ASWEGO INDEPENDENT ARTIST

Good Evening Everyone:

Ths advance showing of this weekend’s Sunday Morning Acoustic Video has been posted on the website. This is not the final mix for this tune. After several hours recording and mixing my ears are fried and I will wait till tomorrow to do a final mix.

Be sure and check out the new JIM50 Studio Tip. This is a transcription of an ongoing Forum discussion on Mastering in Kristal. The science of mastering discussed is applicable to any DAW, specific instructions are related to Kristal DAW. So there is some great information here for everyone regardless of their DAW.

It looks like the Chat Room is a “no go” for right now. My repeated emails to the host asking about this have gone unanswered. I have also sent emails asking them about billing for buying the service and those emails have as well gone unanswered. Needless to say I am less than impressed with their customer service and sales staff. For right now I am going to keep their free forum with advertisements. If it looks like the forum is going to be used I will invest some bucks.

Be sure and check out the updated Lootop Reader. I found some really funny stuff this week.

Remember that the final mix of the Sunday Morning Acoustic will be on YouTube 2/28/10

Have a great weekend and be good to each other.
Later,
AsWeGo Old Man

This is a great forum discussion that I thought would be interesting for the blog this week.

QUESTION
I use a vst (mpl1) and pushtec (90’s) in the master fader. Where should I set the master fader for volume, I have been putting at 6.9. I have read some other stuff, so I’m a little confused. I thought if I put it at 6.9 and no clipping I was good to go, but i’m not sure?
RESPONSE The actual number on the Master fader is sorta irrelevant by itself. If the individual channels are all pulled down to a low gain setting, then you will have to raise the Master to reach an optimum output.
Most folks around here use a rough measurement of a peak -3db on the Meter… not the numbers scale on the Master slot… In the olden days (analog) the rule of thumb was never raise an individual track fader higher than the Master. That was to prevent over voltage on the Master bus… But, with all the changes Digital brings, I see some folks don’t abide by that anymore… I say play around with it till it sounds good to you!
QUESTION
I feel like such a looser, but if i don’t put the master faders all the way up to 6.9 with my vst and (no clipping) aren’t I sacrificing volume
RESPONSE
As I stated, it’s not the numbers on either side of the fader that count… it’s the peaks the led meter shows… If you are worried about the ‘Loudness Wars’ I would import the finished track into Wavosaur or some other editor and try a limiter like Classic Master Limiter. play around with it…
ASWEGO
I use Classic Master Limiter in my last master slot and try to keep my fader at -1.5. This works for my style of mostly a vox and acoustic guitar. Helps me keep my finished songs at pretty much at the same volume levels. I never raise my individual waver sliders above -0-. I also like to use endorphin and glaceverb in master slots. I like Pushtech with the acoustic guitar and spitfish with vox as a general rule. But then my music is very simple and not nearly as complex as most of the other forum members. I also use Classic EQ quite a bit. In fact the entire Classic Series VST’s are my favoriate and most used VST’s. PushTech and Glaceverb too.
QUESTION
Do you think with the master faders set for “0″ instead of all the way up that might make it less muddy when I export it?
RESPONSE
Armed with what little I know…I usually set my individual track faders to -6.0 and the Master faders at -3.0 as a start. Generally I’ll try to get the loudest individual track set as close to 0db and reference all other tracks to that. All of this adjusts as the mix moves along but the individual tracks get more attention insofar as increase/decrease in levels than the master slot. Main intent is to avoid clipping & leave some room to adjust at the top end. In the Master slots I usually stick Kjaerhus Audio Classic Compressor, Classic Limiter & Glaceverb. I like the Classic series because they are freeware, simple in layout & just-plain-work. The compressor set at the ‘mix down’ pre set takes care of leveling tracks and the limiter on ‘Master CD’ sets a threshold as well as handles any maximizing of loudness that might be needed.
The ‘MPL1′ that you have is a limiter, yes? You should be able to take care of any loudness maximization using that. And the Pushtec is a pretty neat & colorful eq tool. If you have muddiness you might want to mess with the eq settings to see if you can brighten things up. External editors like Audacity and Wavosaur are great tools to get a better visual image than Kristal provides. Lets you get a clear look at the waveform.
Another tool that I think is indispensible is Voxengo Span, which is a spectrum analyzer. It lets you get a really good visual of the waveform so that you can immediately see which freq’s are doing what. Helps a lot when trying to balance sound & get a good eq thing going. Just my $.02 usd. YMMV as they say.
RESPONSE
I hope I’m not beating a dead horse here… but as far as the numbers on the channel/master faders are concerned, they are irrelevant….. they are starting points only. The important info is what the LED levels are. In Kristal, they report the db of the Tracks/Master: http://www.jimprice.com/prosound/db.htm
Here are a couple of short vids I put together to help visualize this concept:
Both use the same source track, and have the gain settings the same on Track/Master for ease of demo:
The first shows what db (level) is produced with a -6 on the gain… you will notice they hit +6db, and clip:
http://www.ttmbandroom.com/index.php?t=video_player&video_id=40&size=large
The second shows Full Gain on Track/Master, and shows well under 12db on the gain:
http://www.ttmbandroom.com/index.php?t=video_player&video_id=39&size=large
GC also makes a very good point about headroom… also defined as Dynamic Range. In the
Loud Music War going on in most pop labels today, that important factor is being ignored
in favor of making the piece louder/as loud as the next song played on the Radio..
Too bad most of the clarity and dynamics of the instruments are lost in this process…
JIM 50 COMMENT
All great info above!
Just so folks aren’t steered wrong in the terminology and meanings when we talk about dynamic range and headroom. I would just clarify that headroom is not the same as dynamic range. “Headroom” is the amount of gain that is ’still available’ above the maximum ‘peak’ level throughout a mix. Eg: there are 3 dB’s of headroom in this mix..meaning there is 3 dB room for gain before signal clips at “0″ DBFS. Whereas, “Dynamic Range” is a mix’s range of volume throughout a mix, from the lowest level to the highest peak of a mix is known as the “Dynamic Range”.. .. there can still be headroom in a mix that has, for example a dynamic range of 15dB (meaning the lowest level to the highest level in the mix is a total spread of 15dB) … with a ”mastered” mix that has been limited to say -3dB , this means there is still 3 dB headroom before clipping.

