Signal To Noise

How to make your tracks sound expensive, using compressors

Many audio tutorials on the net today are very general and never seem to leave you with an understanding that you can apply to your own music. Compressors are no exception, as discussions about what compression is and how to use it seem quite vague. Even some of the most professional electronic music artists I’ve met, still have trouble getting their heads around compression.

So what does a compressor do exactly?

A compressor whether it be hardware of software can be basically described as an automatic volume control. Loud sounds over a certain threshold are reduced in level while quiet sounds remain untreated. Compressors allow us the ablilty to control unwanted frequencies.

What’s the advantage of compression?

Lets imagine you have a great sounding bassline and it sounds similar to benny benassi’s however everytime the bass note is triggered there is an annoying click sound. you’ve tried your EQ and your synth’s envelopes but you just can’t reduce click without changing the sound. A compressor can help in this situation by reducing the volume of the peak that the click creates, dropping the click sound down into the mix.

Compression can also give fuzzy out of focus bass more solidity and tightness.

Now lets get our hands dirty!

Compressors normally have four basic parameters, Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release (ADSR), the secret to being able to use compressors effectively lies in the order in which you adjust these knobs. This sequence is extremely important as it prevents you from chasing your tail for the right setting, and allows you to control your sounds exactly as you intend. Before you start this tutorial it will help if you compare your sounds to artists that you listen to, you can use this as a point of reference when shaping your sounds.

Getting started

1. Set your compressor’s attack to anywhere
2. Fastest release setting
3. Ratio to maximum
4. Threshold to sensitive

1. ATTACK

The Attack Parameter controls how long (usually in milliseconds) it takes for the compressor to compress the sound.

Firstly make sure your compressor is setup as mentioned above (Getting started) then push some audio through the compressor by either lowering the threshold or increasing the input so you can see some activity in the meters.

As audio is fed into the compressor start playing with the attack knob, listen how it changes the sound, hear how the leading edge of the sound is dampened as you apply a faster attack setting. Try to ignore the rest of the sound and just focus on the attack for now. The settings you input into your compressor will vary depending on the sound you are compressing. If your snare drum sounds thin and snappy, then you’ll find using a slower attack will help thicken it. Starting with these settings on your compressor will allow you to clearly hear what the attack is doing, making it easier to fine tune. Remember attack controls the initial “hit” of the sound by controlling the time it takes for compression to duck the level. An example of this is a fast attack setting on a guitar, as this will allow the fingernail pluck through but will dampen the following strum. 

2. RELEASE

Next in the sequence is your release parameter.

Release controls the speed at which the sound returns to full volume after being compressed. The trick is to get that speed to become a musical component of the sound. Play with the release until you find a setting that supports the rhythm of the sound you are compressing. Listen to how the attack setting you’ve created has effected the way the sound is being punched away, and use your release setting to make the sound fly back at the speakers in a way that supports your groove. Don’t just use a compressor because someone told you to, use it to support the groove and purpose of the sound. Forget using compression to sink the sound into the mix, instead think more musically and I promise the penny will drop!

3. RATIO

Now that your happy with your attack and release settings it’s time to adjust the ratio.

The initial ratio setting was maximum which is way too much compression but it let us see just what our attack and release setting were doing to the target sound. Now your job is to lower the ratio as much as possible without losing the effects you created previously. High compression ratio makes the sound “smaller” but controlled, low ratio settings sound larger but are at risk of sounding unclear or out of control. Aim to find a balance between the two, listen carefully, monitor at a low volume and find the sweet spot big and tight.

4. THRESHOLD

The final step to fat expensive sounds will again require you to be patient and listen.

You don’t want your sound compressed all the time, remember compressors help control your sound not change it, so you want to set your threshold to control those spiking peaks. Play with your threshold knob until you get a nice balance between controlled sound and juicy raw bursts of flavor. This also allows dynamic sounds sound big and full in quieter moments but tight and fat in full voltage moments. You don’t want your compression meter to be active all the time, remember less is more and think groove.

Practice, practice and more practice will refine your skill in compression, but remember these techniques and you will come to understand how much fun compression really is.

REMEMBER: Compression is multiplicative, not additive so if you compress your mix 10:1 and then your mastering engineer compresses it 10:1 your track has not been compressed by 20:1 but 100:1 instead!

TIP: All signal processors sound best when used at least as possible, over using them screams beginner.

