All about producing and mastering audio for disc, the web and beyond

Monday, December 27, 2010

The lines blur a little bit more

The last 36 hours have been heavily influenced by the latest weather event in New England - a snowstorm. 18" of snow and 50 mile an hour winds don't represent anything close to a record in this part of the world, but it is enough to get most of us to stay in one place for 30 hours or so. The conditions seem to conspire against my strong predilection to procrastinate and while I did manage to play a few extra rounds of Angry Birds I found myself unusually productive and mixed a classical record I wasn't 'supposed' to have done until Thursday. Ah well, some things can't be helped.

However, I did manage to get some quality web-surfing in, and during that particularly vacuous period I stumbled onto another mind-bending audio application: The ddp checker for....the iphone!!!!!

For those that don't know, ddp filesets are the darling of the mastering community. They are easy to make, easy to verify, immune from the errors that can creep into CD audio, contain all the necessary metadata (if included by the user) for making a CD. They are a data representation of a CD audio project in computer data form. The problem has been that end users can't listen to them easily. until now....behold:

http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/backlinemobile/

This company sells a low cost disc authoring tool called Waveeditor and now they have released a ddp checker for the iphone and ipod touch.

Mind bending in that it is another intersection between the toolset of the true professionals and a platform designed for the rank consumer.

I might just have to try and send my next client their master via Verizon!@)(&^#$*^

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The award time of year - Congratulations!

I have been mulling over my Grammy ballot the last couple days thinking about where I might weigh in. The various awards competitions, from large to small, are opportunities for excitement and cynicism depending on your perspective. Needless to say, winning an award is all good, even if it only serves to encourage the artist-recipient.

In this vein I was pleased to receive news yesterday that one of our projects from 2010, "Silver Screen" by Hayley Griffiths, received the 'Album of The YEar' award from a UK organization that is heavily invested in the Classical Crossover idea. Hayley is a talented writer and soprano, an accomplished dancer-soloist from the "Lord of the Dance" touring company, who teamed up with Jared Hancock of Surefire Production to create an engaging, approachable mix of pop, celtic, and classical elements. Here's to their success thus far....and congratulations with affection and encouragement:

http://www.classcross.com/2010-awards/album-of-year.html

Friday, December 17, 2010

Remotely VIntage

Well, here's one I didn't see coming. A service that offers to take your uploaded (mono) wav file and run it through any one of a number of vintage (and expensive) analog audio processors and then they sent it back to you! Each pass costs one euro, and you have to specify the setting you are after....a bit tricky when dealing with compressors, but this is such an interesting idea I am willing to suspend my disbelief until I see and hear it in action. I assume there's a length/size limit to the file, and if the service becomes popular enough I could only image in the queue waiting for the file to come back, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and see what unfolds. Let me know your impressions if you give it a whirl.

http://www.outboardanywhere.com/

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

40 years of music

Not so very long ago I had the pleasure/honor/responsibility of mastering a compilation representing SOME of the best music released on the Rounder Records (www.Rounder.com) label. For those that don't know Rounder, the label has a VERY diverse catalogue including releases on various sub-labels (Philo/BullsEye/etc and many more). The original focus of the label and I dare say the legacy is one of finding and releasing some of the finest 'Americana', folk music and other 'native' American musics.

The boxed set is divided into 4 decades of music, 1970's, 80's, 90's, 00's with each disc containing about 15 songs from each decade. That's a relatively small sampling of all the music that Rounder released, much less the music released by all labels in the aggregate. Even so, it is absolutely remarkable in the way that each decade seems to have a noticeable difference in production style. The decade of the 70's has the widest variety, from the standpoint of style, tone, dynamic range. The 80's decade has some of the strangest sounding tracks. It seems that decade was one where sonic exploration was rampant while we were beginning to figure out how to work within the new digital container, THe 90's began to show signs of what we think of as current modern audio practice. Still quite dynamic, but gradually the transient detail is compromised in favor of low frequency 'warmth'. Lastly, in the ought's we see the rush to modern presentation, with a lot of limiting, slightly exaggerated bass and treble boost and less ambient information and depth. In other words, the last decades records are really loud!

It was an interesting chalenge to make these all live together, my focus being primarily to let each disc stand on it's own and not worry about level matching the 70's to the 00's, though I gave some consideration to the above.

It was a fascinating exercise and even more, a very interesting listening experience. One that keeps showing me new things each time I hear it.....

