Musikality Net

There are many dimensions across which we can compare music. Most people categorize music "genres" (rock, pop, hip-hop, etc.). Sometimes, we might categorize music according to its mood ("happy", "sad", etc.). In different occassions we might choose different categorizations. However, there is a categorization that escapes many people, even though it affects the music they like. This categorization is based on the distinction between complex and simple music. That is, we are talking about a categorization based on the complexity of music.

I believe that once getting aware of this distinction it is easy to see how different tracks vary across this dimension. Most modern pop and electronic tracks, for example, are relatively simple in their structure and form. In fact, this might be true for most popular songs in the 20th century (since the advent of "pop"). This might also be true for traditional music as well, since it is the closest thing to "pop" music that existed before the advent of TV and recording media.

Not THAT complex…

Classical music, on the other hand, is more complex. This is true also, for genres such as IDM and progressive metal (think of Dream Theater for example) which purposefully attempt to create complex structures (Tool is another good example) and melodies and, sometimes, even sounds.

What I have noticed through the years is that, usually, more complex music is preferred by people who had musical training themselves. I’ve also noticed that people who enjoy listening to more complex music, usually will refrain from listening to simple music.

Just like music can be categorized across many dimensions, it also affects us in many dimensions as well. Music has a very strong emotional component, but it has a mental component as well. Complex music can provide mental stimulation to those who enjoy it. It is like a hidden dimensions that requires patience and training in order to appreciate it. Most people, when listening to music, they are mostly "hearing", that is, they are not observing the subtleties in structure, form, harmony and melody. Instead, their mind simply absorbs it as a "whole".

It is just like looking at a painting. If you take a look at a painting for a minute, most likely, you won’t be able to remember every detail. You will only have a vague impression on the painting. However, this is not the way a painter would see a painting.

It is this chacteristic of music that makes it so interesting. However, while mental stimulation is can be a very enjoyable effect, listening only to complex music, has some downsides, too. Many times, people will think that listening to more complex types of music elevates them socially, or makes them seem smarter than they are. In addition, the mental stimulation could come at the expense of emotional stimulation. In that case, we are trading a dimension of understanding and listening music, for another, thus, not making ourselves richer in any sense.

I believe that both complex and simple pieces of music can be enjoyable, and there are many masterpieces in both categories. There are also many pieces of music that can be simple and complex at the same time. I believe Beethoven’s 9th symphony to be such an example. And I believe that this is an evidence of true musical genius. A genius in any field, can make the absurdly complex seem simple. A scientific discovery is nothing more than observing a pattern that seemed complex or non-existent before, but now seems evident.

In the same sense, Beethoven could create the most complex melodies and harmonies, without sounding pompous, or even difficult to understand. It is in the work of such people that the mental and emotional aspect of music are combined in a coherent whole, and I believe that any lover of music should really strive to combine these two aspects as best as he can.

Hi there again!

It seems that I haven’t written a post since January 6th, which is like a century in the internet! Well, this happens when you don’t really have any free time in your life.

Anyway, today I want to talk about mixing a mastering. Actually, I don’t want to talk about mixing and mastering techniques per se, but I want to discuss the issue of whether you should go for it on your own or pay a professional.

To many people, this might seem like a funny question. However, what is also true, is that many musicians are divided on this issue, but they take their position as granted.

To be more specific, on the one hand, we have the DIY (Do It Yourself) enthusiasts, the people who want to do everything for themselves. These can be amateurs or semi-professionals, with a great willingness to learn. This is of course a good thing. A DIY enthusiast can delve into greater depths than any one who will simply have someone else do this job for him/her.

DIY can sometimes have impressive results

Now, how great will the benefits be, depend on the circumstances. Each person has distinct capabilites. Not only that, but each musician plays a different kind of music. Musicians who deal mainly with electronic music will benefit the most from this DIY way of thinking. Electronic music contains a lot of sound design and processing. Indeed, many of the tools used in the mixing/mastering stage are used by electronic musicians for sound design, such as compressors and equalizers. For musicians which deal with acoustic instruments, this knowledge will be less relevant. Musicians who play electric instruments (such as electric guitar or bass), usually fall somewhere in between these two groups. They might use various effect pedals and cabinets, but (most of the time at least) they don’t have to know as many things on audio and sound design as an electronic musician.

