The Basics: Envelopes

Envelopes are a tool in digital music that help us control sounds and effects. This is through and envelope's ADSR. ADSR is something you will encounter in many tools in your DAW, and deals with how we shape sounds.

it stands for:
Attack
Sustain
Decay
Release

Working together, these parameters will help shape how a sound or a parameter functions through time. For the sake of this post, lets pretend we are dealing with an envelope that controls the volume of a synthesizer.

Attack is measured in in milliseconds. This controls how long it takes for the envelope to reach its maximum level. In this case, it would control how many milliseconds it takes for our synth to reach max volume.

Sustain in this instance is measured in dB. It controls the sustained volume at which our synth will remain after the initial attack volume is reached.

Decay is measured in milliseconds. It controls how long it takes for our synth to reach its sustain volume, after the initial attack volume is reached. *note: Decay will have no effect if the sustain level is the same as the attacks maximum level.

Release is measured in milliseconds, this measures how long it takes for our volume to trail off to zero after we have released the key for our synth. A release of zero will result in no release being audible.

Developing a comfortable understanding of how these four parameters work together to produce practical results is essential for helping create a cohesive and fully fleshed out track. Envelopes are the difference between a pad and a pluck, a build or a stab. Spend a lot of time with these, and you will find yourself getting quicker and better results with your sound design endeavors

The Basics: Filters

Filtering Basics

Understanding filters is an essential basic concept of production. Placing a filter on a track allows you to alter what segments of the frequency spectrum are allowed to pass through the filter. 

There are 4 main types of filters:

High pass filter with an analyzer showing its effect on a white noise signal

High-Pass: High pass filters filter out low frequencies

Low-Pass: Low pass filters out high frequencies, leaving only 

our lower frequencies behind.

Low pass filter with an analyzer showing its effect on a white noise signal

Band-Pass: Band pass filters only allow a small band of frequencies to pass

Band pass filter with an analyzer showing its effect on a white noise signal

Band-Reject: Allows all frequencies to pass except for a predetermined band of frequencies

Band reject filter with an analyzer showing its effect on a white noise signal

Filter Controls:

Frequency: Controls where our frequency cut-off of our filter is.

Resonance / Q: Controls the width of the frequency band, or how quickly a HP or LP filter cuts off to 0

Compression Part II: Applied Concepts

Makeup Gain: Makeup gain can often be used and abused improperly. Many producers will employ makeup gain in attempts to raise the levels many of the lower level signals, signal that might not even be affected by the compressor. Doing this puts us in danger of raising our noise floor to unacceptable levels, and adding hiss and hum to our track. Makeup Gain is essential for returning our compressed signal back to its original levels. This is very effective for adding punch to drums.

Side chaining: Side Chaining is a crucial tool for both mixing and production purposes. When a compressors SideChain function is activated, you will often be prompted to select an input. Once selected, your new input becomes the new signal that we will be monitoring. As the new input signal reaches past the set threshold, our original signal is compressed accordingly. This is a very common effect in dance music, where with careful manipulation of the attack and release of a compressor, a synth patch can be side chained to a kick drum, giving the song that push - pull effect that is so essential for creating groove in a track. 

Multiband Compression: As you delve deeper into the world of production and mixing, you may encounter more complex plugins that employ Multi-band Compressors. A Multi-band compressor might look intimidating, but with the concepts that we've learned already, we can pick it apart quite easily. A multi band compressor might look similar to your multi band EQ of choice, only now, each of the frequency bands that we have at our disposal, treats it's frequency range as a compressor, meaning that we can compress and attenuate specific frequency ranges of our track. This is very useful when making those microscopic touches to your mixes. 

Parallel Compression: This is a concept that many a internet scholar hath written upon, and there is no easy way to go about explaining it.
Here is the main gist of Parallel Compression: Our goal with Parallel compression is to make a track more present in our mix. While a beginning producer might believe this effect can be achieved just by turning up the volume of their track, or compressing harder and applying more makeup gain. Doing either of these would drastically increase the level of our noise floor.

So our goal is to achieve a louder sound without
a): Squashing our louder sounds                                                                            
b): raising our noise floor to obscene levels

We do this by splitting our signal into two paths. One remains unaffected, while we run the other through a heavily attenuated compressor (through an aux track or a send) The goal of this compressor is to completely squash our louder signals, we're talking heavy ratios and low thresholds: -20 dB to -30 dB is a good start. This means that to achieve proper, clean sounding parallel compression, we're going to need to use a compressor that can handle heavy amounts of compression without distorting the signal too much.
This effectively leaves our quieter signals that are below the threshold unaffected, while heavily compressing all sounds above the threshold

The final result is both of these signals blended together.