Monday, December 13, 2010

Thanks Yehudi: Role Models and Standards

Some weeks ago I had occasion to hear a premiere of a piece composed by Yehudi Wyner. I was completely floored by the piece. The form, harmonic vocabulary, humor....there were moments that dazzled, evoked giggles, and brought tears, all while engaging my mind. He is a masterful composer, a man of letters, Pulitzer Prize winner and he possesses a devilish sense of humor. He also happens to be my uncle. I blush slightly when I write this. It is humbling to be able to see such artistic richness from up close, and makes me feel somehow unworthy....and yet.

I think it is because of my close encounters that I can begin to imagine and understand what is possible, and it gives me an idea of what beautiful and rich can mean. I am not sure I can imagine these heights in the vacuum of my own mind....and for that I am grateful. Grateful to Yehudi, and to all the artists, thinkers and practitioners who have shown me what's possible.

I think it's essential we look for those role models and pay attention when we find them. These are the people who can help us find our own high standards, our own true north if you will. Without them we might not shoot so high. We need not imitate them, but rather follow the example of their obvious pursuit of some ideal.

Thank you Yehudi!

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Plug ins - in search of the usable compressor

Many many plug ins in the sea, and many of them are useful. We have good plugin equalizers, limiters, dither engines.....but really good compressor plugin that will compete with hardware is an ongoing challenge. To date the Algorithmix Splitcom seems the best of the two channel linkable sort, and the Massenburg MDW is an excellent mono compressor.

The latest entry is a plugin compressor by Elysia (the Alpha)....can a $200 plugin hold it's own.? The hardware version is $10k! http://bit.ly/dpJ44Q

It certainly has all the flexibility you would ever desire including side chain filtering, linking/unlinking, wet/dry mix (read parallel compression) and more.

In my tests thus far I am fairly impressed. It seems to lack some of the edginess that comes with less than ideal detector design. I'll have a better idea after another week of use and abuse.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

OK here we go, Moore's law in action again?

Moore's law states that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits would doubled every year for the foreseeable future.

In subsequent years (since 1965), the pace slowed down a bit, but data density has doubled approximately every 18 months. Most experts, including Moore expect this to hold for at least another two decades.

So we probably want to hold on to out hats if not wallets as the next speed upgrades are inevitable. Could this be the next salvo:

http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=143

Lightpeak would be a new protocol for interconnecting devices that would allow blazingly fast data transfer. What do we get from it? Higher resolution, more tracks? Probably both and with it comes larger capacity on our storage devices.

We should probably be prepared to upgrade our hardware, interfaces, cup's and storage every few years or so. Painful, but true....I hope the landfills can take it!

Saturday, November 20, 2010

What mic and why?

In the course of my production work one of the issues that will invariably arise is in choosing microphones for the recording. I have had an opportunity to observe choices other engineers might make and to spec mic's myself.

There is a lot of 'mythology' and legend out there when talking about certain mics, some of it much deserved, but as with many things, just because a mic is 'legendary' doesn't mean it's good for everything. Take the Neumann U87 as an example. It is a fine fine microphone, and in certain cases (voice recording, recording sax) it can excel, but the architecture of the capsule imparts a midrange resonance that can color some voices or instruments in a most unpleasant way. IF someone says they do all their vocals through a U87 it's because they are not listening to the recording, but rather reading the press about the U87....or because they always record the same voice with the same mic and that works each time.

There are a few rules of thumb for choosing mics that bear keeping in mind:

- small diaphragm mics have a better transient response
- large diaphragm mics often sound more colored and 'warmer'
- directional microphones will color off axis pickup (room sound)
- directional microphones exhibit increase bass response as you get closer to the mic
- omni (all) direction mics will sound more open
- microphones that rely on a tube amplifier will sound colored and will have a higher noise floor

Not all rules apply all the time for all mics, and of course all of this goes out the window if the tensioning of the diaphragm is not sound. Age will also play a role. There are few microphones built more than 25 years ago that would sound good without re-tensioning and replacement of some of the parts within that become brittle....an original U67 probably needs help.

If I were stuck on a desert island (with electricity!)and could only have a few mics with me they would probably be:

- Sennheiser mkh-8040 - double dual (small) diaphragm condenser with a remarkably open and relaxed sound. Can easily be deployed as a stereo pickup. (on a budget? Oktava mk12)
- Microtech Gefell U92.1 - Large diaphragm condenser with tube amplifier stage. Sounds warm and open all at once. Fantastic on bass or soprano. (on a budget? Shure KSM 44 or 32)
- Shure SM 57 - classic small diaphragm dynamic mic that can handle hi SPL.
- Shure beta 92 - cause someone will show up on the island with a kick drum at some point, I know it!
- Neumann TLM 103 - for anything the above won't suit....(budget? Oktava of Shure will cover this too.)

