Monthly Archives: February 2010

I can hear clearly now, the pillow is gone

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I’ve had Alesis Monitor One monitors for about 12 years.  When I got them, I really hadn’t done any research or checked out many other speakers.  I just needed some prosumer monitors, and the price was right.

They served pretty well.  I got used to the way they sounded; after taking mixes from the studio room at the Ranch to different cars, boom boxes, CD players and stereos we realized that the mixes sounded great in our studio, but were massively bass-heavy everywhere else  (apologies to anyone whose speakers rattled loose while listening to test mixes of drunkdude69).

So we learned to mix the bass lighter when listening on our home system.  It’s not unusual to have to make those kind of adaptations when you mix in a less than perfect environment like a back room or basement or garage.

A few weeks ago, one of the Alesis monitors developed some distortion.  At first I thought I had recorded a track too hot, but after isolating a track that produced the distortion on the right speaker I panned the same track to the opposite speaker and found that the track was fine.

It looks like part of the woofer cone (which is some kind of polymer or polymer-coated fabric) pulled away from the edge of the cabinet on the suspect speaker.  Not as bad as a tear in the cone, but not really so good for mixing audio.

So I used the remainder of my gear fund for the year (yes, the wad has been shot pretty early on, *sniffle*) to get some new monitors.  After research and listening I settled on a pair of JBL LSR4326P powered monitors.  They are generally well reviewed, have a raft of features, and when I listened to them in comparison to other monitors in that price range I was much more pleased with their clarity and punch.

I ordered them from Sweetwater on a Thursday morning.  They arrived the next day after lunch.  I didn’t ask for any special kind of shipping.  Sweetwater was just that fast.  Amazing.

Don't blow out your O-ring lifting this

These speakers are frigging heavy.  I had to unbox them upstairs (after I managed to drag the box into the house (them FedEx drivers must have some serious pipes).  I got them down into my lair, unpacked everything and got them set up.  They are self-powered and connect to each other with CAT5 cable.  Changes you make on one speaker are reflected on any of the speakers in the network.

The package I got came with a “room mode correction” microphone.  Once I had the speakers set up (admittedly they aren’t placed optimally, but that’s what you get with basement recording) I set up the RMC mic in my “listening position” and ran the speaker diagnostics.  Each speaker burped out a series of loud sine waves and used the response to apply filters that can allegedly compensate for deficiencies in the room.

Speakers and RMC mic/remote control/cables

In A-B-ing the playback with and without the RMC filters applied, I was hard-pressed to hear a major difference.  Any difference was subtle at best.  However, I’m willing to give the RMC the benefit of the doubt because I know my room isn’t treated nearly enough.

The speakers sound amazing in comparison to my old ones.  I feel like I’ve been listening to mixes for years with some kind of thin pillow strapped around my head.  The clarity of the new speakers is impressive, and they’re able to handle strong levels without grating on my ears over time.

I’m looking forward to seeing how mixes translate to other environments.  In the meantime, though, I have to say I’m really happy with these beasts so far.

Pump it up 'til you can feel it

All GeekDesk-ed out

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The GeekDesk in "rock" position

Late last year I invested in a GeekDesk.  The main reason I got it was to reduce the amount of time I spend sitting down during the day.  Writing code and working on music both involve a lot of time spent in a seated position, and although I have a great desk chair, I still wanted to make sure I was doing as much as I could for my circulation, alertness, etc.

I got the frame only, and then I went to Ikea and found an inexpensive, lightweight top for it.  After I assembled the frame and attached the top I got it situated and started to use it.  At some point I spilled some beverage (probably, um, idea juice) and realized that the Ikea top would be permanently marked by any spills (it’s just particleboard, after all).

I hit the fabric store and got a sheet of clear vinyl cut to the size of the desk.  Since I put the vinyl on the desktop I’ve slipped photos and fortune cookie fortunes and stickers and all kinds of other stuff underneath.  It’s pretty groovy, baby.

