Musikality Net

There are many things that beginner musicians don’t know. Of all these things, I believe that the most important and tricky is acoustics. This article is the first of a series that will deal with acoustics and the problems that the modern musician faces.

What do we mean by acoustics? Many of you will probably remember from the physics lessons at school, that sound has certain properties. It travels at a certain speed. It deflects on walls. It changes from room to room. Actually, all of us have experienced various acoustic phenomena, even if we don’t know it.

When you go to a concert, you will notice how your position affects your perception of sound. If you put a cd into your cd player and leave your room, you’ll notice how the sound changes. All these are acoustic phenomena. However, what most people don’t realize, is how these phenomena affect our music making.

So, let’s take a look at that picture for example

This is a typical room frequency response. If you think that this thing looks like the Alps, then you’re right .

What this picture actually shows us, is how loud a frequency. The acoustics of every room, treat every frequency differently. What this means, is that the music you write, will sound different in every environment!

Alright, I understand that you are shocked by now. The first time I learned this I was shocked. I was shocked, not only, because my precious mixes were useless, but, moreover, because I hadn’t realized this very simple fact of the universe! That sound has its own laws! But, back then, I didn’t have anyone to help me, like you have musikality

My reaction when I first had this epiphany

Anyway, acoustics are important for two things: mixing and mastering. When you mix or master your tracks, you want to make sure that you have acoustics done as perfect as possible. "Perfection" in acoustics, actually means that the above curve would be completely flat. Of course, this is practically unachievable, but you can try to get as close as you can. The reason you want to do that, is that you want to make sure that your mixes "translate" to other systems.

Let’s say that you have mixed a piece in the room with the acoustics depicted above. You think you have a really strong bass. Then, you go to your friend’s room, you play it, and you can barely hear the bass at all. What happened? Well, in the frequency response above, the bass frequencies are stronger than the rest. So, when you mix them, you attenuate them somewhat. However, your friend’s sound system, has very weak woofers. The bass frequencies are lower than normal. The end result is that the piece sounds a lot different than you meant it to be.

Your friend’s soundsystem might not be the perfect one

A flat frequency response ensures that you won’t make mistakes like the one in the example above. Now, you’ll ask me, how to create a flat frequency response. There are many ways to do that, according to the problems you are facing. We are not going to address them in this article, because these will be addressed analytically in the next articles that are going to come, where we will discuss things like acoustic treatment, correction EQs and monitor placement.

Today we are going to talk about a fundamental concept of music theory: The circle of 4ths and 5ths

The circle of 4ths and 5ths is a very easy method to learn the scales of western music. Take a look at the picture below

We begin at C. If go clockwise, we are moving in 5ths. A 5th is 7 semitones. If we go counterclockwise we are moving in 4ths. A 4th is 5 semitones. Now, if we move in 5ths, we get the scales that have sharps. If we move in 4ths, we get the scales that have flats. Take a look at that picture.

In right you see the sharp scales, in the left the flat ones. Theoritically, we can create all scales with flats and sharps, but after a certain point, we get double sharps and flats, which make it cumbersome to deal with. In the bottom, we have three scales that are enharmonic. This means that they can be written either with flats or sharps, but they are the same thing.

Below each major scale, you see the relevant minor scale. This is the minor scale that contains the same sharps and flats as a certain major. To get the minor of a major, simply move down 3 semitones (that is a minor third).

The circle of fiths and fourths is one of the first thing one learns when he starts studying music theory. The reason is simple enough. You have to know all the scales. When you see a musical score, you see at the beginning the sharps and flats it uses. You have to be able to determine at once the key the piece is in. When you improvise, you have to do so on a scale. This means that you have to practice scales all day long so that you know them by heart.

However, the circle of 5ths and 4ths offers a nice way of getting harmonic progressions. Progressions in 5ths are very common in classical music. Well, not actually harmonic progressions, but modulations. You see, two scales a 5th apart, are only different by one sharp. For example C has no sharps, and G has only one. This makes it simple to change from one scale to the other.

On the other hand, in jazz, the circle of 4ths is the most common progression. It creates a feeling of a never-ending progression. Actually, if you want to improvise and you have no ideas, then just play the circle of 4ths from any key you like . It’s one of the most easily used, catchy and useful ideas ever. You can actually write whole songs based on these two progressions.

Well, that was it for today! These are the basics of the circle of 5ths and 4ths. Until next time, keep studying and be creative!