There are many other options of course for all the above instances. Happy recording!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Nice things again

Getting nice feedback from artists lies somewhere between PR and the reason we do this work in the first place. Mostly it just feels good to know an artist feels their vision is well served. So another chapter in our nice comments book, this time the feedback comes in the context of working on Jody Blackwell's new record. It's been years and she's long overdue. The record is recorded and produced with Brian Charles over at Zippah Studios in Brookline, MA....and I quote drummer Steve Chaggaris:

"I had the pleasure of listening to your reference CD of Jody Blackwell's forthcoming album, and it sounds fabulous. Great job (once again) on this! That record was a labor of love - and while i enjoyed drumming on her wonderful songs, I couldn't imagine at that early stage of tracking how fantastic the final mixes and master would sound.
I listened 3 ways: in my car, at home through really nice Sennheiser headphones, and on my home system (older NAD amp through PSB towers). It sounded well-balanced, even, smooth... full of "bloom" on all 3 systems!
Jody & I both have nothing but great things to say about you & your work. "

Monday, November 8, 2010

The latest production: "Welcome Home" by Matt Savage

The review below gives a small taste of what is inside this record. It's been thrilling to watch this young artist grow....and grow....and grow. This record is very satisfying, accessible and in some ways a throwback to the hey day of Dave Brubeck. By and large hit is 100% live music making by musicians that were a pleasure to work with in one big room, Systems Two in Brooklyn, NY. Our job....just don't mess it up!

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=37943

Thursday, November 4, 2010

It's a Man's, Man's, Man's Man's World?? (with apologies)

Something I have wondered about and wondered at over the years are, why is it that the field of technical music and especially recording/mixing and mastering is so dominated by men? On the surface it really makes no sense at all. Women are purported to have better hearing than men on average, and on average girls mathematical and scientific acuity is at least a match for their male counterpoints and quite possibly surpass it.

I have had the privilege to work on records by one of the foremost women rock engineers, Trina Shoemaker, and Joanna Nickrenz in NYC is at the top of our field recording classical music in NYC. Darcy Proper is a stellar mastering engineer and chief at Galaxy Studios in Belgium. Closer to home Lisa Nigris runs the audio dep't at New England Conservatory, Susan Rogers and Leanne Ungar are fantastic, accomplished engineers, and colleagues of mine at Berklee College of Music. I routinely have 3-4 female students per semester teaching at the brick and mortar college and online,
but unscientifically I would say they represent 1-2 percent of the engineers I encounter. I would be remiss if I didn't metnion RObin Coxe-Yeldham who was a fantastic engineer and my first business partner. She passed away about 15 years ago.

(maybe a companion question is how come so many engineers are bachelors....for another day)

This question was posed to me just recently by a musician and so I decided to jot down the possible explanations, not really putting a stake in any one of them.

- Women are smarter than men and wouldn't get involved in a job involving long hours and no pay!
- Society dissuades girls early in their school careers from becoming involved in technical endeavors
- Who would want to hang around with a bunch of unshaven, smelly, beer drinking guys?

What do you think?

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Analog everything

This week I am working to archive and renew the theme Music to the PBS Show "Frontline' composed by Mason Daring. It's a stalwart PBS newsy long form show and the theme was recorded in the early 80's. All analog. I am hearing mono and stereo versions, 15 IPS (inches per second) some encoded with Dolby A. Mostly Ampex 456...and it held up REALLY well! All analog musicians too. French Horn, Oboe, Trumpet, Strings, Timpani.

IT remarkable how well the music holds up. The performance is really quite excellent, mixed originally by Glen Berger at Blue Jay in Carlisle, MA. The sound holds up really well also.

What a blast!



Sunday, October 24, 2010

Bax by Dangerous vs Clariphonic by Kush

Spent the afternoon comparing the Bax Eq with the Clariphonic. Both were very interesting, the application similar, but the differences quite pronounced.

Both are program eq. Both employ very broad filters to create general, euphonic effects. The Clariphonic was more versatile in offering MANY different shapes of presence filters and HF boost and a very smooth sound. The Bax offers filters, a straightforward UI, detents, low frequency contour, seemingly better headroom and transient response possibly due to less phase shift (read not parallel eq). Neither is better.

My take is the Clariphonic is a great tool for mix buss and the Bax for the mastering studio.

http://www.dangerousmusic.com/index2a.html

http://www.kushaudio.com/kush/clariphonic/index.html

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The relevance of science

Teaching mastering is one of the more interesting things I have taken on in the past few years at the physical campus at Berklee and I also authored a course for the online school. There are a number of things that make this challenging, particularly since any creative endeavor usually requires years of practice to 'get good' at it. Teaching the principals involved and some of the protocols is not so difficult it turns out.

