation. In my experience valves do not add warmth as such but they can give a perception of thickening a sound as harmonics are added. Some emulations are better than others and I suggest keeping an open mind and downloading some demo’s and spending some quality listening time with them. Try and discern which ones seem to add that special something in terms of tone.
By experimenting with these techniques and equipment choices you should be able to start adding some warmth to your mixes. As always when experimenting in audio production take some time to rest your ears over night and double check that you have not laid the processing on too thick.
This guest post comes from Barry Gardner, mastering engineer at Safe And Sound online mastering.
You may also like his previous contribution to AGZ, The 24 Bit Advantage.
Guest Post: Learn How To Mix In 3D
Friday, November 25th, 2011This 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:
1. A traditional digital reverb
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:
Listen to Mike Koglin: Reverse Vocal FX in Ableton Tutorial:
[video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W7RbXtLGjzs
Jonny Miller: Reverb – Dub FX Tutorial:
[video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bQ0DopG3Bqs
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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
Tuning Drums – Part One – Basics – Acoustic Drums for Metal
Thursday, June 16th, 2011This video comes from Glenn at Spectre Sound. Great tom tuning tutorial.
Creating Space And Depth
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011One 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.
Photo credit: Brian Niesz
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.