Doing this has achieved two things:
1: By applying heavy attenuation to the louder ends of our compressed track, we've prevented our overall levels from getting out of hand
2: We've allowed our quieter signals to become louder simply through the combination of the 2 signals (the un-altered original signal, and the "below the threshold" signals of our compressed signal) This has essentially just applied a form of "makeup gain" to our quieter signals.

Through careful adjustment of our various stages of gain, our thresholds, and our ratios we can achieve a sound that is perceived as louder, punchier, and more present, all without distorting or squashing the signal, and without introducing the hiss of a overly boosted noise floor.

The Basics: Compression

Compression:

Basics of compression: Compression is another essential tool for studio work. A compressor can be used to achieve a number of results. Compressors can be used to tame any comparatively loud transients in a track. They can be used tame rogue instances of relative loudness, thicken sounds, or add punch to drums and vocals. Compressors various uses become more and more apparent the better we understand the functions of a compressors various parameters. 

Threshold: A compressor functions by measuring an audio signal in dB (Decibels) the Threshold is a level we set within the compressor. With the threshold set, we begin attenuating the signal whenever it exceeds the threshold we've set. In this fashion, the louder the signal, the greater the attenuation is.

Waves API-2500 Compressor

Ratio: The Ratio sets the ratio of attenuation. At a ratio of 2:1, our signal will be compressed by 2  dB for every 1 dB that is crossing above our set threshold. 

Knee: A knee is an optional parameter on many compressors. With no knee, we may think of our threshold as a singular point, with our compressor squashing the signal as much as our ratio will allow, as soon as that signal crosses the threshold. With a knee, things are different. The knee turns our threshold from a singular point, and turns it into a range of attenuation.

Lets say we have a threshold of -20 dB with a knee of 5 dB. Our signal will undergo light compression at -25 dB and reach the fully allowed compression ratio at -15. In this sense, we have turned our threshold from a singular location, into a range of decibels.

Attack: Attack controls how responsive our compressor is to a signal in milliseconds.

Release: Release controls how long it takes for our compressor to stop attenuating the signal after it has dipped back below the threshold. 

Gain (output): This effects the levels of your compressors output after compression. Many use the output gain as a sort of "makeup gain" 

We'll discuss proper applications of makeup gain and other advanced compression techniques in our post: Compression Part: II

The Basics: Reverb

Reverb

Reverb is one of those essential mysteries the beginning producer often finds themselves struggling with. No reverb, and it is very obvious that your track is missing something (unless you're out here recording in roman-catholic cathedrals) On the other hand, I often encounter beginning producers where it seems like the moment they pull up a reverb plugin, the entire track is transported to the bat cave, and the track loses all definition and clarity. 

So where is the middle ground? Too little, and the track sounds empty, too much, and we're overwhelmed with the wash. So with reverb being one of those things that can easily be overdone, how do we know when to stop? What is the "right" reverb for all of our songs?

The Answer: There isn't one. Reverb is nothing but a tool, one we can use to create a desired effect. Reverb puts us in the space that we are experiencing the song in.

Maybe then the correct question to ask is "What is the desired mood of my song?" If you were to create a totally over exaggerated space in which you could immerse the listener in, what would it be? Is it a rock venue? A concert hall? A cave? Once we have a conception of what our space is, then we can start tackling the problem of how to create that space.

Since I can't tell you how to make a reverb specific to your song, I'm going to do something that I wish someone had done for me when I first found myself agonizing over minute reverb fixes: Describe all of the essential parameters of a reverb, and how they affect your sound.

Predelay: Predelay emulates the timing of the first initial reflections we would hear from our sound as it bounces off of a surface and comes back to our ears. Sound travels at roughly 340 meters per second (1,126 ft / s) which calculates to roughly a foot per millisecond (1.126 technically)
          Reflections are important in helping define the size of the space we are in, so if we wanted it to sound like the nearest reflective surface was 100 ft away, we would set our pre delay for 100-ish ms.

Decay Time: Decay Time is the amount of time it takes for the subsequent reflections to decay to silence. This is the main parameter for determining how long our reverb will remain after a signal passes through it.

Dry/Wet: A Dry / Wet knob controls what percentage of the signal is processed through the reverb.
          If we are processing a signal through a reverb bus, we should have this nob at 100%.