The on aspect of the subject that seems to consistently elude students is when it comes to teaching the underlying science, either as it relates to digital audio or to the equipment brought to bear in each task. Sometimes the understanding of even the most essential things like sample rate and bit depth seem so, well, dry and seemingly irrelevant. Yet in my mind that understanding that is one of the items that separates the mastering engineers from wannabees. Why? Because good audio hygiene, when practiced properly, will yield louder, clearer and arguably more compelling results, and to my mind you can't really keep your eyes on your audio hygiene without looking under the hood so you understand not only what you are doing but WHY you are doing it.

So I torture students with details about the what and the why. Sometimes I see the light bulbs go on. That's gratifying and so I persist....

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Follow up: Checking a disc for 'quality' of lack thereof

An obvious and good question: "How DO I check a disc?"

There are two different aspect to this, checking the audio to be sure that the data was transferred properly to the media, and that all the metadata is in place

and

checking the data retrieval from the media after writing.

The first needs to be done by listening and checking the navigation of the disc.

The latter needs to be done using a CD reader that has firmware hooks that allow software to monitor and report on the error detection and correction and the success thereof. The simplest solution is something like the Plextor suite of tools that work with some of the Plextor optical burners

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

There's style and then there's music and then there's what's inside

This week I get to wear a hat that's a bit different from the one that I wear sitting in the mastering room. I am in Germany working to help Deborah prepare for a performance with L'Arpeggiata...a cross genre ensemble that brings together exquisite musicians from different countries, geographic and stylistic. I was sitting at breakfast talking with a Paraguayan harpist and we were talking about how musicians can become trapped in their 'genres'. It's not uncommon that when you spend alot of time practicing scales and the finer nuances of a particular style, you lose sight of the bigger picture which is really the music itself: the larger musical idea and expression however it is manifest.

DUring the conversation I was struck, once again, by how some musical concepts cut across musical styles. As a producer, recording, mixing or mastering engineer it is important to understand what is important to the style and preserve/enhance or feature those components. It's also surprising to notice that seemingly incompatible genres share attributes.
For instance, classical music relies heavily on the preservation of dynamic range. The difference between fortissimo and pianissimo, not just in the timbre but also in the sheer difference in the movement of air between the two is essential to make the music expressive and effective....and the same is true for hard rick. Without enough available dynamic range, the kick drum in a hard rock tune would not be able to have the impact it would need. Hyper compressed hard rock sounds flat and two dimensional. There may be no better example of this than ACDC's Back in Black. If you haven't heard the tune, go listen and see what I mean.
So whether we're talking about Vivaldi or Tool we need to know what's important in the music and how to showcase it....and we may be surprised to discover that in some cases, it's the same thing.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

"...talent is overrated and... it’s really the hard work..."

The subject of this post kind of says it all. It's less a statement than a question. It seems like another version of the nature vs nurture argument. I have SUCH mixed feelings about it, starting with the idea that being capable of hard work IS a talent, or a predisposition. I mean if you don't want to do something, or don't NEED to do it, why would you work hard to hone your skill or realize your ambition? I believe that hard work certainly is 99% of success. I also believe that repetition and a feedback loop that includes experimentation, observation, and self assessment is really what's required to improve.

So, do I believe talent is overrated? Only in the mind of the talented artist who has no appetite for the work and only wants to be discovered. Do I believe you can succeed simply by working hard? Probably, though I do think that an open mind and sensitivity to idea and aesthetic are also required. Is it possible to succeed without one or the other?

I think not. I suppose how one defines success....

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Sometimes people say the nicest things...

I think it's probably a truism that, if you do something long enough, repeatedly, over many years, you get pretty good at it and people notice. Sometimes they even say nice things about you. While it's really important to be acknowledged, and get positive reinforcement, it usually the kind of thing that most of us digest privately, quietly, in the comfort of our own studio/office/living room/whatever, unless we're in the midst of a full on PR campaign....but recently a slew of nice feedback has come our way, from all quarters of the globe.

So pardon me while I post one such notice. This one in particular because I appreciate the content, the sentiment and the metaphors. It is well crafted as a short story all its own, with some modesty, but not too much:

"The sound of my CD was greatly improved by Jonathan Wyner’s mastering
magic at M-works. Individual tracks have found their unique sonic
destinies, while sounding more related to each other as an album.
Aloof guitars achieved newfound warmth, and apprehensive drums
discovered unprecedented courage. Behind the board, Jonathan is facile
as a flying monkey—a true master of the tools of mastering technology,
and his extraordinary abilities to hear and imagine lead one to wonder
whether he is part bat."