A few days ago, I was asked by a friend in MySpace how I made the sounds for some of my tracks (http://www.myspace.com/raskolnikovsdream). The truth is that many new musicians are missing lots of information on how to make and use the proper sounds, to make the music they want to do.

What someone usually does, is to use ready-made sounds and play around with them a bit. Then, he might try and program some sounds of his own. However, what many people don’t understand, is that it is difficult to make the "perfect" sound with just one instrument. Instead, if you use many instruments and effects together, you will find a new world of endless possibilites you never thought existed.

A very nice technique, and one of my favorites, is called layering. 

Layering is the art of usingtwo or more synthesizers together, to play the same thing. Every synth, has its limitations. Some synths can’t use more than 3 oscillators. Others, might only have two envelopes. And every synthesizer, usually revolves around only one kind of synthesis. With synthesizer layering you overcome all these difficulties, by adding together the various sounds.

Sylenth is an analog emulation, that lends itself very nicely to layering

Now, we will present some cases where you might want to use synth layering.

Case 1

You write club music. You have a very good bass sound, but it’s lacking that precious sub-bass frequencies (16-60 hz) that will make the club bang and dance.

The solution: Layer a second synth, with a simple wave, (sine, square or saw), an octave lower, in order to play exactly these frequencies. Try not to overdone it, however, because these frequencies can cause the song to be too muddy, and will not play, properly (or not play at all) at cheap sound-systems, like the ones that most people posess at their homes.

Case 2

You have a very nice bass sound. However, it lacks clarity and definition. You can’t make the sound more definable through EQ, without altering it and making clatter with other sounds.

The solution: Layer a sound over it, an octaver higher, to play the higher frequencies. A good choice is the sound to be of slightly dissonant waveforms, like saw and square waveforms, because these waveforms are quite distinctive. What you’ll notice, is that even if the layered high-synth is not very loud, it will increase the clarity of the bass. If the ear listens to a melody in a higher frequency, it will instictively notice somewhat better the lower frequencies.

You want to have this club banging and dancing

Case 3

The sound plainly sucks . You seem to have programmed a sound that you like a lot, but for no apparent reason, the sound doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the song.

The solution: Sometimes, you can create a sound that has some distinct characteristics that you like, but its overall structure, doesn’t fit with the rest of the instruments. You can keep this sound, for its dinstict quality, and layer other synthesizers over it, to make it sound fuller. For example, if you want the sound to sound fatter and more analog, you can layer an analog synth emulation over it. If you think the sound lacks some depth, but if you add reverb, it becomes too muddy, you can add a different, but similar sound, and add as much reverb as you like on the new one.

So, as you saw with these examples, the possibilities are limitless. The only limit is your imagination. I will post in future articles specific examples and how I solved them in my own pieces. Until next time, keep experimenting with the various sounds and see what comes out of it!

Experiment on synthesizers, not animals

Oh yes, music promotion can be a hell.

As an independent musician you face different challenges than those signed to a label. Surely, you got all the freedom in the world, but there is a main problem concerning this job: How can I promote my music?

You might have written the greatest hit of all time, but no-one will buy it, if no-one knows of its existence.

So, what do you do? You must find a way to promote yourself.

The problem isn’t that are no ways to promote your music, but rather the exact opposite. There are so many ways to promote your music and it is difficult to choose the right ones, since all of them are going require a certain amount of your daily time. This means that you have to find those that are most useful.

There is a very powerful tool in your arsenal. This is Alexa.

Alexa is a web information company that holds traffic statistics for all domains. Just type the name of a domain and you can see its world rank.

Why should you do that? When choosing among so many networks and online communities you want to be most active in the most productive ones. The only way to compare this is through Alexa.

So for example, let’s check out MySpace, which is considered the number one site for music promotion. Alexa shows the following results: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main/myspace.com

• Myspace.com has a traffic rank of: 7
• Speed:  Slow (63% of sites are faster), Avg Load Time: 3.3 Seconds  
• Other sites that link to this site: 335,770

MySpace is number 7 on the world record! This means that MySpace should indeed be your number one stop for music promotion.

MySpace is usually choice #1

Of course, MySpace is pretty straightforward choice, but Alexa is more useful for less obvious ones. There are many communities which are not famous like MySpace, but, nevertheless, have a high traffic rank. Jamendo for example, ranks in position 10.940: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main/jamendo.com

Jamendo is a music community that allows you to upload and download full albums under a creative commons license and it can be a powerful promotion tool. Before, finding in Alexa its rank, I couldn’t tell whether this was a good choice, since you can’t tell how many members and traffic a community has, simply by its looks.