I hope that helps
JIM50

Hello Everybody!!!
Greetings from a freezing Florida!!!! Well I have just about completed the weekly updates. We have a couple of great featured artist this week from Two Track Music and YouTube. I think you will enjoy these. We also have some great new funny stuff in the LooTop Reader this week.

We are working on a couple collaborations and have one that will be finished for this Sunday’s regular acoustic video. I will be posting more today about this song, “The Gathering”, on my studio page, “The Cutting Room Floor” with audio samples.

I sure do appreciate your visit to the website and hope you will find something useful and entertaining and will come back each week to see what’s new. Please be sure and sign our Guestbook and let us know where you are at on this small planet. We would love to know the country were you live and if the US the state. A carry over from my old ham/cb radio days! You don’t have to signup or leave an email address to sign the guestbook. We sure would enjoy meeting you.

Well, back to the updates. You guys have a great day.
later,
Awgoom

Good Thursday Afternoon!

I have just added a couple nice features to the website. The AsWeGo Forum and The AsWeGo Chat. I have been wanting to add these features to the website for a couple years but just didn’t have the traffic to justify the expense. In the past few months visitors to the website have increased to the point that I decided to add these features now.

After looking at a couple dozen Message/Chat Room host I found one provider that I really like and thought I would give their trial version a test run before buying. There are some downsides to this trial version. For the first 7 days of the trial it is presented without advertisements as you see it now. After 7 days advertisements will be automatically attached. Also the Chat feature is limited to 3 visitors.