Standing up while working has turned out to be really pleasant.  I feel like I get more done, and I’m more focused when I’m standing.  And there’s a benefit I didn’t even think about: when I’m recording guitar or vocals, I can easily control things with the desk in a standing position.  No more hunching over with a guitar slung around my neck to change things in the session.

Of course I only had the desk for  a few months when I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle.  Naturally.  But now that I’m back on my feet, it’s therapeutic to stand for some short periods.  As I continue to recover, I’m sure that I’ll be spending more time upright while working, recording and mixing.  Thanks, GeekDesk.

Mixing

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Tom checks out some playback

It’s been great to get back to working on some music with Tom Smith.  He’s motivated and excited about finishing the current set of songs, and that in itself is motivating to me.

We got together to start mixing a couple weekends ago.  After years of mixing and trying out all kinds of different methods, I think I’ve finally hit on a methodology that works for me.  I think it’s a pretty standard practice, but it’s taken me a while to get around to it.

The setup is pretty straightforward for Tom’s tracks.  Generally we are dealing with a set of eight or so drum tracks, 1 – 3 acoustic guitar tracks, several electric guitar tracks, occasional percussion and keyboards, and lead and harmony vocals.

I set up a bus for each group of instruments: drums, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, lead vocals, harmony vocals.  I can then route the outputs of tracks to their appropriate bus.  I’ll send all the drum tracks to the drum bus, which allows me to control the whole drum mix volume with the bus fader while still maintaining the relative levels and any automation.

I can also run effects on the bus tracks as well.  For the drums, for example, I’ll apply a little compression to the whole kit to give it some punchiness.  I may have already tightened up the kick and snare with compression, so there is an element of parallel compression going on, but usually the bus compression is pretty light. I can also add a little overall reverb if the song calls for it.

I’ve gotten into the habit of using multi-band compression (Waves C4 is a nice plug-in for that) on drums and sometimes vocals.  That allows me to focus on managing certain frequency ranges that need more aggressive control.

Considering we cut the drums for all of these songs in one long session, it’s been nice to be able to transfer the settings from the first session we mixed to the subsequent sessions.  That has saved major amounts of time because we can get a baseline mix up and running, and then make changes to tailor things to the song we’re working on.

In the span of six hours or so, we nailed down the preliminary mixes for two songs.  I imagine the rest will go pretty quickly now that we’ve got some basics dialed in.  More to come!

Tracking Mania

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TRS caught in the act

What better time of year to be inside working on some music?

While we on the north coast haven’t gotten hammered like Maryland and DC, we’ve gotten our usual dose of cold and snow.  Tom Smith has taken the opportunity to use this time to revisit the tracks for his second album tentatively titled “Out On Your Own”.

We must have tracked 16 or 18 acoustic guitar tracks during our day-long session.  We had about eight songs to record the tracks for, and we generally did at least two takes for each.  After each take we punched in to clean up any areas that needed attention, or we comped together a master take from all the takes we did.

I like to fatten Tom’s acoustic guitar sound by having at least two, and sometimes three acoustic tracks in the mix.  Generally I like to have one panned right and one panned left, although sometimes having a track in the center of the stereo field works better.  It depends on the final instrumentation.

After we created a master take for the acoustic part in each song, I used the remaining playlists to put together a second acoustic track that I could use for the purpose described above.

After a brief break for dinner, I returned to the studio.  Since everything was already warmed up, and I was feeling motivated, I tracked a whole bunch of backing vocals for Tom’s stuff.  I did some additional vocal tracking for some of the upcoming drunkdude69 material as well.

All in all it was a fantastically productive day in the studio, something which is (mostly) unhampered by winter weather.

Work picks up on Thomas Reed Smith’s next album

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We’re excited to return to work on the Thomas Reed Smith follow-up to his first release I Need A Change.  It’s definitely been a while since we picked up on the project, but it’s good to know that we’ve got much of the work done as far as tracking and instrumentation.

New sessions will be taking place soon, and we’re planning to finish both this record and the new drunkdude69 record in 2010.