Waves "Rverb"
*note - not all parameters listed are pictured.

           

Density: Density determines the space between subsequent reflections. higher densities work well for sounds that you're hoping to thicken with your reverb. Although most often used as an exaggerated effect, you can functionally think of thickness as a result of the size of the space you're creating. The larger the space, the more reflections, and the thicker the reverb should be. 

Reflect: Reflect determines the volume of initial reflections

Diffuse: Diffuse determines the volume or prominence of our diffusion, separate from decay time.

Size: Size determines the size of the room, every reverb plugin runs different algorithms here, so use your ears to find the right size!

Input / Damping: In addition to all the controls mentioned above most reverbs will have two Eq's built into them. The Input Eq controls what frequencies are even processed by the reverb.
Damping (or sometime referred to as a diffusion network) controls the equalization of the processed signal.

Algorithmic vs Convolution Reverb

When it comes to choosing a reverb VST, you might encounter the words Convolution, or Algorithmic Reverb. These phrases refer to the way in which the computer simulates its reverb.

Convolution Reverb:  Convolution Reverbs are rad, programmers create convolution reverbs by analyzing audio signals in real-world environments. You will find that often times, convolution reverb presets are intended to emulate famous concert halls, studios, or specific environments like factories, pipes, living rooms, and concert halls

Algorithmic Reverb: Algorithmic Reverbs are the other 85% percent of reverbs that you will encounter. These are your stock reverbs on your DAW, and many other 3rd part reverbs,. through very clever manipulations of delay, phase, and gain, algorithmic reverbs do their best to artificially create a space to your specification. As a result, algorithmic reverbs are much more high maintenance in order to achieve a believable effect.  With proper tweaking, algorithmic reverbs will be able to handle a majority of your production needs.

The Basics: Finding problem frequencies in your mix

The Basics

Finding problem frequencies in your mix

Often when starting out on a mix, our instruments can sound crowded, with all of our various tracks fighting for space in the mix. While a lot of this can be attributed to volume discrepancies, you may notice that certain tracks are definitely affecting others more significantly than others. This is caused by what I like to call "problem frequency bands"  

Here's how it works: Humans can hear roughly from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Since our access to the frequency spectrum is pretty limited in this sense, this doesn't leave a whole lot of "space" for the various instruments when we start tracking entire bands. You'll often find that maybe your bass sounds will be interfering with your kick drum, or maybe the higher mids of your guitar are washing out your vocals a little bit. This is because these instruments are fighting to be heard at similar bands of frequencies.

So now that we know what these problem frequency bands are, the next question is, 

How do we find them?

The most common method of locating these rogue frequency bands will take some practice, but as your ear gets accustomed to the process, it becomes consistently easier. The steps are:

1. Once we identify a conflict between two tracks, we must decide which track / instrument we want to be heard, and which one we will be ducking out. This just comes down to personal preference of who you want to hear more of.

2. Next, we will open up a Multiband EQ on the track that we want to hear. By narrowing the Q all the way on one of our bands, and boosting the gain, We've created a great tool we can utilize to find Problem Frequency bands. This will accentuate and audibly highlight a very select few frequencies.

3. All we must do now is drag our boosted band across the spectrum till we find the exact frequency / frequencies that we are looking for. This is where you must really use your ears and employ active listening. Picture clearly in your mind where the two tracks sounds are interfering with each other. Once you have a clear conception of where our problem area is in the spectrum, drag the band through that area till you hear the intended frequency highlighted. Once we're confident this is the correct frequency, bring the gain of the band back to 0.

4. Open up a Multiband EQ on the track we want to duck now, and place a band at the same frequency we had identified earlier. This time, we are turning the gain down. There is no exact perfect method at this point, so play with your gain, Q, and frequency; compare, and make adjustments until you have cleared up any undesired frequencies in that range.

5. Repeat this method wherever you hear conflicts and muddiness in your mix. This is a great method for establishing and identifying problem areas in your mix.

The Beginning of a Legacy

The Beginning of a legacy

ReAmp Studios' Blog is your new source for Industry News, Engineering Tips/Tricks, and Studio life content. 

Hello!

We here at ReAmp studios would like to cordially invite you to our blog! 

When we're not cranking out hits for all you talented artists out there, we're steadily offering up our own insights on the worlds of Song writing, Music Production, Mixing, Artist Management, and the Record Making lifestyle. 

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