This Article is based on Paul Stavro’s Compression techniques which appears in “Mixing with your mind”

Also thanks to Adam Gillett for his thoughts.

GOOD LUCK 

Hyphen

Signal to Noise Expansion coming soon…

Signal to Noise is a space to watch…

I am personally happy to announce that Signal to Noise is currently undergoing a hugh expansion which will see the developement of a massive online resource and multi leveled user access. Although I cannot go into further detail at this stage I can say that Signal to Noise will become every Producer/Artist/DJ’s homepage.

Now is a great time to contribute your opinions and become apart of Signal to Noise as early contributors will gain higher ranking online status and STN upgrade waves (points that can be spent).

More about STN’s expansion will be released in upcoming weeks.

Chris Smith

Break the Noise/Develope the Signal

Studio Hardware

People always ask me “What hardware do you recommend?” my response is always “well what music do you write?” Studio hardware can vary quite a bit depending on the style of music you create, so I’d like to briefly discuss ways you can maximise your sound quality and work flow without costing you an arm and a leg.

If your serious about creating your own music it pays to do it right the first time. While I’m going to show you how to save money, let me tell you it not going to be cheap, I mean your Audigy soundcard just ain’t gonna cut it guys.

Computer System

First off lets start with your PC, if you buy a second hand or superseeded model then you’ve just cost yourself more money. Buy a PC that you can get a few years out of and one that can be easily upgraded when the time comes. Audio production demands a fast CPU, a large amount of RAM and plenty of Hard disk space but thankfully these days a powerful PC won’t cost you the world.

Soundcards

This is when spending the right amount really counts, after all this piece of hardware is whats processing your finished product so spend you hard earned cash wisely. No matter what kind of music you write I suggest a soundcard with an in-built word clock, this feature is very important as it keeps the bitrate in perfect sync allowing you to avoid Frequency drift which can slightly deminish the output clarity. M-Audio sell high quality and reliable gear for the studio and the road with prices that won’t break the bank. However if you’ve got the cash and you want the best, why not have a look at what RMEhas to offer. RME’s hardware has a great reputation and is always jam packed with juicy features like active jitter suppression, stand alone functionality, 648 channel matrix routers and stacks more. Before you buy your soundcard you also need to consider what functions are important to you and what aren’t, for example if your more of a live act you’ll need more input and outputs, if your an electronic music producer, inputs and outputs aren’t as important, so it pays to do your homework on different soundcards and what functions they offer.

Control Surfaces

Here’s another piece of your kit that will differ depending on what your needs are. Midi keyboards are an obvious must and an essential part of composing, they allow you to quickly and creatively play with your plugins and samples with a hands on approach. Many Midi keyboards now have a varity of features from trigger pads to intuitive recall functions and if you play live, the ability to quickly switch between sounds and trigger samples is very important.

Aside from your keyboard other control surfaces you might want to look at are mixers and various other audio and midi controllers. If you love creating your own synth sounds and want a hands on feel why not have a look at products like Behringer’s BCR2000 great for assigning all your synth’s parameters to actual rotary knobs or the BCF2000 for mixing. If your drums lack that human feel why not check out Korg’s Pad Kontrol these are just examples of hardware that can easily connect to your PC and give you instant creative control to your sounds.

Software

Talk about what software to use these days is certainly a matter of opinion, I personally find Ableton live to be extremely creative and powerful enough to deliver my ideas to the finished product. Whatever Host Software you choose is entirely up to you, Cubase and Logic Pro are very popular choices but can be complicated for beginners, Fruityloops and Reason are still powerful platforms but are easier to use. If your unsure of what Host will suit you I suggest downloading the trial versions of each and see for yourself.

Softsynths or VSTs (Virtual Studio Technology) is becoming more and more formidable each year as technology advances. Virtual instruments in many peoples minds are still second place to real hardware, yet recently with the latest releases from the likes of Spectrasonics, Native instruments and Rob Papen, the fine line between software and hardware is quickly becoming blurred with higher resolutions and more complex algorithms. Purchasing plugins can be extremely expensive and in many cases can cost you more than hardware itself, so it pays to choose plugins that have the ability to create sounds from scratch, giving you creative flexablilty otherwise you may find yourself limited to the samples supplied with the plugin. If you only buy one plugin I suggest Omnisphere by Spectrasonics, it combines both sample and synth based sound sources providing literally limitless possibilities while packing nearly 50GB’s of content. This plugin isn’t cheap but has replaced nearly half of my selected plugin library.

