Category Archives: Production Techniques

Mixing and Mastering for the Electronic Musician

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As mentioned in an earlier post, “Mixing and Mastering for the Electronic Musician” was my favorite class of Term 2. The course material was perfect for someone like me, a solo musician/composer/songwriter wanting to make their work sound a bit more polished and professional.

While the course material was very well thought out and presented I think the thing that I loved most about this class was the immediacy of being able to apply what I learned to my own music. Just what I learned about EQ, compression and limiting made a huge difference in the clarity and power of my mixes.

Other subjects that I found really helpuful were: “Developing Relationships in a Mix” via external keying and side-chaining (particularly helpful for dynamically ducking tracks under other tracks); Direction Mixer plugin on stereo tracks; using Distortion to color and shape EQ of tracks like hi-hats and vocals; using Noise Gates to shape output of audio tracks; using Side-chain/External Keying on Reverb and Delays to dynamically control output; Reshaping Transients (a bit like synthesis on audio tracks); Dotted 1/8 & 1/4 note delays; Ping Pong Delays; Pre-Fader Metering (to help control gain staging); Subgrouping; Parallel Compression (on individual tracks, subgroups and global tracks); Flex-Pitch; Auto-Filter (to help tracks stand out); using Sample Delays to pan; VCAs (to control volumes of subgroups); and how Mastering really is all about making small, subtle changes in EQ, Compression and Limiting.

As usual with a number of Berklee Online classes I’ve taken already, there was a lot of ground covered in 12 weeks. Here are the subjects, by week.

Week 1 – Getting Ready to Mix
Logic Pro Skills & Preferences, Plug-In Latency & Track Meters, Logic Pro X Interface, Screensets, Mixing and the Electronic Musician, Composing & Mixing Simultaneously, Working with Software Instrument Tracks, Rendering Software Instruments to Audio Tracks, Mixing Workspace Ergonomics and You, Monitors & Walls, The Mix Position, Monitor Loudness Levels, Using Reference Material, Getting Ready to Mix, Organizing Tracks & Assets, Setting Up a Listening Mix, Gain Structure & Digital Meters, Mixing Balance & Panning, Panning Stereo Tracks, Panning & the Direction Mixer, Working with Automation, Volume Automation & the Dynamic Mix, Real Time Automation, Automation Modes, Automation and Sculpting the Mix, Discussion 1.3: Automated Mix Example, Why We’re Starting Here, Assignment 1: Levels, Panning and Automation Mix

Week 2 – Shaping Your Sounds: EQ and Compression
Prepping the Mix Project, Working with Logic Pro X Markers, Introduction to EQ, EQ Bands, Shelving EQ, Filters, A Word About Q-Couple, EQ in Mixing, Kick Drum EQ, Snare Drum EQ, Bass and Vocals EQ, EQ in a Sample Project, Doing More with EQ, EQ Means Endless Tweaking, EQ Tips, Boosting vs. Cutting, Controlling the Low End of Your Mix, Bracketing Sounds with Filters, EQing in Solo Mode, Plugin Presets, Introduction to Dynamics Processors, Dynamics Processor Block Diagram, Working with Compressors, Compression Curves and the Transfer Function, The Logic Pro Compressor, The Logic Pro Compressor Setup, Using Compression, Compression Gain and Make Up Gain, Classic Uses of Compression, Mix Analysis: Compression, Limiters in mixing, Using the Limiter in the Logic Pro X Compressor, The Logic Pro Limiter, Assignment 2: Begin the Mix Project

Week 3 – Doing More with Dynamics Processors
Where Are We?, Compressors Continued, Detection Mode, Sidechain Filtering, Distortion and “Color”, Other DAW Compressor Plugins, Pro Tools, Waves, Circuit Types in the Logic Pro X Compressor, Compressor Design, Transfer Functions, Changing Compressor Settings, Introduction to Noise Gates, Why We Use Gates in Mixing, De-Essers, The Logic Pro X De-Esser, Why We Use De-Essers, Exercise: Listening to the Mix So Far, External Keying and “Sidechaining”, Setting Up Sends as Key Signals, Sidechaining and “The Pump”, Developing Relationships in a Mix, Externally Keyed Compressors, Externally Keyed Gates, Ghost Keys, Ghost Tracks, External Keying Vs. Automation, Discussion 3.1: Mix Analysis, Assignment 3: Dynamics Processors