By trying to mix/master your music yourself, not only will you acquire useful knowledge on sound design, but you will also acquire very useful technical knowledge. In order to do a proper work in mixing and mastering you have to know a great deal about technical issues from how audio is coded in digital form, to how speakers work. This is knowledge that will help you make better decisions when it comes to purchasing equipment. Finally, you will also have to learn about acoustics, a huge issue, to which many musicians are completely oblivious.

Room acoustics

All this knowledge acquired can give you a totally new perspective on the way you write and perceive music. However, it has its price. Going DIY requires a great deal of time, it needs money and it is limited by your wilingness to learn and your skills. Some people, for example, might love and be very capable in technical and mathematical issues, which make acoustics and digital audio theory very easy for them, but others might find this issues difficult.

Additionaly, mixing and mastering music is not an easy job. It is usually done by professionals which have many years experience, multi-thousand dollars worth of equipment and special rooms with treated acoustics. What this means is that no matter how hard you try, you will probably reach a result that will be way inferior to that of a trained professional. When you hire a professional, you know that your job will be done in a fraction of the time you would have to devote for it (casting aside the months it would take you to learn how to mix and master properly and purchasing the right equipment), and you can be sure that it will, usually, be a good work.

What a mastering studio looks like

Then, why go DIY? First, because, as I said before, you are going to learn a lot of things. Secondly, while you will have to spend a lot of money in the beginning, if you choose to mix and master all the tracks by yourself, you could end up saving a great deal of money in the end. Mixing and mastering services can be very expensive, ranging from 360 euros (the cheapest I’ve found on the internet) to well over a 1000 euros.

I personally, decided to take the DIY route at first. In the course of more than a year I learned a great deal of things I never thought I could learn, that gave me a whole new perspective on music. I mixed and mastered my two albums (Raskolnikov’s Dream "Uriel" and "Urban Legend") by myself. However, I decided that for my third album I want professional mixing and mastering services. Why is that?

When I published "Uriel", I thought that I wanted to approach the music business as an amateur. However, later I changed my mind, and I thought that I would be more happy if I could do this semi-professionaly, maybe by signing to an independent music label. Nevertheless, I decided to mix/master "Urban Legend" by myself as well. I sent out a bunch of demo copies to about 40 music companies, and got little responses which were negative.

The covers of Raskolnikov’s Dream two albums

I was discussing with a friend a few weeks ago and he told me that he felt that my production was not up to par with the standards of current electronic music. I agreet with him, and now I believe that going DIY all the way really hurt my chances at promoting my music. The truth is that while going DIY can help you learn many things, going professional is what is going to bring you listeners. Most people out there who listen to music are not audio professionals. They listen to the final result, and not the idea behind your music. When I am writing a track, I have a certain way I want it to sound. With my mixing/mastering I could not always achieve that sound. Moreover, it is very difficult to listen objectively to your own music. The mastering stage should usually be done by someone who didn’t have anything to do with writing the track.

For example, some of my tracks suffer from a weak bass sound. Due to my technical limitations and knowledge, I couldn’t see that. Because I know how I want my tracks to sound when I had finished mastering I didn’t see that as a problem, because when I was listening to my music, I was also listening to the idea of my music that I had inside my head. However, when someone else listens to my music, someone who has no special knowledge on audio engineering or music, he/she will feel that something is not right with the track. He/she will feel that other songs he has heard from similar artists sound way better. So, it is very likely that he will abandon my music because he didn’t like it. But, if the production was better, he would have liked it.

A sad fact of life

So, in order to close this post, my advice is this. If you want to become a better musician, by increasing your wealth of knowledge on audio, then go DIY if you can, at least for a short time. If you are an amateur, go DIY to save money. However, even if you go DIY, if you ever decide to make the next step and go professional, then you should pay for professional mixing and mastering services. Use the DIY approach for learning and saving money, use a pro if you want to succeed. This is what I have learned

Hi there, I am back from a 6 month hiatus! Sorry guys (and girls ), but I am too short on time, and so I only write articles when I can steal a few minutes.

In this post, I want to talk about an interesting way to find drums for your songs: sampling them from other songs.

I traditionally used sample libraries and virtual instruments like Battery 3 to make my grooves. Of course, I always added some effects to give them my own style, but you can only add so many effects before the sound begins to get away from what you originally wanted.