Of course, Alexa ranking is not the only way to judge whether a site should be part of your promotional campaign. There are other factors, like the kind of people that hang out in a community. A very useful site for this comparison is this: http://social-networking-websites-review.toptenreviews.com/

In this address you will find the percentage of users under 18. For example in Bebo 54% of the users are under 18. So, if you are playing, let’s say, classical music, maybe Bebo wouldn’t be a very good choice, since not many teenagers listen to classical music.

Furthermore, perform a little research on the subject, like how easily you can make friends and what kind of music is most popular on the various networks. ShoutLife.com for example is community that you can make friends very easily. From the moment I signed up, I got requests every day. However, it is a community dominated by christians. I play electronic music, so this is not a problem. But maybe this isn’t the best place to promote your new black metal band

In this article we are going to talk about the various types of EQ, so that those of you who are beginners in mixing, will get a quick grip of what is going on.

First of all, we must understand that equalizers are filters. Their job is to attenuate or amplify frequencies.

Note that in this tutorial we will deal with graphic equalizers, which are the most common VST equalizers. There are other types, especially in hardware forms, but we will not deal with them.

An example can be show in the parametric equalizer in the picture.

Hardware parametric equalizer

Graphic Equalizers allow you to shape the eq curve in a visual way. Most VST equalizers are graphic, even though there are analog simulations which try to emulate the "real" thing. Waves is known for its various emulations of analog gear.

The API 560

The most basic types of filters found in graphic EQs are the following:

High-pass and low-pass

Shelving Filters

Parametric

Notch 

A low-pass and a high pass filter look like that

Low-pass filter

High-pass filter

Low-pass and high-pass filter, are pretty obviously, named like that, because they allow only high or low frequencies in. There are many reasons you’d want that, and usually, when you use an equalizer for mixing purposes, you’ll have one of those in your setting. High-pass filters are used very commonly when you need to mix any other instrument besides a bass, in order to eliminate all the low frequencies, so that you can leave space for the bass. Furthermore, high-pass filters are used to attenuate all frequencies below 30-40 Hz, because they can be a source of clipping and noise in your mix, while they don’t contain any musical material (since so low frequencies can’t be heard very well by the human ear).

Pretty much the opposite applies for low pass filters, even though they are not as common as low-pass filters. Something we must mention for low-pass filters, is that they are used as anti-aliasing filters in the sampling procedure (something which will probably will never bother you ) 

High-shelving and low-shelving filters are called like that, because they create "shelves", as they can be shown in the pictures below. They’re role is to attenuate frequencies, without eliminating them completely.

High-Shelving Filter

High-Shelving Filter

Parametric filters are used to attenuate or amplify a set of frequencies. They are used to "color" instruments in mixes and masters. By attenuating or increasing certain frequecies, you can change the sound in subtle, yet productive, ways.

However, there are times when you’ll meet certain problems in your mix, like pops and glithces from a bad recording, that lie in a very specific range. In that case, in order to remove completely the problem frequencies, you must use a notch filter. These are filters with extremely narrow bandwidth, in order to minimize intereference with nearby frequencies.

Notch Filter

So, that was it! I hope that this little tutorial was some help to you!

As you may know, I also run two more projects, besides Encefalus.

I am a musician (as it is pretty obvious from running this site), and my first project, can be found here: Raskolnikov’s Dream.

It is a melodic electronica project. In the official site you will find more information and you will be able to listen to samples of my music.

The other project I am currently running is Musikality Net, a blog with resources for independent musicians, including articles and tutorials on various, subjects like music theory, software and promotion.

I’d be very happy if you could just pay a little visit to see what these are all about

Yamaha Motif XS8

Today we are going to debate over this subject: soft synths vs hardware synths. There are many opinions, almost as many musicians, but I am going to give my view on the subject on a few lines.

First of all, you have to realize that any instrument that you are using is going to shape your sound. Like the electric guitar shaped the sound of blues, and heavy distortion shaped the sound of heavy metal, the synthesizer has shaped the sound of electronic music.

For example, the 80s have been characterized by cetain lo-fi analog sounds. The efforts of the synthesizer industry to create emulations of strings, for example, gave rise to sounds that sounded somewhat like strings, but, pretty obviously, weren’t. Nonetheless, these sounds, gave to many bands their distinct sound.

Furthermore, we can’t forget the legendary drum machines like 808 and 909.

Roland 808

The same happens with synthesizers. Soft synths and hardware synths are tools in your music arsenal.