Week 4 – Reverb and Delays in Mixing
Reverberation, Creating Reverb in the Studio, The Reverb Event, Algorithmic Reverbs, PlatinumVerb, Setting Up Reverb Plugins, PlatinumVerb and Reverbs on Individual Tracks, Making Reverb Decisions, Exercise: Reverb, Reverbs in Mixing, Setting Up Reverbs on Aux Tracks, Reverb Modification, Reverbs on Track Inserts, Reverb Tips, “Come to Me” Mix with Reverb, Introduction to Delays, Delay Effects, Introduction to Tape Delay and Stereo Delay, Stereo Delay, Delay Parameters, Delays in Mixing, Slap Delays, Ping-Pong Delay, Processing Delays, Delay Tips, Working With Automation: Sends Automation, Mix Limiters: An Introduction, Final Mix of “Come to Me”, Assignment 4: Finishing Project 2

Week 5 – More with Dynamics and Mixing
Working with a Large-Scale Mix Project, Strategies for Project Organization, Screensets and Markers, Marker Sets, Developing a Vision for the Mix, Discussion 5.1: Developing a Vision for the Mix due Tuesday, Arrangement Editing, Editing vs. Mute Automation, Creating and Working with Track Groups, Track Groups and Workflow, NOW Where Are We?, Reshaping Transients, Upward Expanders and the Logic Pro X Expander Plug-in, Multiband Compression Techniques, Logic Pro X Multipressor, A Sidetrip About Expanders, Noise Gates vs. Downward Expanders, Mixing, Gain Structure, and Headroom, Pre-Fader/Post-Fader Metering, Getting Off the Ground!, Assignment 5: Dynamics and Mixing

Week 6 – Doing More with Mixing
A Starting Point, Creating and Working with Audio Subgroups, Setting Up Audio Subgroups, Deciding When to use Subgroups in a Mix, Vocal Tuning, Fixing Pitch Problems, Going Deeper with Flex Pitch, Flex Pitch in the Track Editor, Tuning Other Instruments, Exercise: Exploring Vocal Tuning, The Big Freeze!, Parallel Compression Techniques, Setting Up Parallel Compression, Parallel Compression for Multiple Tracks, Parallel Compression Guidelines, Exercise: Parallel Compression, Adding Color and Character to the Mix, Filters, AutoFilter, Distortion Effects, Clip Distortion, Re-Amping, Enhancing the Low End, Exercise: Distortion, Assignment 6: Adding Character to the Mix

Week 7 – Working with Delays
Short Delay Effects, Delays and the Stereo Image, Using a Short Delay for Panning, Modulation Delay Effects: Flanging, Hands-On Tweaking, Modulation Delay Effects: Chorusing and Doubling, Chorusing, Ensemble, Exercise: Mix Example, Convolution Reverb and Space Designer, Tweaking Space Designer, Using Convolution Reverbs, Exercise: Mix Analysis, More Mixing Ideas with Delays and Reverbs, More with Processing Effect Sends and Returns, Exercise: Putting it all Together, Assignment 7: Working with Delays

Week 8 – More Mix Techniques Automation 1
Checking Up on Our Mix of “Please Baby”, The Dynamic Mix, Manipulating the Sounds, Splitting Regions to Tracks, Making Sounds Bigger: Stereo Width Ideas, Pitch Effects in Mixing, Discussion 8.1: Pitch Manipulation, Vocal Transformer, SFX, Ear Candy, and Transitions, Delay Designer, Exercise: “Please Baby” Mix, Assignment 8: Mix Techniques

Week 9 – Shaping the Mix Automation 2
Checking Up on Our Mix of “Please Baby”, Where We Are, Global Parallel Compression, VCA Tracks and Mixing, VCA Usage, Mix Bus Compression, More With Mix Automation, Working with Mix Automation, Final Touches: Mix Limiters, Final Touches: Mix Limiters – Mix Fade Out, Bouncing the Mix, Exercise: “Please Baby” Mix, Assignment 9: Automation