I recommend these VST instruments

• Spectrasonics - Omnisphere
• Native Instruments - Massive
• Native Instruments - Absynth 4
• Rob Papen - Predator
• reFX - Nexus 2
• Access - Virus

I recommend these VST signal processors

• Waves Gold bundle
• Sonnox bundle
• Powercore plugins (Hardware needed)
• Fab-Filter - Timeless (delay) Volcano (gate/mod)
• Voxengo bundles
• Camel Space

Kick Drum Tips!

Kick drums are a critical part of all dance music and if your just new to making your own music you might get a little frustrated trying to find a great kick. Clean fat kicks can seem like a mirage if your not adept in the delicate art of mastering.

“Like all sounds you hear on commercial tracks, every sound is carefully Equalized, compressed and balanced”

Firstly if you don’t have any good kick drums and your just a beginner email me and i’ll hook you up, however if you have a set of solid kick drums but your not 100% happy with them then here is what I suggest.

• Lets assume your host sequencer is open and your editing your sample.
• First load up a spectrum analysis plugin so you can see the sample’s spectrum as it plays.
• Play your kick drum on a loop and study the results of your spectrum analysis, remember its sonic  structure.
• Create a new audio channel in your sequencer and import a track with a kick drum you like.
• Try and find a part in the track where the bass drops out and the kick drum is almost by itself.
• Loop this part of the imported track, and apply a spectrum analysis plugin.
• Compare both spectrums and make a mental note of the differences.
• All kick drums are usually “rolled off” at 30Hz removing any inaudible sub frequencies, however if  want your basslines to take focus with the bass then you might even roll off at 50Hz. You can  remove these frequencies using your favourite EQ or a cutoff filter.
• After removing unwanted sub-frequencies I almost always add a compressor after the first EQ,  allowing me to further shape and control the power of the kick. Set your attack to a fast position  and set your threshold until you see the compression meter just start to flicker, (you only want to  shape the sound not kill it) and set your compression ratio high enough so that it controls any high  peaks or untamed frequencies. Compression is not something that is not easily learnt however there  are many great books on the subject. “Mixing with you mind” The key here is to read and experiment  and compare to commercial material.
• If your kick drum has now improved but still sounds a little muddy or unclear then chances are you’ll  need to carefully shape your EQ to lower offending frequencies. Equalization should not severely  change a sound as too much can cause a sonically improper wave, resulting in harsh or lifeless  sound. Usually with my kick drums i find myself dampening at around 195Hz by about 3dbs.

“Less is way more”

Just remember the more signal processors you add the more your destroying the sound, only use what you think you need. A common mistake by beginners I’ve noticed is that they add signal processors (EQ, Compressors etc) before they have decided what the sound actually needs and before they know it their left with a dull and lifeless sound. My advice is to use as little enhancements as possible, listen and think before you add and cut before you boost frequencies as too much boosting will raise your SNR.

Psychoacoustic sounds

Psychoacoustic sound has exploded into everyones minds as of late due to the arrival of Spectrasonic’s latest ground breaking synth “Omnisphere“. However it’s fair to say that not everybody knows exactly what psychoacoustics is all about. I believe understanding this concept better can assist music artists produce their music with greater focus and interest. Psychoacoustics is a concept that was born around 1940-50’s with the introduction of the “Study of Human Perception” or the way that humans perceive sound.The human ear can hear 20hz - 20,000hz and is unbiased towards frequencies, however the brain receives all of this information at once but cannot focus on all of the frequencies at the same time, forcing the listener to focus in on particular frequencies e.g. Synth lead.

Therefore for the engineer, understanding the principals of psychoacoustics is understanding the relationship between man’s ability to perceive sound and sound creation itself. If you are to create sound on a new level you must first understand these two areas of study.

The benefits of implementing Pyschoacoustic techniques helps create sonic originality and can be used in two ways.