I was listening to a few tracks the other day and I was thinking of how good the drums sounded. I tried to recreate them, but I couldn’t get the exact sound. So, instead of trying to imitate them, why not use them directly?

Battery 3 screenshot

Some people will say that this is immoral and that it violates copyright. However, remember that we live in the digital age and all these notions are pretty vague. The entire drum and bass scene was based on the amen break. The nu-jazz and acid jazz genres, use samples from old jazz recordings all the time. It has become pretty much a standard in many genres to sample someone other’s song. Of course, this doesn’t mean you will rip-off the entire track. We are talking about sampling a tiny part of the whole song here. So small, that no-one would really notice.

So, all this is pretty simple. First, you must be really accustomed to using the scissors tool of your DAW of choice. You must also be good in reading waveforms. A good help in reading waveforms are transients. These are non-harmonic elements of sound that are characterized by an instant increase in amplitude (this is not a scientific definition, but it’s pretty much the overall picture). Transients help you seperate the different elements of a groove. In fact, many algorithms, like Cubase’s, are based on transients in order to split a drum loop.

The sudden peak here is what we call a "transient"

Once you take the piece of sound you want, don’t forget that it is likely to need some more processing. Everything in a song needs processing during the mixing phase, however, your sample, taken that it is from an album recording, is already mixed and mastered. This will give it a different sound from than if it wasn’t processed at all and maybe you’ll have to keep that in mind when you reprocess it. However, all the reprocessing is actually good, because it will change again the sound of the original sample opening up new possibilites.

You might have heard of Burial, a very popular dubstep artist. I was reading a discussion some time ago, where they talked about Burial’s drums, saying that it was all the resampling and processing that gives his drums their distinct sound. And anyone who is a fan of Burial will recognize that the drums he uses are really unique. His samples, however, are not that many. I believe that he must use only a few sounds for his loops. Their timbre however, is so special, that they help consolidate his unique style. This is the power of a great sound design!

Burial’s Untrue is a really great album. Listen to it when you get the chance!

Lately I have been doing some mixing work for the latest album of my electro project Raskolnikov’s Dream. I am going to share with you some things I learned during these mixing sessions.

When you are mixing you are going to need to use some EQ to make the instruments sit together. When you are boosting a frequency, try to use a wide curve. In that way, the boosting seems more natural and musical. On the other hand, when you are cutting frequencies, try to use a very steep curve.

When you are first using an EQ on an instrument use a band filter with a very high volume setting and a somewhat low Q setting, so that you can hear the various frequencies more clearly. Then boost or cut the frequencies you want.

High boost setting, low Q

A very nice way to make the instruments sit better in the mix, is to make a cut to a cerain frequency to all the instruments, when you make a boost in one of them. So for example, if you boost the 2000hz range in the guitar, then make a cut in this range to all the other instruments. Of course, this applies mainly to instruments who are on the same side of the stereo field. If you have panned two instruments hard left and right, you’ll probably not need this, as they’ll sit together anyway.

A wide boost

A steep cut

Hi there, Musikality is back and is back for good . Since I don’t have much time anymore, I’ll write less frequently and shorter posts, but I guess that’s better than nothing.

Lately, I’ve been mixing my new album (http://raskolnikovsdream.com). If you listen to my pieces you’ll see that I layer a lot of sound on top of one another. When you are mixing, the main focus is how to stack all these different sounds together. Sometimes, the sounds are all on the same frequency range, something that makes it quite difficult to mix them.

Enter panning. Panning is the location of the different elements on the stereo field. Back, in the days of yore, everything was mono. That means that there was only one channel for both left and right speakers. Stereo, seperates the signal into left and right. This creates a fuller sound, but the reason that stereo was created was not only to create a fuller sound, but to emulate a realistic live performance.

The next step after stereo is surround audio, but surround audio is something that is mostly reserved for audiophiles, since it is difficult to set up.

Surround panning in Cubase

Now, panning, as we said, concerns the placement of the audio elements in the stereo field from left to right. One of the biggest mistakes one can make is to place everything in the center. Let’s say for example that you are trying to mix a guitar with a vocal track and you place both in the center. The sound won’t be so clear. Now, try to move the guitar to the left. Suddenly, the vocals become clearer. This is what panning is for.