Week 10 – Mastering 1
What is Mastering?, The Creative Side of Mastering, Discussion 10.1: Original vs. Mastered Versions, The Technical Side of Mastering, Discussion 10.2: Top Mastering Engineers, Mastering in the Project Studio, Tweaking Your Studio Space, Installing Ozone, Mastering with Logic Pro X: an Overview, Intro to Ozone, Exercise: EQ, Corrective and Creative, The Ozone EQ Module, Exercise: Mastering EQ, Discussion 10.2: Ozone History, Ozone Digital EQ Mode, Exercise: Analog and Digital Mode, The Digital EQ Surgical Mode, Some Tips on EQ and Mastering, Limiting in Mastering, Assignment 10: Project 4

Week 11 – Mastering 2
The Mastering Process, Compression in Mastering, Using the Dynamics Module, Exercise: Compression, Multiband Compression with Ozone, Exercise: Multiband Compression, Multiband Compression Considerations, Discussion 11.1: Multiband Compression, The Dynamic EQ, Mastering, Loudness, and the “Loudness War”, Loudness and CD Mastering, Discussion 11.2: Loudness and CD Mastering, The Ozone Maximizer, Exercise: Ozone’s Maximizer module, Daily Assignment Practice, Assignment 11: Project 5

Week 12 – Mastering 3
Image Manipulation in Mastering, The Ozone Imager Module, Exercise: The Imager Module, Multiband Image Adjustment, Exercise: More With the Imager Module
The Vintage Limiter, Mastering Workflow, Making a Mastering Chain, Workflow Tips, Bouncing Your Mastered Audio, Mastering for Digital Delivery, CD Delivery Masters, Exercise: Truncation vs. Dither, Creating a CD Master, Loudness, Audio CDs, and Streaming Audio, QC = Quality Control!, Discussion 12.1: Project 6

Here are a couple screenshots of an assignment mix that I submitted. Check out the number of tracks and plug-ins. This was a pretty massive project. Took two screenshots to get all the tracks shown!

Here’s a mix that I did using many of the techniques that I learned in this class for my final project in MTC2 (Music Theory & Composition 2).

Fly on the Wall (Film)

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My wife, Rachel, found this fantastic video of a live orchestral film scoring session on YouTube. It’s a 2.5 hour film done @ Air Studios in London, England. Very inspiring to see how things are done at this level of professionalism, expertise and excellence.

Thanks to Christian Henson and Spitfire audio for making this available for all of us to see. Very cool, indeed!

Time

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Found this really useful formula for determining a song’s total time in the Songwriting Sourcebook by Rikky Rooksby (page 170):

  1. Determine the number of beats per minute (e.g. 96BPM).
  2. Determine the number of measures per minute by dividing the BPM by the number of beats per measure (e.g. 96/4 = 24 measures per minute).
  3. Then take the total number of bars in the song and divide it by the number of measures per minute. E.g. 104 measures/24 measures per minute = 4.5m for the total time of the song.

Thanks Rikky!

Mastering

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Audio mastering is a distinct discipline that I’m still getting acquainted with. While trying to wrap things up for the Equinox album I decided to see what I could do on my own and found this really helpful course on lynda.com: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/audio-mastering-techniques

Here are some of the key points that helped me with this project:

  • Mix and bounce to -10 dB, with plenty of dynamic range available. If this means removing compression/limiting on the master bus then do it.
  • Bring all mixes into a unique mastering session. Place all songs on their own tracks, each with it’s own EQ/Compression/Limiting.
  • Find the right compressor for each song tonally, using a low ratio, somewhere between 1.5:1 to 3:1. Set the threshold high enough so that the compressor kicks in, but not too hard.
  • Adjust the compressor’s attack and release settings so that drum transients are cutting through nicely.
  • Bring up the song’s level by boosting the compressor’s output gain until peaks get close to somewhere around -2 dB.
  • Apply the limiter (L2) so that the peaks are set to -2 dB with the threshold being just lightly triggered.
  • Try to shape the songs in terms of EQ and volume so that they sound “sonically related”. (Ended up cutting quite a bit ~60 Hz and below, due to bass build up.)

Note to future self: don’t use the master EQ to shape each track individually. Seemed like a time saver until I had to do revisions and had no idea what was done with songs mixed before the last bounce. Always use an inline EQ!