If you have collaboration project going on and you need a place to chat with a couple collabers the AsWeGo chat will be perfect for you to discuss a project real time with a couple of other musicians.

If you would like to see another Forum subject listed just let me know. I would like to develope the forums to fit my visitor’s needs. Help me design it for you.

Please let me know what you think about these the AsWeGo Forum and Chat. If you like it and they get used I will pay for the advertisement free, 25 visitor chat version. This one is up to you the visitors. Youf feedback is greatly appreciated. Just drop me an email.

Well, gotta get back to work on website updates. I still have to get the new Featured YouTube Artist posted. Have a great day, and be good to each other. Most importantly have fun!!!!

later
AsWeGo Old Man

I have recently been reading lots on copyright law and how to protect my original works. It is really quite easy and affordable. And the wise thing to do for your original work.

First off I discovered that once I create an ORIGINAL video, a song, a poem, or whatever and put in to a tangable format, ie, cd, handwritten song written on a scrap of paper or an online release of that work it is automatically copyrighted by me. All I am doing with the Copyright Office is to register that specific copyright. You can register your copyright online for $35. You can register one song or a cd collection of songs for the same cost, $35.00. It is better to copyright each song individually in case you decide later to single out a song from a cd collection. But if you are on a budget the cd collection does protect your work.

Later if you decide to use a singe from the cd there are steps to take with the copyright office. I am still researching the details of this. You can find out more details yourself at the US Copyright Office.
Here is an interesting copyright case in Australia with Men At Work’s tune Down Under.
Australian Copyright Case

A good example of why you should copyright your original work. I went ahead and registerd a cd collection of my original songs. Best a well spent $35 bucks.

Later,
AWGOM

Good Tuesday Morning! Last week was quite busy around the homestead. I just got the weekly website update started. Got some new tunes up and lots of changes throughout the site. The new LooTop page is up with some funny stuff and this week’s featured TTM Artist has a great tune to share. I haven’t updated the featured YouTube vid yet. I have emailed the individual looking for his approval and some production notes and haven’t heard back yet.

I continue to make design changes of the website trying to achieve a smoother flow for your visits. If you have any suggestions, comments or something you would like to share drop me an email. I am always looking for a tune, video, picture, joke, link or thought to share on the website.

We have several days ahead of cold and grey so I am going to try and finish a new song this week that I started about a month ago. I was sitting in the car at WalMart with the studio hound, Boosephus waiting on the wife to grab a couple of things, and just watching people. A particular young couple gave me the inspiration for this song. I found a piece of paper and jotted down the lyrics while I waited. I hope to have this done for the next Sunday Morning Acoustic YouTube Video. Working title of the tune: She Left Me At Warmart

I hope you all have a great week. Take care of yourselves and remember…… be good to each other.

Later,
AWGOM

QUESTION

One of the greatest Albums released was “Genesis Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” and it sounds way better on the Vinyl than on the CD. I guess the digitizing process looses some signal thingy’s that made the music of yester year. What would happen if you took digital to analog to Vinyl ? I guess the Vinyl release’s are done that way, so would their sound different ???

JIM50 REPLY

Now you’ve got me goin’ ……

This is a topic that can be quite controversial… and I do want to stress that this is just my opinion… and I’d like to share a few thoughts, if I may. take it or leave it -it’s all good

You’ve raised some good points.

I agree that Genesis - Lamb Lies down….. is a great sounding record…as many of the albums coming out at that time was at the height of Vinyl production….and the tech who mastered and CUT the grooves made fantastic sounding products… the record execs in suits knew no different…and trusted the guys who did the cutting to do their thing.