—Jonathan Feist, Fantasy Monologue

Saturday, September 4, 2010

What is Loud? (redux)

“When I was a kid, I was filling balloons with oxy/accetaline mixtures and tying a firecracker fuse in the bottom of them and lighting them. I had one go off at point blank range as soon as I lit the fuse. That seemed pretty loud at the time. Of course, I’ve never been around anything really loud, just things that seemed loud at the time.” – anon internet

“Music is the space between the notes” – Claude Debussy

“We think the record sounds pretty good but really, we just want to be sure it’s loud.” – a renowned American String Quartet that shall remain nameless

What is Loud?

This question is at the heart of so much of our work. How to measure volume, either in an absolute sense or a relative one. How loud should you listen, how loud should the vocal be in a mix, how loud should you record a track or a mix?

The related question, What is TOO loud may in fact be more germane. If something is TOO loud than something else gets lost. In a live sound reinforcement context too loud might be described as a point when the level becomes painful….you lose your hearing.

When recording too loud is when unintended distortion takes place…you lose fidelity.

In the context of mixing, too loud might be when one sound obscures others…you lose the balance.

In mastering too loud might mean that you lose the space between the notes.

In the days of analog recording and the early days of digital there was a relationship between the nominal level of a recording (‘0 VU’ or +4dbm or –20 dbfs) and the peak level (‘+20 VU’ or +24 dbm or 0 dbfs). In fact when mixes were heavily compressed you might see that 20db dynamic range shrink to 16 or even 14 db, thought that was the extreme. So the loud part of a song would peak at a level at least 14 db hotter than the nominal level of the music. And the quiet sections of the music would reside lower than that. There were technical and aesthetic considerations that helped form this ‘equation’.

Now, with our all powerful dsp chips we can actually make recordings that have a nominal level of –8 or 9 dbfs or even LOUDER! Now, often the quiet sections of the music are living in the area that was previously reserved for the med-loud sections.
Have you ever compared two level matched version of a mix, one at a ‘mildly compressed volume and one at a highly compressed volume to see which is louder?

The reasons for this? It could be that technology has improved and we simply can make hotter records. It could be that we live in an culture riddled with attention deficit syndrome and the only way to get people’s attention is to yell all the time and hope to be heard. It could be that the typical MP3 playback system is poor and dynamics don’t translate well on the poor equipment playing over the sound of a subway train.

While it’s not likely we can change the louder world, whatever the reasons for this phenomenon, we need to understand what the implications are.

The answers to these questions emerge in the context of every project and they bear asking. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

What does it mean to music when the difference between loud and soft is disappearing?
What does it mean when the average signal level presented to a D/A converter is so hot?
What does it mean that the excursion of a peak of a drum hit is now only 3-6db hotter than the rms level?
What does it mean when clipping distortion is an acceptable practice in recording?
What does it mean when listeners are routinely subjected to high listening volumes and levels of distortion in the recording?
What does it mean when engineers, producers and fans accept a hotter level as ‘standard’?
What does it mean when the level of a recording is sustained at a high enough level that you never get to hear the low level detail/ambience/etc.

What does it mean when you never get to hear the space between the notes…………………………

Friday, September 3, 2010

Bobby McFerrin - what can you teach us?

Today I had the privilege to sit among my 'professorial' colleagues of Berklee College of Music and witness a happening (more than a performance or a lecture) conducted by Bobby McFerrin. He's an artist I have had the chance to see more than a few times, from the audience and from backstage. He's one of those artists that brings me to tears, not only due to the pathos, or artistry or technical bravado. The tears are those of recognition of a true artist.

Mr. McFerrin aspires, as much as possible to always fire on all cylinders. He never holds back. He never stops risking and he strives to bring his 'truth' to the room. This seems to be the case in conversation as much as when he's singing.

As all of us sat, astonished, mouths hanging open and with involuntary grins I slowly became aware of a rising discomfort within. It had to do with concern for my students. You see Bobby McFerrin gives us a glimpse into the whole artistic package. He is successful in the moment, he is successful commercially, artistically and he has put this work in. He's earned all the success, no doubt, but the world has room for only so many such figures. In the meantime, the rest of us toil in a much more mundane world, struggling to succeed, and in many cases success means simply surviving. I feel responsible to my students to give them a perspective on what the struggle might look like. What to do when they are not at the level of the most illustrious and successful. We don't all have the time to sit comfortably in the stream of extreme creativity and play to the extent that he does. So how then to live happily and continue to strive toward being realized as fully as Bobby McFerrin, even if we don't get to that 'level'?

Well the things is....If we didn't have Mr. McFerrin we would never even be asking the question/ We wouldn't know it's possible to do what he does. We wouldn't understand 'superlative' in the same way. He is a force of nature and we can learn by knowing he is in our world, and be seeing what IS possible. Who knows where that example might lead. Who knows how each person will interpret that lesson....but thank goodness for him, and for all our heroes and all the self-realized artists who are truly themselves. It is a gift to us that they are in our world, and I am grateful. Thank you Mr. McFerrin, and to all artists who strive to find their own voices....