Logical

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I’ve been a Logic Pro X user for a few years now. Previously, I was a sworn Pro Tools devotee for years (in large part due to the amazing time I had working at Digidesign in the late 90’s). While the earlier versions of Logic felt anything but logical to me, I have really come to love the latest versions of Logic Pro X. I feel it’s a fantastic app for writing and production.

I love the layout, signal flow/routing, EQs, compressors, virtual instruments (especially Drummer), arrangement tracks, comp tracks, extensive MIDI and audio editing tools, Flex editing and (for the most part) Smart Tempo.

Now, I still have a few pet peeve’s here and there. One being that Smart Tempo doesn’t always do what you think it should with odd time signatures. Try to get the session time signature of 6/8 onto newly recorded tracks… Smart Tempo defaults to 4/4 and converting & getting everything to sync up can be a chore. Aside from that, most issues I’ve had were easily solved with a quick Google search.

I recently realized how much I enjoy working with Logic Pro X as I was preparing for the 2019 Spring Equinox Concert and album. Thanks Apple!

Omnipotent

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Absolutely love the sounds I can get out of Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere. Fat synth basses, warm pads, beautiful textures, fantastic rhythms from it’s arpeggiator, extensive synthesis editing and signal processing. With over 14,000 built-in sounds, audio import/processing, 500+ synth oscillator waveforms, wavetable synthesis, granular synthesis, 57 effect processors, FM/Ring modulation, 34 filter algorithms, performance mode (stacked or layering), 20 oscillators and 8 LFOs per patch, 12 envelopes and substantial HW synth integration it really does feel pretty limitless.

That being said, Omnisphere seems like a bit of a memory hog. It crashed a number of times when using it within Logic Pro X (crash logs submitted). It’s a bummer when it happens but to be fair it appears to be due to switching between Logic files that have a lot of other plug-ins instantiated as well.

I found a really useful course on Lynda.com that helped me get up to speed using it just in time for the Spring Equinox concert and album: Learning Omnisphere 2.

If you want to add an amazing sounding software synth to your set up then this is it!

Battery

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I’ve owned Native Instruments’ Battery for a few years now and hadn’t done much with it until recently. Partially because it was bundled with NI Komplete and I wasn’t really sure how it worked. But also due to the preconception I had that it was mainly for electronic/dance music and wouldn’t suit what I was trying to do. Then I stumbled onto this course on Lynda.com: Learning Battery 4 and it made perfect sense to me. I began to think about how I could use it on my songs.

It’s a fantastic plug-in that allows you create custom kits either using your own samples or from a large built-in library of instruments. It also has extensive editing, routing and processing options.

I ended up using Battery on a couple of the tracks for the Equinox Album – “Dew Drop” and “Frost”. One thing I loved doing was taking Drum MIDI files from Superior Drummer and pumping them into one of the kit presets in Battery like “Telefon Tel Aviv Kit”. This gave a humanistic style of playing to a drum machine sounding kit. Really great!

Superiority Complex

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I’ve had Superior Drummer for about 10 months now and I have to say it’s quite an impressive piece of software. Actually, it feels like the type of virtual instrument/drum library that I imagined having way back in 1999. That being said, it’s a deep and powerful program that can be intimidating at first, making it hard to feel comfortable with.

While I used it on a few projects (“On and On”, “Lost Thoughts”, “Nets”) it wasn’t until the the Spring Equinox Album that I really got to know it well. This is in large part due to a fantastic tutorial on Groove 3 that Luke Oswald put together: “Superior Drummer 3 Explained”.

The course is very thorough, clear and well produced. It not only helped me to understand the ins & outs of the software but to also appreciate how superior it truly is when compared to other virtual instruments I’ve worked with in the past.

It has fantastically recorded samples of a wide variety of kits with close/overhead/room/ambient/bleed/surround mic options. Extensive editing power for custom tailored sound design, getting instruments just the way you want them. A great groove library with excellent search and “Tap 2 Find” functionality (which I love) with a powerful grid editor. It’s fully extensible for additional sample and/or drum MIDI libraries. Has a built in mixer with extensive routing options, great sounding effects and excellent sounding presets (personal favorite is “Ludwig Classic Default”). All this makes it super easy to bring up a great sounding drum track rather quickly.

