effect

Radial Engineering Re-Amping Kit

Alan — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:03:33 +0000

I like it when something just works, but I always feel a bit ambivalent when I can't really notice it working.

The Kit

In this case, I've just been using the Radial Engineering Reamping Kit. It consists of two main components (the J48 active phantom DI and the X-Amp amp driver) plus a power supply for the X-amp and a plastic box to hold it all in.

Plugging In for Re-Amping

I read the instructions, mainly to figure out what happens with signal levels, plugged the Radial X-Amp in and in less than 5 minutes I was recording a guitar track again. It really was a case of plugging a mic XLR lead between the audio interface and the X-Amp, connecting up the power supply to the X-Amp and plugging a normal guitar lead between X-Amp and guitar. It's worth reading the manual for the order of connections and powering-up. I spent longer configuring the software mixer for my audio interface to output the guitar signal on a separate channel than I did connecting everything together.

Advantages

I can record the clean, DI signal no matter what the amplified sound is (ok, this is just using a DI box).
I can then re-record many times the clean through a number of guitar amps and/or cabinets with different eq and gain settings.
I find it goes a long way to reducing the lifelessness from direct recording into software amp emulation.
I can record a clean sound at unsociable hours, knowing that I'll be able to crank up the amp when it's more socially acceptable.
I can play with mic placement and room acoustics in a way that I can't when I'm the guitarist and recording engineer.
Allows me to record a heavier, overdriven version of the same track and blend this is with a clean recorded sound.

Disadvantages

You have to be disciplined or you can spend a lot of time tweaking the amp settings and re-recording the same track many times.
That's it, the components seem to work so well, I don't notice them working.

Overcoming Lifelessness

I mentioned the lifelessness of a guitar track recorded using software amp emulators. I believe they can produce great results, but for me as a guitarist, it doesn't feel the same as playing through a pure valve guitar amp and a 4x12 loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s (that just happens to be my longest-running preference). Some of my best guitar tracks have been recorded using software emulators, I only wish I'd been able to record them with at a mic'ed amp at the time.

I think it's down to the interaction between guitarist, guitar and amplifier/cabinet. Guitarists adjust their playing relative to what they hear coming out of the speakers, hence guitars recorded direct through software amp emulations can miss out the way that the guitarist changes their playing. Actually I think it's further than that, the guitarist changes their playing to suit the software emulator, after all, it's just another amplifier/cabinet combination to handle.

This kit goes a long way to helping me overcome the lifelessness of the software route, while still giving me the flexibility to record when I want to. It does not overcome it completely; you can't beat using the guitar, amp, speaker, effects and mic combination at the time of tracking that you want to hear on the finished song.

So in this case, the product's great and it does the job it's designed to do well. My ambivalence comes from the fact that it's such a simple job that, from that perspective, it has to do that it doesn't seem worth spending the money on. From the perspective of having something that works and does the job well, then you probably can't beat this re-amping kit.

DIY Boost Pedal

Alan — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:44:07 +0000

I've been looking for a nice small electronics project so I took some time out to build a new guitar fx pedal. I've never really seen the point of a fuzz pedal, always seemed to deteriorate the signal too much for my liking. I do like boost pedals, especially nice clean ones that push the preamp just to the point where it starts to distort the signal nicely.

Triboost

The Triboost from Build-Your-Own-Clone looked to be a good way to have a boost and go part way towards fuzz. It's not described as a beginner's kit although is suitable for beginners. I can testify to that. I am a beginner and although I can solder audio jack-sockets and cables together, it's generally messy.

This pedal took me three hours to put all the electronics and hardware together from start to finish. That included some time to find some tools that I'd forgotten I'd need (e.g. spanners and wire-stripper).

From the website:

A germanium boost that uses an NOS European made germanium transistor
A Silicon boost based on the Linear Power Boost for a full frequency kick with tight punchy low end
A MosFET based boost for sparkle and chime

The toggle switch also allows for switching between treble, full range and mid-range boost on the germanium setting.

The Sound

I've no calibrated measurements for this, just my own ears and plugging the guitar into a 50W valve amp.

Well, it's clean in bypass. No additional hum there.

In clean boost, it's very nice. Just a pure gain (or reduction if you turn the knob down). I couldn't detect any noticeable tonal differences, although it does allow you to push the clipping the signal at the pre-amp stage.

The MosFet boost is useful, almost as an overdrive. I had some fun with this one, especially with the bridge humbuckers.