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Lossy is Lossy....what's lost?

Today's music is consumed in many forms and in the majority of cases that form involves some kind of lossy codec. THe most common term used to describe this is 'mp3', even though the codec may be something related to mp3 (aac) or a distant cousin (ac3 for instance). Since it's in common use listeners are becoming familiar with the 'sound' of mp3. What's that?

In or to psyche that out it's important in simple terms to understand how a 'lossy codec' works:

Most audio is recorded/mixed/mastered using a system called PCM audio. PCM is a high fidelity system that can capture and reproduce audio faithfully and with minimal artifact. The problem with PCM is that the amount of data required to record 1 minute of stereo 'CD quality' of audio is fairly large (very roughly 10MB). That's not a lot of data by today's hard drive standards but if you are trying to download a song or stream audio in real time the data adds up fast. So enter mp3. A standard fidelity Itunes download reduces file size by about 90%! That's huge. How does it do it? It uses a psychoacoustic model that predicts what part of the sound the 'average listener' is less likely to miss....and throws it away. The audio that's discarded is very hi frequency, very low frequency and stereo ambient information (reverb etc). THat's stuff we don't hear so well. THe lower the mp3 bit rate the more of that goes away. It's really a very clever system and has allowed digital distribution to take hold.....but there's an insidious phenomenon here. In order for a recording to sound good in mp3 form you need to have some of that information in the recordingeven though we don't hear it so well. THat way, when the mp3 is rendered you are still left with audio of a 'reasonable' fidelity. However, if PCM recording begin to take on the 'aesthetic' of an mp3, the mp3 derived from the PCM file will be 'worse'....so the argument stands for the highest fidelity possible for a master recording. That way and audio derived from it for digital download or broadcast, will sound 'ok'.

I always encourage those who make music to listen to CD's or high resolution downloads so they know what good audio can sound like and don't accept lossy compression as the de facto standard. It's fine for the consumers, but not for the artists and producers.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

What is Free?

Establishment: " ____ gives Musicians an amazing opportunity to share their talents with the community. Just a chance to practice and get their name out is pay enough for many musicians that I know."

Musician: "Eating at _____ gives the cooks and owners an amazing opportunity to share their talents with the community. Just a chance to practice and get their name out is pay enough for many people I know who cook"

Thanks Jim M....

Monday, March 22, 2010

Warming all round

Warming...

Pardon me for jumping outside the technical realm for a moment but honestly, I am shaken. Trite as it may sound, we live in trying times. The typical modern person is overburdened and as busy as angry bees. Our country is engaged in an intractable political and military conflict which will burden us for decades. We live with incredible uncertainty in the world of professional music (explain how you can justify year and years of practice on an instrument and a production budget of more than a few thousand dollars in the face of the current electronic-downloading-non-paying marketplace?)....and last....and most we have this little problem known as global warming.

It has always been difficult to justify careers and travails in the arts, in some eras more than others. There’s always been a portion of our culture that deems it indulgent, or irrelevant…not an ‘essential’ part of human life. Some think of art as the land of the bourgeoisie. I find those arguments are easily countered with assertions about the things that make life worth living....music is right on top of my list. But it is challenging to hold onto the importance of works of art given the ever increasing gravity of issues such as global warming. Recording technology and practice is related to our environmental crisis. It requires technology and not only that but it requires almost constant consumption of the newest technology in order for us to remain current in our studios.

So we need computers, cables, electricity and, yup, fossil fuels to do our work. Slowly the question formed in my mind, if one wanted to do production work in the most environmentally conscious way(s), what would you, COULD you do? Then here’s the beginning of my list, in no particular order or priority, efficiency, or importance: (these are musings, not imperatives, directives, orders, judgments....intended as food for thought)

1. Get involved in music with a conscience, about issues that are engaged in trying to effect some kind of social change....offer a discount to those recording ‘green’ music, whatever that might be. Acoustic music? Environmentally-topical?
2. Don’t use analog gear....especially not analog tape. That’s right, no tape, it’s backing is made of petroleum in part (guess the ‘warmth’ of analog isn’t as simple as it seems!?). Use digital amplifiers to power your speakers. When they play music amps use more current than anything else in your studio. Digital amps are vastly more efficient.
3. Use LCD screens. They are energy efficient to run.
4. Use the newest CPUS you can afford. They run cooler and generally consume less power.
5. Use flash/solid state memory and hard disks to move files around....using CDR’s and DVDR’s is ultimately going to add to the landfill problems...anyone know how long a CDR takes to bio-degrade? Anyway the plastic coating requires more petroleum.6. Here’s an easy one for most musicians….record at night or on weekends, that is, NOT during peak hours for enegery use. (“yeah babe, got stay out late….I am being green !@@#(*&#$.....I love it”)7. ________________________Fill in the blank.