Even though I don’t see myself using Superior Drummer on everything I do I’m really glad to have it available to me.

Thanks Luke Oswald, Toontrack and Groove3!

Parallel Processing

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In the past, I was pretty much an “all or nothing” type of person when it came to studying, writing, recording or performing. Meaning, I would exclusively focus on one area, say studying, for an extended period of time, at the expense of the other areas that are important to me. The great thing about that is you get really focused on a particular subject. The bad thing is all forward motion in any other areas stops completely.

For a long while, I had been wanting to divide my time between study and production. Ideally studying early on in the day with some sort of production later.

So one of my main goals for the first quarter of this year was to do exactly that. Once I got a workable schedule in place, I loved it. It was tremendously rewarding to see progress being made in so many different areas that interest me.

I think the key to allowing all of that to happen was to limit how much time I gave any one area of focus. That made space for everything else.

For my studies I continued with my 5 minutes per subject approach for a variety of subjects: ear training, guitar studies (music reading and chords/rhythm parts), bass, keyboards (scales and chords), songwriting/chord progressions, notation and vocal exercises.

Along with that I started incorporating online studies with courses on Lynda.com (Photoshop, Omnisphere, Battery, Performing with Ableton Live) and Groove3.com (Superior Drummer, Ableton Live 10 Explained, Creating Realistic MIDI Strings, Creating Epic Cinematic Compositions). These were super helpful in preparing for the album and concert.

I also began alternating days of focus. One day of new material, with the next being review of what I had already done. This kept everything very manageable and enjoyable. So much so that I looked forward to studying every day.

For songwriting/production I would do something similar by only allowing 30 minutes per song per day. This helped keep the songs new and interesting throughout the process. It also helped get me “unstuck” when I felt blocked. As soon as the timer went off I would move on to the next song and get positive momentum going again. By the time I came back to the song I was having an issue with I was in a different space and usually found a solution within minutes.

Take Away(s)

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There were a number of things that I took away from the 2019 Spring Concert, but perhaps the biggest thing I learned was the importance of rehearsing with the full system set up for more than one day. I think the ideal amount of time would have been about a week.

I did rehearse every day over the last month and a half, but always sitting down, without microphones/PA and playing at lower volume levels. Also, it wasn’t until the day before the concert that I had Ableton Live completely configured (audio files, MIDI mappings, sound patches, virtual instruments, etc). Up until then I was practicing with Logic Pro X – the app that I did all the production in.

Other things that I learned:

  • Really need to use chains in Live to switch between virtual instruments as selecting the desired track via MIDI mapping for MIDI controller focus wasn’t always reliable.
  • Use audio stems instead of “minus 1” tracks next time. Would be nice to have more isolation of tracks in the future (particularly synth basses and drums).
  • Should coordinate visuals better. This time was more like a proof of concept. Going forward I’d like to have them tailored to each song in Final Cut Pro and then triggered in Live, which could take a considerable amount of time to do. Need to allot for that. Perhaps 2 weeks or more?
  • Would be great to have extra time with everything set up to get extra footage for song videos (e.g. multiple passes of each song during the rehearsals, close ups of the gear/lighting, abstract images, etc.)
  • Clip for one of mics I planned on using was missing. Ended up using a condenser mic with a mic pre, which sounded totally different.
  • Both mic stands kept drifting downward when positioned over the keyboard. Need to repair or replace them.
  • Performing with mic stand positions (especially when singing while playing keyboards) was awkward at times.
  • Disable notifications on my laptop!

Most importantly, having the extra time to rehearse will make it easier for me to get into the flow of the music.

Things that worked:

  • Practicing the songs regularly was a win for being prepared musically.
  • Using Ableton Live worked pretty much the way that I hoped it would.
  • The equipment set up and layout of the room was really good.
  • The contour of the concert provided a nice variety of styles.
  • Visuals added a lot of depth and dimension to the feeling of the space.
  • Using Guitar Rig for performance worked really well for maintaining balance of volume between instruments (vs using an external guitar amp).

Here’s a beautiful painting of the layout of the room that my wife made. I think it’s fantastic!