The Germanium setting is quieter. Could be that this was the part I messed up. It's currently held onto the board with red

insulation tape. I'd cut the legs too short. It's a rookie mistake and I'm actually happy with that. That was the only mistake I made and even so it still manages to work as long as I don't shake the pedal.

The 3-way toggle switch is only active on the germanium setting and makes a vast difference. Unfortunately, I found I had to change the boost level for each setting of the toggle switch. As it's a single button pedal, that's not really a problem, unless you want to use different settings throughout a live set.

The Board

The main part of the build is the PCB. And the one thing I noticed was that the layout was really well thought out. Everything fitted in nicely. Look around elsewhere and you'll find PCBs that look a lot worse than these.

What's left to do?

Now for the fun part: the painting. Haven't got a clue where to start. Well, actually, I'll probably start on the forum and go from there.

Hints

Take some time to read the notes on the forum for your pedal. The advice on how to put the pedals together is spot on.

Download the manual. The order in which to install and some of the advice in the manuals is invaluable.

Use the wrong preset for a better sound - Musical Creativity 44

Alan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:04:36 +0000

Opinion is divided as to whether presets in plug-ins are useful. From my perspective, they can be useful short-cuts to a starting point, but I'll usually need to tweak the parameters, sometimes quite extremely. I'm usually happy just starting from scratch, knowing what result I want to achieve.

However, I love putting an ordinary audio track through a plug-in and working through the presets, especially those presets that it's not designed for.

The Concept

Calling it a concept is too way too grandiose really. Basically, take an instrument channel, e.g. guitar and apply presets for other instruments, e.g. piano, drums, etc. Some work, some don't. Either way, they'll get you thinking about the sound differently.

Work Through the List

With the signal-processing power at our fingertips and the flexibility provided by the plug-in architectures of Logic, Cubase, etc, it's easy to apply a processor, change it, remove it, try another and so on. Rather than reaching straight for the standards of eq, compressor or reverb with their respective expected settings for the instruments I'm processing, I'll sometimes put a different effect on, just to hear what it sounds like. If I don't like the result, I can undo the changes and be back where I was.

Waste of Time?

It's worked often enough that 5 minutes or so spent assessing the impact of different plug-ins can be useful, especially if I've hit a block. The more I play with the effects, the more I can predict the sound I'd get. So this tends to be for the effects I don't use as often (e.g. various auto-filters) or more extreme parameters of effects that I do use.

BlockFish

The best example of this I've ever come across is to insert a compressor on a vocal preset onto a drum mix signal chain.

Digitalfishphone.com's BlockFish provides a great example of this. Choose the "Close-up Vocal" preset - I'm doing this from memory so I may have the name wrong, but it should be obvious which preset I'm referring to. I used to use this when using Windows as my DAW's operating system. I remember there were some issues with no OS X version, but it looks like there may now be. Will have to give it a try, not sure if it's Universal Binary though.

Applying this preset immediately provides more energy and bite to the drums. If I wanted it a little more restrained, I'd patch the effect as a send and mix the return in to the required level. I remember slightly tweaking a few parameters to make it more suitable for drums, or at least the sound I was looking for. I think it was the Air Frequency and Air Level that were of most use. And of course, making it stereo since I'd be running a stereo drum-track through it.

OS X

In Logic 8, the Compressor effect can produce very similar results to the BlockFish effect. It doesn't have the same presets for the plug-in itself, so you'll have to play a bit more with it. In this case, changing the compressor type to Opto makes a drastic difference to drum-tracks. I'm not so sure I like it, I can hear the high-end clearer, but I can also hear too much compression, bordering on distortion with the optical variant, even after tweaking threshold and make-up gain for it to be more subtle.

Logic 8

Logic 8 has more emphasis on presets for channels rather than presets for plug-ins. On one hand, it makes the process of adding a preset chain of plug-in presets (yes, presets of presets) easier and it's a good way for learning how effects chain together. On the other hand, it's about chains of effects rather than a particular effect. In the end though, it's whatever works for you. There are still presets for plug-ins, the above image is the Compressor with a setting of Drum Kit Compression with the circuit type to Opto.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Using an Octaver for Easy Funk - Musical Creativity 43

Alan — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:23:43 +0000

Mention an octaver to a musician, especially a guitarist, and you're heading for a conversation about Hendrix.

It can be used for other styles. So here's a quick trick for writing funk. Forget the bass when you start. I half-expected to get lynched, but bear with me, at least until the end.