I would love to hear your thoughts about what else we might do.And why do any of this? I don’t have any illusion that by using one fewer CDR I am going to make a dent in the climate change problem. But apart from the obvious answer that every little bit helps I think we have a larger responsibility. As artists and those that work with artists we are responsible, in part, for the imagination of our culture. Art is sometimes it’s conscience, and sometimes it’s art that inspire the cultures dreamers….and sometimes it’s the culture’s mirror. So if artists are not going to make some noise about these issues….if artists will not take a stand, who will?

I really don’t mean to be heavy handed in this, but I do take it seriously, and I struggle with the meaning of our collective work. Ultimately, hopefully, it’s toward something better for ourselves and those that come after us. Maybe ‘warming up’ your tracks won’t mean the same thing it does now…..

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

"We have the loudest record in our collection..."

This comment was music to our ears, from Emmono Grizo, Greek rock band extraordinaire after we worked on their record. How is it the loudest? Cause they can turn it ALL the way up and it still sounds great. No distortion, no hyperlimiting....just ROCK!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Surround

As I have been preparing to go to Seoul to talk about surround to the local audio community there my enthusiasm for the format has been renewed. From the consumer's standpoint it may be a tiny dot on the horizon, but for the artist it provides a pretty spectacular pallette of tools, colors and perspectives.

The sense of envelopment that we feel in the presence of a live musical performance is part of what makes it compelling, and surround offers that possibility. It is wide, and warm and intimate all at once....

I look forward to the day when it is easy enough for the consumer to use that we can really investigate the form....

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Ornette at The Grammy's

I know it's WAY off topic but I was reminded of the speech Ornette Coleman gave when I attended the Grammy's as a nominee a few years back. Here is the text of his remarks, remarkable as they are:

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"OC: It is really very, very real to be here tonight, in relationship to life and death and I’m sure they both love each other.

I really don’t have any present thoughts about why I’m standing here other than trying to figure out something to say that could be useful to someone that believes.

One of the things I am experiencing is very important and that is: You don’t have to die to kill and you don’t have to kill to die. And above all, nothing exists that is not in the form of life because life is eternal with or without people so we are grateful for life to be here at this very moment.

For myself, I’d rather be human than to be dead. And I would also die to be human. So you can’t die, you can’t die to be neither one, regardless of what you say or think so that’s why I believe that music itself is eternal in relationship to sound, meaning, intelligence…all the things that have to have something to do with being alive because you were born and because someone else made it possible for you to be here, which we call our parents etc. etc.

For me, the most eternal thing is that I would like to live until I learn what it is and what it isn’t…that is, how do we kill death since it kills everything?

And it’s hard to realize that being in the human form is not as easy as wondering what is going to happen to you even if you do know what it is and it doesn’t depend on if you know what is going to happen to you.

No one can know anything that life creates since no one is life itself. And it’s obvious, at least I believe, it’s obvious the one reason why we as human beings get there and do things that seem to be valuable to us in relationship to intelligence… uh, what is it called…creativity and love and all the things that have to do with waking up every morning believing it’s going to be a better day today or tomorrow and yet at the same time death, life, sadness, anger, fear, all of those things are present at the same time as we are living and breathing.

It is really, really eternal, this that we are constantly being created as human beings to know that exists and it’s really, really unbelievable to know that nothing that’s alive can die unless it’s been killed. So what we should try to realize is to remove that part of what it is so that whatever we are, life is all there is and I thank you very much."

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

What is loud cont'd....

“When I was a kid, I was filling balloons with oxy/accetaline mixtures and tying a firecracker fuse in the bottom of them and lighting them. I had one go off at point blank range as soon as I lit the fuse. That seemed pretty loud at the time. Of course, I've never been around anything really loud, just things that seemed loud at the time.” – anon internet

“Music is the space between the notes” - Claude Debussy

“We think the record sounds pretty good but really, we just want to be sure it’s loud.” – a renowned American String Quartet that shall remain nameless

What is Loud?

This question is at the heart of so much of our work. How to measure volume, either in an absolute sense or a relative one. How loud should you listen, how loud should the vocal be in a mix, how loud should you record a track or a mix?

The related question, What is TOO loud may in fact be more germane. If something is TOO loud than something else gets lost. In a live sound reinforcement context too loud might be described as a point when the level becomes painful….you lose your hearing.

When recording too loud is when unintended distortion takes place…you lose fidelity.