1. Creating new sounds
2. New methods of mixing (Storytelling)

Spectrasonics have used the principals of psychoacoustics to reveal hidden frequencies within organic sounds, and they have achieved this by re-focusing the listeners perception using various recording and synthsis techniques. watch

The psychoacoustics concept is a very powerful technique not only to create new sounds but also during the mixing process and especially within electronic music genres. This is because genres like trance and psytrance use a wide variety of sounds and sound stages. For example lets imagine that your listening to a beautiful atmosphere with soft tones and a cathedral type reverb that makes the track feel huge, a melody slowly bubbles out from underneath the atmosphere and begins to make you feel lighter and lighter and soon the track feels like outer space, full of lush sound. All of a sudden unexpectedly the track sucks inwards and instantly becomes tight and elastic with little or no reverb at all, with a definitive clarity and a rock solid groove.

Everytime I create a track, I work towards building drama, conditioning my target audience and forcing them to focus on prominent sounds allowing me to use misdirection and this great for surprising the dance floor. Remember the music you are inspired by? remember the first time you heard it? did it surprise you? were the sounds used unique?

Something else very interesting about the human brain is that it can sometimes “fill in” or create sounds that the ear never heard. If you have ever listened to a particular track closely and heard sounds that you can’t quite put your finger on? perhaps you hear these sounds within the fundamental groove or the etheral pads in the atmosphere of the track. Sounds that the brain cannot easily distinguish can trick our perception, leaving our inner imagination to pick up the tab.  

The music industry today is a cut throat business to be in especially if your the underdog, but like everyone will tell you “you’ve got to be different”. So how do we use psychoacoustics to create new sounds, create interest in our music and surprise the listener?

“DON’T BE LAZY”

Attention to detail is the only way your track will stand out, I’m telling you, if your one of those people who relies on presets and patches 100% then you will never go all the way. I mean it’s great playing with great presets and in some cases they might be just the right sound you need, but be assured that thousands of people have already heard that sound before. Have you ever been listening to the radio and said to yourself “That sounds familiar” and then you realise, that sound you hear is one of the very first presets in your Massive library!

Well now that I’ve got you all thinking about the deeper mechanics of sound production, I’ll put together a simple tutorial for you all to sink your teeth into.

How To Create Depth In Music

This post focuses on the topic of creating a sense of depth in mixes.

It’s not too hard to make things sound big.  It’s not too hard to make things sound wide.  But it is very hard to do both while also creating a sense of depth.  There are a myriad of tools available to the mix engineer to accomplish this, but there are three in particular that, when used properly, can create mixes that you can ‘walk into’.

Reverb

Reverb is short for reverberation and is used to describe any effect that produces the sound of resonance in a space, whether real or imagined.  Back in the days before multitracking recording, engineers would place their performers in relation to the recording device.  To reduce the sound of a particularly loud instrument, such as a drum kit, the performer would have to be pulled back from the recording device.  This meant that the recording device recorded fewer of the direct soundwaves and more of the room’s reflections from the instrument.  This, even as technology has evolved to allow more flexibility than that, has influenced our expectations for what an instrument should sound like in terms of depth.  These rules have been challenged, of course, but generally speaking, ‘room’  sound is the classic way of making things sound distant.  This can be achieved with old-school way with room microphones or by artificial reverb devices.

Recently, reverb has become a bit of a dirty word as the trend for the past five years or so in pop music has been to extremely dry sounding recordings.  This is largely to contrast with the very wet sounds of the 80s and 90s, which seems to be coming back into vogue for some genres.

Reverbs are described by their ’size, which refers to the size of the room.  The larger the room, the longer the sound will resound in the space.  Also common in reverbs are high and low frequency trims, allowing the reverb to be brighter or darker.  Darker reverbs blend better and tend to sound deeper, potentially more realistic, whereas brighter reverbs stand out more and are more dramatic. Finally, most artificial verbs have a ‘mix’ option, which determines how much of the original signal is included in the output.  I recommend using reverb on aux buses or effects sends rather than inserts.  In this case, use 100% mix and dial in the send to taste.

One important strategy when using reverbs to create depth is not to simply put the same reverb on everything.  This will not create depth but will instead simply blur the sound.  Depth is create by contrast of spaces: small, big, and dry.  I usually use two to three reverbs in a mix: a dark medium room, a small bright room, and a large hall or ‘cathedral’.   The rooms are useful for adding body to sounds that are recorded very dry and for assisting blend.  I would use the medium room for things like drums and the small room for guitars or perhaps vocals.  The hall is used to dramatically set sounds apart from each other and to make them seem ’special’.  This works especially well when you automate the reverb send or return to add contrast.