This leads us to the point 1

1)The distinct sound that each synthesizer possesses will shape your music.

However, there are all varieties of prices. Some soft synths have really cheap sounds, some have their own distinct sound. Native Instruments and Spectrasonics are two companies that are known for making soft synths with their own signature sound. Of course, this doesn’t mean that there are not cheaper alternatives (since these companies usually move in the >$400 range). Image Line’s Toxic Biohazard is a VST synth with an excellent sound that comes in less than $100.

Image Line Toxic Biohazard

The same can be said for hardware synths.

Now, let’s get to point 2.

2)Everything depends on your goals

While expensive soft synths (like Native Instruments Absynth which is one of my favorites) have their own distinct sound, they are usually focused on certain genres of music. On the other hand, most modern synthesizers, are not presented as synths, but as "workstations", a concept that Korg founded with Triton Workstation.

This means, that synthesizers are now made as complete recording solutions, with sounds for all genres of music.

Korg Triton Studio

So, your goals will determine which one you should choose. If you are focused solely on electronic music, then going for a hardware synth might be a waste of time, since VST synths are always most easily configured through your DAW, and some of them can create unique sounds in a better price than a hardware synth.

On the other hand, a hardware synth can be a complete solution.

I myself made my first steps with a Korg Triton LE (that was the light edition of the Korg Triton which was too expensive to buy at that time). I learned many, and I mean many, things from that instrument. However, now that I am writing mainly electronic music and music with my bass and guitar, I don’t really need it. I use VST synths from inside my DAW to write electronic music and the bass and the guitar have nothing to do with a Triton LE , since they are plugged in directly into the soundcard.

Roland 909

Of course, there are still some analog synths, which are a different story alltogether. Analog synths are very unique in their sound and are for purists who know that they need this distinct sound. They are a choice for professionals, and maybe, it would not be a good thing to start your career with an expensive instrument without knowing first one or two things. But, then again, who knows? Maybe this is all you need!

Anyway, to recapitulate what we said in this post.

1)Your synths shape your sound pretty much like any other instrument

2)Soft synths are easier to control and are less expensive, while hardware synths are more of a complete solution, but more expensive

I hope that this little article helps you somewhat in your quest towards the perfect sound

Today, we’re going to discuss a few things about music theory. While most music theories revolve around scales and modes (which, of course, will cover at some point) I prefer another way of thinking.

Allen Forte was a musicologist that tried to analyze atonal music. He created a music theory revolving around pitch-class sets, which however, can be used to encompass not only atonal music, but tonal music as well.

Allen Forte

When we are referring to a pitch-class, we mean a note, not matter which octave it is in. So for example, the pitch-class C, contains all the Cs on a piano.

When we are referring to a pitch-class set, we mean a set that contains some (or all) pitch-classes.

A pitch-class set that contains the notes C, E and F. Instead of using musical notation, we could also just refer to our set as C, E, F, since the octave doesn’t matter.

This was a very useful invention for studying atonal music. Atonal music is not based on scales, but usually on things like certain series of notes, that don’t necessarily have any inner logic.

By defining the pitch-class set for a musical composition, the theorist can know upon which pitch-classes the musical piece is based and analyse them easier. However, what makes pitch-class set theory interesting for those who don’t write atonal music, is the fact that pitch-class sets provide a very easy way of encapsulating all other music theories.

One of the problems that people face when they start writing music, and they are not very accustomed with music theory, is this: If I want to play a solo, or an extra riff, or anything, over something else (melody or harmony), which notes should I play?

This problem is solved as follows. The notes of the first musical phrase that you’ll play over, constitute a pitch-class set. No matter the scale or the mode, a new musical phrase, always sounds in tune, as long as it shares the same pitch-class set as the original musical phrase.

So, let’s see the following example.

This meter is actually in C major. However, even if you don’t know scale theory, you can just consider all these notes a the following pitch-class set: C, D, E, F, G, A, B. Then you can play anything you like with these notes.

Of course, someone will wonder, why use this theory, while I know it is C major. Consider the following example now.

This example doesn’t clearly belong to any scale. However, pitch-class sets don’t possess such limitations. The pitch-class set for this example is: C, D, D# (or Eb), E, F, G, A, A#(or Bb) and B.

This can be applied to any example. So, pitch-class set theory makes it much easier to not only to analyze atonal music pieces, but also, to help you deal with musical phrases that don’t belong clearly to any scale.