Here’s a KEY point

One of the limitations of records..vinyl… is that “BASS” frequencies were very VERY carefully engineered in the mastering process to ONLY BE SO LOUD and not one dB louder …. why…???
Because Vinyl has physical limitations… what happens when you put too much bass frequencies into a master that’s destined for vinyl production?? the vinyl grooves from the bass become so large and wide, that a stylus (needle) can’t ride in the groove… and you have mush. Record producers knew this at the time, and everyone agreed on a standard, (see RIAA etc) so the ‘cutting’ of records were technically very refined… and audiophiles LOVED the sound… the dynamics in tact, the overall balance of EQ perfected. The bass was only so loud, and consumers tone controls and equalizers would beef things up if need be (hence the great big SMILE curve, in the graphic equalizers).

Enter Cassettes… aha…. now the record producers can make the sound bigger, and fatter, and LOUDER… they can saturate the tape with rich warm BASS and not have to worry about the size of the grooves… so cassettes got mixed one way, and the vinyl another…now we have 2 EQ curves (or more) that become standards in the music production industry.

Enter Digital Tape and CD’s : AAAHHHHHAAAAAA !!!!
now the dynamic range is wider than it’s ever been, as close to reproducing ‘the recorded event’ with almost the same dynamics, same frequencies as the original performance… what a wonderful GIFT digital was.

Spoiling a GIFT.. enter the young, ‘record’ producers of the digital age (who don’t know what a record is, let alone produce one)… now we can make CD’s that sound so clear, so dynamic.. and we can make it LOUD, by getting so close to “0″ DBFS and smacking the whole thing with a Brick wall Limiter ..and you have a really loud CD that is going to sound better than the one before it because it’s 2 dB louder… and people interpret louder as BETTER…the NON audiophiles that is.

Next thing you know, almost all of today’s engineers are ‘directed’ to make it LOUD and don’t know any different…slam that sucker against the wall because we simply can’t AFFORD to have a product that sounds ‘weakish’ compared to the competitor. $$$$. Make it LOUD or you’re GONE!

It’s a shame that the dynamic range that’s possible to achieve on CD’s has been ignored by so many suits in the ‘commercial’ music industry, creating a “Loudness War” that has spanned 20 + years. (Some of the early CD Masters were done VERY well, IMO, and it wasn’t till later that the dynamics got sucked out of the product so it could sound as mushy ..rrr.. loud as the next guy.

Now Enter VINYL again…. what’s going to happen to the way things are Mastered… will the bass still be a pumpin’ and thumpin like the way it’s mixed for CD’s…. or will the smart engineers realize the only way to make good sounding records is to GO BACK TO THE 80’s and earlier, and study those techniques and practices, and put the same dynamic range and frequencies BACK into the product… and we’ll have GREAT sounding records again.

If the suits decide “hey keep that bass up in the mix and make it FAT”…. those records are DOOMED!!! IMO

Oh… yah, I don’t really like to listen to RE Mastered works either… I’ll take the pops, clicks, ticks and hiss that analog has… over the same thing digitally reproduced and slammed to the wall with 20dB of limiting. I also come from the analog world and when I operated my commercial recording studio, I used to think Limiting more than 6 dB was really pushing it, and that was for the loud rock bands I’d record. So, for me to hear that much of today’s CD’s have been made with 12 , 18, 24 dB of limiting is just mind boggling. Losing all that dynamic range for the sake of sounding loud…

I’m glad there seems to be a grass roots movement in the recording industry to start looking at what has happened to quality of music production … and how everyone is getting short changed in the process. … but there is awareness now starting to spread… maybe.

It will all turn around when someone realizes there’s $$$$ to be made in restoring the dynamic range and making Masters that sound good.

Hey, maybe an equivalent of something like ‘carbon credits’ can be made… you know, pay the producers to NOT kill the dynamic range…. ummm “decibel credits” we could call them!

I should end here…I wouldn’t want to ramble…

CHears

Good Thursday Morning:
Hope everybody is doing well. The studio has been busy this week with lots of new stuff on the website and the Sunday Morning Acoustic #25 for this coming Sunday is available for and Advancned YouTube Viewing.