However, the stereo field has to be balanced. You should move audio tracks that share the same frequency spectrum equally to the left and to the right. So, for example, you should balance the guitar on the left, with a high hat on the right. Furthermore, you should know that everything placed in the center sounds more pronounced. So, you should leave the center for things like vocals, bass and kick drums. Vocals, because they are very important and bass and kick drum because low frequency sounds are not perceived very clearly by our ears and if you move them left or right they will mess the perception of the whole mix.

Sorry folks for not having written for so long. It’s been a very hard time for me, for various reasons. Right now I am under tremendous pressure, for many reasons, including the recording of a new Raskolnikov’s Dream album. I am promising to return in June with more articles. I am also planning to include a wider span of articles, talking about many things musical, like album review, or maybe interviews, if I manage to contact a few artists I am interested in .

Anyway, sorry for not having written. You can subscribe to my feed, so that, when I post the new articles you will be informed immediately

Thank you for the support, thus far. I am planning to come back

Alright, there will be one time or another, where you might want to take a synth sound and make it sound fatter and more analog. This kind of sound is difficult to reproduce in soft synths. Most quality digital soft synths, try to have their own distinct digital sound, leaving analog-like sounds to dedicated analog emulation synths.

One of the best emulations I have heard is Arturia’s Analog Factory. Another one is Admiral Polyanna. Native Instrument’s Pro – 53 is also very good. Finally, Spectrasonics latest achievement, Omnisphere, contains many analog sampled waveforms.

Arturia Analog Factory

However, there will be times when you want to create your own analog emulation, or try to make a sound even better. First of all, you should know that you have to choose the right synths for the job. Not all synths are really for this kind of of task. If you have been trying for over 2 hours to make something sound good, but you can’t, chances are that you are using the wrong tools

Now, let’s get to the point. To make a sound fatter, you need to have some kind of dissonance in it. First of all, don’t use sine waves, because they contain only one harmonic: the fundamental. We want harsher waveforms. We have to use square or saw waves.

A powerful tool to cause dissonance is pulse width modulation (PWM). This constantly changes the width of the square wave, which translates into a more dissonant sound.

The second way to create dissonance, is through the tuning of our oscillators. You can lower and raise them by a few cents, in order not to be in tune. Additionaly, if you want a bass sound, you should lower all of them, or some of them, an octave.

So, this was really the basic idea! Now, to make the sound fatter, you can use effects. Chorus is a good idea, because, slight amounts of it are not very noticable, but make the sound more dissonant. Distortion is always an option, but you might want to use a good VST effect, because most distortions built in soft synths might not be the best option. Finally, if your sound is not as good as you wanted it to be, you can always layer another sound on top of it! You can also add reverb, which helps to make every sound more organic, even though reverb is the most abused effect, because it can improve any sound.

Today we’re going to write a few basic things about compressors and limiters.

First of all, a compressor is a device that reduces the signal volume by a ration, once the signal exceeds a certain threshold. A typical compressor will have the following settings: Ratio, threshold, input gain, output gain, soft knee or hard knee, attack and release.

The threshold determines the Db above which the compressor takes action. The ratio is depicted in fractions such as 2:1 or 4:1. This means that for every 1 Db the signal surpasses the threshold, the compressor reduces it by 2 or 4 db respectively.

This diagram shows what happens. There is a certain threshold level. The signal enters and once it reaches the threshold, the compressor starts working. Α 1:1 ratio means that the signal enters and exits unaltered. An infinity:1 ratio means that the compressor works as a limiter. It doesn’t allow the signal to pass the threshold, no matter how loud it is. We’ll get to this in a while.

A compressor also has a knee setting. This determines whether the compressor starts working in an abrupt or soft way. When the knee is hard, the compression is more apparent in the sound.

The attack of a compressor determines how fast a compressor starts working. When this timing is very fast, for example 10 msec, then the compressor starts working immediately and the whole signal is compressed. However, when we choose a greater attack setting, such as 50 msec, we let the transient pass. That is the first part of the signal that hold no harmonic elements, but makes the sound more "punchy". Release, determines how quickly the compressor goes off.

A few lines above we mentioned the term "limiter". As we said, a limiter is a compressor with a ratio equal to infinity:1, which means that it doesn’t allow anything to pass the threshold. A compressor is useful at the mastering stage. It is actually the very last thing in the mastering chain. After all the process has taken place, we pass the signal through a good brickwall limiter, in order to make the signal louder, while ensuring that nothing exceed the threshold and causes distortion.