Background

I like the old P-funk of Funkadelic and Parliament. I think what made me hear it more was the inclusion of a distorted guitar in a funk show. This was often played in sync with the bass guitar.

Setting the groove

Find a sparse drum track. You want big drums (not 80s soft rock big though). Make sure it's a tight loop. Set it to loop as your background track. Now remove the click track if you've got one. You'll play better this way.

Setting up the guitar

We'll get the distorted guitar set-up first. That'll be a distorted guitar from the 70s, maybe even a distorted DI from the 80s. Keep the speaker simulation to a minimum. We're not looking for a modern hi-gain sound here so go for a raw guitar sound.

Next add an octaver effect. I've had better results recently with it placed after the amplifier/amplifier plug-in, but normally I'd place pitch effects before the pre-amp.

Set the octaver so it adds a note one octave (12 notes) below the signal.

Roll the tape

Now play and record. Use an extended pentatonic scale (i.e. blues scale with a few additional notes) to get started. The p-funk guitars had lots of semi-tone intervals.

Fill it Out

Add a second guitar with a modulation effect, most commonly a subtle phaser playing rhythmic, strummed part-chords.

Finish it off

I've added a club-type reverb to bond the 3 instruments tracks together, aiming for a live club feel.

Make it more complex

You could add the octaver as a send instead of a insert, allowing to mix the levels better and potentially (depending on the quality of the octaver effect) retain the character of the original signal with more clarity.

Make it more authentic

Put on the star-shaped shades, pick up the bass and record the part properly. The octaver gives you an easy way gets you started in the groove, but it really should be done with a bass.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Use of Tremolo - Musical Creativity 42

Alan — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:27:29 +0000

I've talked about tremolo as a musical feature before, this time I want to go into more detail.

First things first, let's sort out the guitarists: I don't mean using the tremolo arm/whammy bar or whatever you want to call it ("handle" as my girlfriend called it - and no she won't be picking up my guitars for a while). The whammy bar creates a vibrato feature, not a tremolo. Vibrato alters pitch.

Amplitude

Tremolo is the act of altering the volume of a note or set of notes. For an electric instrument, the simplest to hear is by regularly turning the volume knob up and down. The notes fade in, fade out, fade in, fade out and so on.

It's a great tool for livening up a piece of music. The previous article on the subject covered some more ways of using it.

Recordings

Tremolo features on a lot of famous recordings. Three extreme examples are:

How Soon Is Now - The Smiths

Crush with Eyeliner - REM

What's the Frequency Kenneth - REM

But it's used more subtlely on many, many more recordings. Think of any country song and listen to the guitar. Many of the 1950s and 1960s guitar recordings had tremolo on them. Think Duane Eddy (although he mixed it with vibrato by using the whammy bar a lot). Lots of Elvis recordings featuring Scotty Moore had tremolo. This situation was accentuated and facilitated by the inclusion of tremolo circuits in the guitar amps, e.g. Vox

Types of effect

The common tremolo effect alters the amplitude or volume of the incoming signal apply a regularly repeating pattern before output. The most common pattern is the sine wave, although some FX units also allow square and sawtooth. The output signal increases, decreases, increases, decreases, etc.

The waveform applied changes how fast the signal reaches the extremes and how long it stays there before beginning the journey to the other extreme.

Depth

If the signal is applied completely at 100% depth, then the output will have no signal at the points when the applied FX is at its lowest point, conversely it will have the maximum volume when the FX is at its highest point.

Lowering the depth introduces a less radical effect, to the point that if the depth were at 0%, then there would theoretically be no difference between the input and output. As with most effects, the most appropriate depth is usually somewhere between the two extremes.

Symmetry

The waveform applied so far has been the same on both sides, i.e. going up and coming down. Altering the phase allows more time for the signal to climb and a quicker fall or vice versa. This is great for imparting a slower or a rushed feeling to the track.

Phase

For a stereo tremolo, the default set-up is to have the signal applied equally, but alternately to each channel. Changing the phase control alters the timing displacement of the second channel compared to the first, which can be used to create panning echoes or dotted note rhythms.

No Depth?

I'd usually use a tremolo inline with the signal, either at the recording stage (e.g. between guitar and amp) or at the mixing stage (as an insert). If there's no depth control, then patch the tremolo into a send and emulate the depth by the relative values of the signal and send faders.

For guitarists, if there's no depth control, then you maybe able to use it in the amp's FX loop if you've got a variable dry/wet mix. This may not work well, since the FX would be placed after the pre-amp. Depends what equipment you're using.