In the context of mixing, too loud might be when one sound obscures others…you lose the balance.

In mastering too loud might mean that you lose the space between the notes.

In the days of analog recording and the early days of digital there was a relationship between the nominal level of a recording (‘0 VU’ or +4dbm or –20 dbfs) and the peak level (‘+20 VU’ or +24 dbm or 0 dbfs). In fact when mixes were heavily compressed you might see that 20db dynamic range shrink to 16 or even 14 db, thought that was the extreme. So the loud part of a song would peak at a level at least 14 db hotter than the nominal level of the music. And the quiet sections of the music would reside lower than that. There were technical and aesthetic considerations that helped form this ‘equation’.

Now, with our all powerful dsp chips we can actually make recordings that have a nominal level of –8 or 9 dbfs or even LOUDER! Now, often the quiet sections of the music are living in the area that was previously reserved for the med-loud sections.
Have you ever compared two level matched version of a mix, one at a ‘mildly compressed volume and one at a highly compressed volume to see which is louder?

The reasons for this? It could be that technology has improved and we simply can make hotter records. It could be that we live in an culture riddled with attention deficit syndrome and the only way to get people’s attention is to yell all the time and hope to be heard. It could be that the typical MP3 playback system is poor and dynamics don’t translate well on the poor equipment playing over the sound of a subway train.

While it’s not likely we can change the louder world, whatever the reasons for this phenomenon, we need to understand what the implications are.

The answers to these questions emerge in the context of every project and they bear asking. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

What does it mean to music when the difference between loud and soft is disappearing?
What does it mean when the average signal level presented to a D/A converter is so hot?
What does it mean that the excursion of a peak of a drum hit is now only 3-6db hotter than the rms level?
What does it mean when clipping distortion is an acceptable practice in recording?
What does it mean when listeners are routinely subjected to high listening volumes and levels of distortion in the recording?
What does it mean when engineers, producers and fans accept a hotter level as ‘standard’?
What does it mean when the level of a recording is sustained at a high enough level that you never get to hear the low level detail/ambience/etc.


What does it mean when you never get to hear the space between the notes…………………………

Monday, January 11, 2010

What IS loud?

Today's seminar with faculty at Berklee college was excellent. Lively discussions about what the value of dynamics is, where dynamic range comes from, and why records might sound loud....or why they might not. We also discussed whether records SHOULD be loud and more.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Original Thinking

Original thinking....you see the challenge is:

I need to understand what it is that you are interested in. I can sit hear and write about technology trends or the cultural implications of the democratization of the music business or which kind of pantyhose works best as a pop filter but I don't have a hi degree of confidence that any of those topics are really going to speak to what you are all about....so write me, let me know who you are and I'll try to address some of the topics that are hottest for you.

The second part of the challenge is to write something original. I mean you may not need that but honestly the net is full or articles extolling the virtues of vintage mics or neat tips and tricks about using compressors. Does the world need one more? I guess you'll let me know.

My goal is to give you some real info about the real world when it comes to recording tech and practice.

So next month I'll dive back into some specifics but for now I would like to talk about what makes a really great recording great, assuming that's our common goal. So before arguing ad nauseum about whether POW-R or UV-22 dither sounds better I propose the following list of what it takes to make a great recording:

1 Great music
2 Great musicians/Great performance/ Great programming
3 Great instruments
4 Great recording acoustics
5 Great monitoring acoustics
6 Great monitor speakers
7 Mic placement
8 Mic type
9 Clean Signal path

And so on...

Notice that the equipment used to make a great recording DOESN'T EVEN MAKE THE TOP 5!!!

Of course you CAN overcome some of these issues, and some records have nary an acoustic sound on them but even so you can't violate ALL of the first 5 conditions I set up above and hope to come away with a recording that will inspire your audience to part with their hard earned money, or maybe even inspire them at all. We get so hung up on recording techniques and gear it is easy to lose sight of the main ingredients of our stew.

Ultimately, everything that appears in this column is designed to help you serve the goal of creating the best possible recording, for artistic and/or commercial purposes. So when you’re getting caught up in the minutia, step back, and take a moment to use wider view and as you’re sweating the .1 db boost at 20kHz, see whether the first 9 things on the list have been tended to…..drop a line, I’ll be listening.

Jonathan Wyner (www.m-works.com) has recorded, mixed and mastered more than 5000 records during the last 23 years, spanning every musical idiom (and some nonmusical idioms as well!). He is a professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. His credits range from the extremely well known (James Taylor, David Bowie, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen, Kiri Te Kanawa) to the idiosyncratic and independent artists/labels. A 2007 Grammy nominee, his most recent production began airing on PBS in March 2007.