More reverb will make things sound distant, whereas less or none will make them seem closer, obviously.  The use of different spaces helps to ‘place’ the sounds and provide several tiers of depth while keeping things diverse.

More detail about reverb will be posted in a separate post.

Delay

Delay is basically an echo.  This differs from reverb in that it usually is a repetition of the sound rather than a resonance.  There are many options for delays.  Analog delays tend to be a little less hi-fi than digital delays.  Modulation adds a warble to the sound.  Feedback changes the way the delay echos after its initial echo.  Again, like reverb, delays can be trimmed on the high or lows to provide different tonal characteristics.  One benefit of using delays is that they don’t take up as much space as reverbs. They also can provide more dramatic stereo separation when panned a bit.  I like using delays on male vocals to avoid things getting too sludgy.  They’re also very cool on instruments with a lot of sustain such as synths or legato guitar parts.  Delays will help elements seem more ‘involved’ in the mix by making their tones interact on more depth levels and by keeping the listener attentive to the sound.

Equalization

Probably one of the best and most overlooked ways to create depth in a mix is to equalize effectively.  Darker sounds sound more distant, whereas brighter sounds sound more present.  Increasing or decreasing the 5-10k range will dramatically make elements come forward or backwards in the mix without the blurring and messiness of reverbs or delays.  Use this as your first step and add effects to make things ’special’.

Making these tools work as well as possible takes a long time to master and everyone has their own preferences and tricks to do so.  Take some time to experiment and soon you’ll come up with your own ideas.

Omnisphere Arrives

Spectrasonics has announced that Omnisphere, its hotly anticipated mega-synth, is now shipping with an MSRP of $499 US and €379 Euro.

Omnisphere is cross-platform, compatible with Apple Macintosh OS X 10.4 and higher as a native Universal Binary and also with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista. Audio Units, VST, and RTAS plug-in formats are supported for compatibility with all major host software.

Here’s their description:

This epic ‘Power Synth’ breaks completely new sonic ground by combining a wide variety of hybrid realtime synthesis techniques, an epic library of remarkable ‘Psychoacoustic’ sounds, and many innovative features that have never been seen before in any hardware or software synthesizer. The new instrument is the first to be based on Spectrasonics newly developed STEAM Engine.

“This is truly an Epic project,” said Eric Persing, Founder and Creative Director of Spectrasonics. “We have been working for many, many years; sampling unique sounds, experimenting, specifying the synthesis features and building the STEAM Engine to run it all. It’s been a very exciting process involving our team of software engineers, sound designers, musicians, and graphic artists from all over the world. We’ve been very deliberate in making it easy to use, and yet extremely powerful. Omnisphere is our new flagship synthesizer, and points the way to all our future virtual instruments. We are thrilled to offer a new product that will have a host of expansion capabilities in the future.”

Omnisphere offers a host of hybrid synthesis and new control capabilities including Variable Waveshaping DSP synthesis, Granular synthesis, Timbre Shifting, FM, polyphonic Ring Modulation, high-resolution streaming Sample Playback, Harmonia, Dual Multimode Filter structure, Chaos Envelopes, an advanced Unison mode, and the innovative Flex-Mod™ modulation routing system - to name a few.

The huge core library of Omnisphere is filled with years of creative sampling experiments and thousands of inspiring patches. Spectrasonics has pioneered several brand-new types of sampling for the core library of this instrument, including unique “Psychoacoustic” sounds and soundsources created with a new Composite Morphing Technique (CMT) - which morphs the harmonic characteristics of one instrument to another. As a bonus, a section of the core library is also devoted to representing the best of Spectrasonics award-winning sample libraries. When all of these organic core library soundsources are combined with the synthesis power of the STEAM engine, the sounds become “alive” in a truly dynamic and expressive way.

Among the many unique features this new multitimbral synth offers are its flexible arpeggiators with the innovative Groove Lock integration with Stylus RMX - allowing the arpeggiator’s pattern to instantly groove with the feel of the RMX drum loop; Live Mode for transitionless patch switching and layering, Stack Mode for powerful performance mapping; and integrated modulatable FX Racks.

Omnisphere is also the successor to Spectrasonics’ popular Atmosphere instrument, and contains enhanced versions of all the classic Atmosphere sounds. However, the brand new core library in Omnisphere is 10-times the size of Atmosphere and features thousands of completely new and different sounds.

There is an upgrade for all Atmosphere customers, available from Spectrasonics Techshop.