Playing with fingers

A classical guitar tremolo technique involves repeatedly plucking the same string with the first, second and third fingers. This is often a bass and/or melody note plucked with the thumb followed by the three fingers or sometimes a fourth is employed but the fingering changes.

The most famous example is probably Recuerdos De La Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega, although I think Agustin Barrios Mangore's Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios (Alms for the Peace of God) shows the technique more.

Various forms of flamenco use a similar technique, sometimes using the thumb plus four finger notes (not necessarily four fingers, often three fingers with one repeated) to get a 5-tuplet pattern.

Pick

For electric guitar, rapidly repeated picking of the same note gives a tremolo effect that can be used in solos. Do it too often and you'll sound you can't move your fret-hand fingers. Best to intersperse it with other techniques. Check out the Ozzy Osbourne recordings with Randy Rhoads, e.g. Tribute, to get an idea of how to fit it into a solo. He doesn't use it that often, but when he does, it works well. Nowadays, watch Matt Bellamy of Muse. There are plenty of others, but they're not coming to mind right now.

In other forms of music, e.g. drag, it can be the main feature. This is more likely to happen on the lower strings of the guitar, with a springy/slap-back reverb. Think Dick Dale. Although perhaps not part of drag, Miserlou (as featured in Pulp Fiction) is a great example of how a simple riff can lead the track. The repeated picking comes from his experience with an oud (or ud).

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Revamp - Musical Creativity 40

Alan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:48:37 +0000

Take an old track and change the style of it.

I'm amazed how many tracks can be given more life by changing the style of music. I pick tracks that I've never fully finished to my satisfaction and apply a different musical style to them.

Identify the original style

What's wrong with the original track?

Did it just plod along?
Lack of melody?
Lack of interest?
Too much repetition?
Didn't fit the video?

I usually pick a style that will help fill the gaps. For instance, if it's just plodding, I'll add something with a groove (e.g. motown). A few ideas:

Add some distortion to the drums (better still route them through a send with a guitar amp simulator) and blend the clean and processed signals. This may only be needed for a bar or two rather than the whole song.
Speed the whole thing up a few bpm will give it more energy.
Slow it down a few bpm and you may find that you can play with the groove more.
Change the starting key
For guitarists, look at playing with open versus fretted chords. I find that changing the key on a guitar can make a large difference to the tone. Consider the standard Am chord played at the nut compared to the tone of the same shape chord with a barre played at the 5th fret forming a Dm. Every decent guitar I've played provides a drastically different tone for these two chords. Same again if you move up another 5 frets.
Modulate
Change the dynamics
Change to double time - The change is about 2 minutes into The Stand-Off
Pause/Break - The change to double time is provided by a break, complete with drums keeping time
Play it on another instrument and focus on the rhythm or melody - does it highlight any issues or any ideas?

A good way to approach this is as a remixer or as a band about to cover your music. Ask the following question:

What could another band do if they had to cover your music?

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Use random notes - Musical Creativity 38

Alan — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:28:37 +0000

Create a random part and modify it until it becomes musical. I'll describe a few options for taking a random parts and the processes I use for making them more musical.

1. Creating the randomness

I set Logic on a 4 bar cycle and hit keys at random on my keyboard. I chose a clean electric piano sound since they highlight any dissonance. It's not truly random because it's difficult to unlearn how to play, but after cycling through the 4 bars a few times it did become a mess of notes.

I could have used the humaniser function of Logic with the notes set at random (oddly, to de-humanise the part) . Didn't think of this until afterwards.

The glue part was because I was recording twice. I had to glue the parts together. There was no need to hae done this, it was just because of where I'd started and stopped recording and what I'd wanted to include.

2. Lengthen the notes

I changed the notes to half-time, doubling the length of each note. I expanded the region and the cycle region to account for this. So now I've 8 bars instead of 4.

3. Deduplicate overlapping repeating notes

If an event has a closely following event of the same pitch overlapping, this will turn them into two events, but the first will finish just before the second starts instead of overlapping.

4. Quantize

The placement of the events was a mess, they were all over the place with no real rhythm. I played with the grid, visually assessing which grid seemed to fit best. This was purely a quick estimation. I also changed the quantize value a few times and I settled on 24ths (triplet semi quavers). I also liked 12ths (triplet quavers) but it seemed to rigid, especially for having come from random notes.

5. Process length for overlapping notes

I did this, then decided to undo it. I liked both, but decided to keep the longer notes ringing. This option means that Logic will identify chords and ensure that the events are the same length. Without it, some notes in a chord may ring more than others.