This Sunday we are going to finish up the collaboration on my original tune “Summer Snow”. This Take Two is great performance by “The AsWeGo Four”! These are some buddies over at Two Track Music Forums. On vocals we have Babbs and Way2lon from Scotland, PapaG from Canada and BigB from the US. They did a great job on their take of my tune. Hope you enjoy it.

Drop by Two Track Music and meet the crew and join in a collab. If you are new to home recording there lots of great people there willing to give you a hand getting started. TTM is my regular online studio. Conversations are great and the music is smooth. Drop by, tell’em AsWeGo Old Man sent you.

On a side note, I am still working on the blog link on YouTube. It’s a little more complicated than I thought and I haven’t had time to sort that out. The Summer Snow video took a wee bit of work and weekly website updates always take priority. Hope to spend the weekend recording for a change. I have a new tune I am writing and would like to get it finished.

Well an old sailor will ramble. LOL You guys take care and be good to each other today.

Later,
AsWeGo Old Man

Good Morning and welcome to the homestead. It’s been a busy two weeks around the studio. We have several collaborations going on with musicians from around the world. I will be writing more on this later today but for right now I want to let everybody know that the studio blogs are being added to our YouTube Channel today.

If you haven’t visited our YouTube channel recently be sure and give it a look.

Weekly updates were made on the website yesterday so be sure to take a look around.

Well gotta make this short, I will write more this afternoon and catch you up on the studio happenings and tell you about some plans we got.

I so appreciate your visits to the website and hope you find something useful and come back every week to see what’s new.

Off to town and errands. You guys take care and remember, be good to each other.

Butch
AsWeGo Old Man’s Quote of the Day “I pick guitar to entertain myself. It’s a lot easier audience.”

QUESTION:

What is the implication of laying a track over another on the waver screen? I notice with drum you get a boost every so often. It is best to avoid multilayering and open new Session say for extra needed tracks.

JIM50 REPLY

There is nothing ‘wrong’ with what I call ’stacking’ tracks.

This practice can have merit, and enhance certain elements to a track.

For eg: if you want to increase the intelligibility of a vocal, you can copy the track - move it down to another open waver, process it with EQ or even efx if you want, and then export it, so it renders the track, then import it back into the same track that the ‘original’ is on… and then, adjust the volume of EACH track via WAVER window, and simply balance the two tracks to taste - and you can get some very nice ‘treatments’ this way. Why not just do it on another track and leave it there? … good question, - by doing the treatment, exporting, then re importing to the original track, you can save a lot of CPU, control mix elements, create interesting fx.

Here’s a “J50 Tip” to try out that involves stacking:

Let’s say you want to make a vocal go from dry during a verse and you want the chorus to slowly fade in some reverb into the vocal part… simply copy the vox to another track as above, then add reverb, export and re import then stack the track on top of original vox, and then on the reverb track, cut out the verse by lowering the volume all the way, then where the chorus starts, use the FADE IN feature to slowly fade in the reverb … and there you have it, a vocal track where the reverb automatically fades up!

Or try stacking 4 copies of a vox on top of each other and lower each copy by 3 dB more than the last one … and drag each track back by equal amounts (say 1/4 sec) and you’ll have a ‘custom made’ echo. (I just used that effect for Bad Fingers vocal track on Like A Friend, on the Smurf Tribute Song … where the word ‘gone’ echoes…

The down side could be, if you don’t sit the track in the exact right spot, you could end up with phasing issues (depending on the content of the track and it’s frequencies) … or if you stack too many elements on one track you could cause a lot of ‘frequency residual buildup’ where some frequencies will combine to make spikes happen.

I’ve recorded 4 or 5 tracks for backing vocals, and then stacked them after treating them, to make a backing vox track that’s easy to manage. The key is in the details along the way prior to the ’stacking’ IMO.

This ’stacking’ treatment may not always sit well with all instruments and tracks, and I have noticed through trial and error that ‘mono’ signals seem to stack well, like a kick drum, or vocal, …. Whatever works, … trust your ears!

Hope this helps.
Happy Recording

Chears
JIM50