PSP Xenon is a very good software limiter

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we can go as loud as we want without distortion. A good brickwall limiter can add character to the sound and go louder than another one, but, after a point, everything distorts. Limiters are an entire different topic altogether, but know that they shouldn’t be used in mixing. If you are mixing and then you are passing your signal through limiters, then expect the quality of your sound to quickly deteriorate.

There are many ways to write music. Whichever way you choose the most basic element remains only one: the instrument.

If you choose to use a piano and a violin, you will never be able to play rock. If you choose to play a distorted guitar, you’re probably off in a different direction.

However, most of us, think only about music by using instruments, and not sounds in general. I myself have written music using mainly electric or electronic instruments. What happens, however, when you start using sounds from nature?

This is where it gets interesting. Every sound around us can be used in a musical setting. There are three main ways to do that:

1) Use a sound as an oscillator in a synthesizer

2) Sample it a use it rythmically

3) Use it as it is

Out of the 3 choices, I am currently used the 3rd one. It is a very artistic choice. I am taking urban samples, from highways and airports to train stations, and I am using them as the background noise of my tracks. It is strange, how the ambient noise can "fill" the sound of a musical piece. It’s also very strange, how non-musical sounds can be used in a musical setting.

The two best sources of ambient samples I have found are these: The free sound project and a plugin called Speakerphone Cabinet by AudioEase. You can download some urban noise from the free sound project and add it into the background of your track. You can also use noise as an introduction or as an outro to your track.

Of course, this is my way of doing music. Aphex Twin, has created an experimental masterpiece, called Bucephalus Bouncing Ball, where he uses a sampled bouncing ball as a special rythmic effect

Link: www.youtube.com

On the other hand, Native Instruments’ Absynth has many programs that use experimental sampled oscillators. I have used one of these on my track "Gabriel". It’s a sound that uses a tibetan voice. I leave it to you to find which of the sounds it is

Anyway, once you allow ambient noises into your tracks, you’ll enter a new world of inspiration. Matthew Herbert creates pieces that are mainly focused around sounds he has recorded himself. Check out "Yesness" for example, where it has used countless recorded "Yes" from people. The possibilities are endless.

This is a great question. It is something that was circulating in my mind before I released my album, and is still circulating now.

When I’m saying capitalize, I mean promote your music through myspace and make money out of it. So, let’s take a look to what happened with my project: Raskolnikov’s Dream.

My MySpace is http://www.myspace.com/raskolnikovsdream I joined it at January 11 2009. The day of this article is March 4 2009. This makes 52 days. In 52 days I had 8339 views and 2750 as of the time of writing.

This isn’t a bad number is it?

However, the other statistics are discouraging. I sold only 7 albums, I got only one friend on last.fm and 18 fans on facebook.

So, what is going on here?

My opinion is that these stats reflect the psychological profile of the average MySpace user. And let me tell you why. On CD Baby where I sell my CD, I checked the incoming links. Not one of them was from MySpace. Actually, not even one person in MySpace even tried to enter my CD Baby page. I had some people telling me that they would buy my album, but they didn’t.

On the other hand,on CD Baby i got about 200 visits and sold 5 albums there (the other 2 from a total of 7 were from my site). This comes to a whooping 2.5%, which doesn’t actually sound like a big number, but think for a moment that if, for example, I had the means to promote my music to 10.000 people (which actually isn’t such a big deal), I would sell 250 albums. If I had the the means to promote it to 100.000 people, then I would sell 2500 albums.

These numbers might not  look like a big deal, but if you are an independent artist, they are. It is very difficult to promote your music to such a big audience, yet, if you sell albums, you get most of the profit yourself. Actually, if I sold 2500 or more albums a year, I could make a living, even though these numbers would be considered a failure if the album was released by a record label.

But, what causes the difference between CD Baby and MySpace? It’s simple. As I mentioned above, it all depends on the psychological profile of the average MySpace or CD Baby user. In MySpace, people are looking not to buy music, but to find and listen to music. On CD Baby, people go to buy music.

So, while I have only 200 CD Baby hits, I sold 5 albums, while on MySpace I have 8400 hits and I haven’t sold an album.

So, it all depends on the user profile. Surely MySpace is a great way to promote your band. Possibly, the greatest. It’s a good way to gain internet fame, and fans for your live shows. But, maybe, if you want to gain money from MySpace, maybe you should look elsewhere.