Major scales, minor scales and modes can all be included in this system. We will cover these in future posts. For now, you just keep in mind, the above rule

No matter the scale or the mode, a new musical phrase, always sounds in tune, as long as it shares the same pitch-class set as the original musical phrase.

Since, scales and modes are so omnipresent, additional rules have been created for their use and analysis that we will cover in other articles. Until then, just keep playing and writing music 

In this article, we will use Absynth to understand what harmonics and waves are all about. Absynth allows you to see both the waveform and its harmonic content. So let’s take a look.

First we will create a sine wave

Now, let’s take a look at its harmonic content

Now, let me help you understand what this thing shows. The yellow lines, above the middle, are the harmonics and their amplitude. Since all instruments use the same tuning (equal temperament tuning), which means that each note is a standard frequency, the harmonic series is always the same. If you remember from the previous article (A few things about audio waveforms and fourier-transform) harmonics are different from each organ. The harmonic series however, is always the same. If f is a frequency of a note in our tuning system, then the harmonic series is 2f, 3f, 4f, etc. What is different, is the amplitude that each harmonic has in each instrument.

In this scenario, we only have the first harmonic, the fundamental, which gives the basic note. The above picture from Absynth, tells us, that should we press a note, like for example C1, we will hear only the fundamental note, and in full amplitude.

The blue lines below the mid-line represent the phase of the harmonic and we will not occupy ourselves for now with this.

So, let’s create some other wave. We will create a square wave.

Now, let’s see its harmonic content.

Now, what we see here, is that in a square wave there are only odd numbered harmonics. That is, the fundamental, the 3rd, the 5th, the 7th, etc. The loudest is the fundamental.

Now let’s play around with the harmonics to see what comes out.

Let’s see what graphic wave function comes out of this

So, in this tutorial we saw, how we can use Absynth’s functions to draw waveforms to understand the relationship between harmonic content and wave. This is a powerful tool (especially for learning),but don’t think that you can really create the waveform you have in mind, in just 5 minutes. The key here is experimentation. You just have to play around to find something you like. The only rule that there is, is that odd harmonics sound harsh, even harmonics sound melodic. Other, than that, the only way to learn is to experiment and learn

Today, I’ll talk about a subject that can be a little be confusing to beginners in digital music: Fourier transform and harmonics. A harmonic is defined by wikipedia as follows

In acoustics and telecommunication, the harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency. For example, if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies f, 2f, 3f, 4f, etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental frequency, therefore the sum of harmonics is also periodic at that frequency. Harmonic frequencies are equally spaced by the width of the fundamental frequency and can be found by repeatedly adding that frequency. For example, if the fundamental frequency is 25 Hz, the frequencies of the harmonics are: 25 Hz, 50 Hz, 75 Hz, 100 Hz, etc.

Harmonics are what give to an organ its dinstict timbre. If you strip an instrument of all of its harmonics and leave only the fundamental frequency, it will sound the same on all instruments.

Various factors contribute to the different harmonics produced by each instrument. The end result is that two notes never sound the same on two different instruments.

A piano waveform (let) and a violin waveform (right)

But, how can we know what harmonics are included in an instrument?

To achieve this we use Fourier Trasnform.

Fourier transform is defined by wikipedia as follows

In mathematics, the Fourier transform is an operation that transforms one complex-valued function of a real variable into another. The new function, often called the frequency domain representation of the original function, describes which frequencies are present in the original function. This is in a similar spirit to the way that a chord of music can be described by notes that are being played. In effect, the Fourier transform decomposes a function into oscillatory functions. The Fourier transform is similar to many other operations in mathematics which make up the subject of Fourier analysis. In this specific case, both the domains of the original function and its frequency domain representation are continuous and unbounded. The term Fourier transform can refer to both the frequency domain representation of a function or to the process/formula that "transforms" one function into the other.

Alright, what all this means is the following.

A waveform contains many harmonics. Each harmonic can be represented by a mathematical function. The simplest wave function that can be is the sine wave. A sine wave contains only one frequency.

A sine wave along with some mathematical properties

What we do with fourier transform, is to take the function of a waveform and make it simpler, by finding the correspondent sine waves. So, we can derive the harmonic content of a waveform, and then represent it on a spectrum analyser. In the spectrum analyser we actually have each frequency that is present in the waveform and its corresponding amplitude, like shown in the picture..

Not difficult, ah?

In future articles we will write more things about spectrum analysers and fourier transform. I am also planning to include an article on Native Instruments’ Absynth, which allows you to control each individual harmonic of a waveform.