6. Humanise Velocity.

I processed the midi, running it through the humanise function focussing solely on velocity. There wasn't a major change here, just slight enough to add some odd stress patterns. Maybe a groove template or similar would have been a better feature. Not sure.

7. Effects

These are in the order I added them (they're in a different order in the signal chain)

7a) It was crying out for a rotary cabinet emulator. Didn't need much, just something to take the edge of the louder, higher pitch notes.

7b) Guitar Amp emulator. I like using guitar amp emulators on non-guitar instruments. It's rare they need the full-on, high-gain distortion models, but mostly, just a clean or slightly overdriven blues amp can make a massive difference to a sound. For this one, I went with a clean amp.

7c) Overdrive - to have more control over the tone of the overdrive than provided with the guitar amp emulator, I went with a separate overdrive effect. Again most of the effect was dialled out to avoid losing the music in the distortion.

7d) Compressor - again to take the edge off and make the sound shine through more.

Some other ideas?

To be honest, add any effect and see what the result is. I tried a few that didn't work out in this case.

Delays can work well at creating rhythm out of random notes, especially if only on some of the notes
Use the random notes to trigger an arpeggio or other sequence (either directly into a virtual instrument or using the arpeggiator in the environment)
Pitch change processors - ideally you need a polyphonic processor. I tried running it through Logic's Pitch changer with variable results, not expecting much. Mainly I knocked out a few notes from the scale, but I wasn't happy with the sound
Use the midi filters to process some of the events but not all. For instance, you can select just the highest or lowest notes and split them out to a different channel and/or instrument. Then quanitise them differently to the rest of the events.
Most of the modulators will muddy the sound, reducing the sharpness of any dissonance from the original notes.
A tremolo will work similar to the modulators by reducing the sharpness of any dissonance but also provide a rhythm. Can be used on all notes or focussed on range.
Trigger the notes via another method, e.g. use a gate or a compressor with a sidechain to create a stuttering or pulsating effect. At least you can then bring the notes in line with the rest of the rhythm.

Gallery of Screenshots for each part of the process.

Want to do better?

I've attached the midi file so you can try for yourself. Let me know how you get on.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

Different Speed - Musical Creativity 32

Alan — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:45:40 +0000

I mentioned featuring multiple rhythms in the previous article on Musical Creativity. In this one, I'll introduce multiple speeds.

Different Speed
Similar to how different beats are accentuated due to the accents of the individual time signatures in the previous article, we can see a similar effect with varying the speed of one or more of the tracks.

To demonstrate, I'll take you through a basic sample song. Here's a screenshot of the song.

It consists of 3 channels:

Treble synth with a repetitive pattern
Bass synth with a repetitive pattern
Drums with a repetitive pattern

I've chosen artificial sounds to make it easier for others to replicate. Just bring up any softsynth and select two different patches. I changed the patches until I found something that worked for this demo.

I haven't done anything interesting with the notes. They're largely just repetitions of A or the A major chord with a few other notes thrown in. Not much thought to any melody. It should help focus on the speed.

The Treble Synth

Set the song speed to 160bpm
Programme channel 1 with the treble synth. That's the sound you hear at the beginning of the song.
Add in some notes and set to loop
Export a region of this track only. Think I exported about 60 bars, but only used about half of that. It's worth having the original bpm of 160 in the title of the exported file
Import this exported bounce into an audio track
Mute or delete the original midi track

The Bass Synth

Mute the treble synth
Programme channel 2 with the bass synth. This is the other musical sound that comes in after the 2nd bar and drops out as the speed changes.
Add in some notes and set to loop

The Drums

Programme channel 3 with a drum synth.
Add in some drum notes and set to loop.

Tempo

Hit play and change the playback or
Set up a separate tempo track and change the tempo there

I used a tempo track set to 160bpm at the start, then change to 175bpm, then to 163bpm. You can see these changes in the tempo track. At each change, I've dropped out the drums and bass to make it more obvious that there's a change.

The Results

Channel 1 will playback at the same speed of 160bpm regardless of the song's tempo. The drums and bass change speed along with the song's tempo. This results in different accents as the rhythms combine. 175bpm works well, whereas 163bpm sounds more cluttered. Depending on the tempo, notes and original source tempo, the result can add an interesting rhythmic quality.

Why a drum synth?
It doesn't have to be, but you need a loop that will change speed as you change the song speed. So don't use an audio file that won't stretch as you change the playback bpm. Apple loops will work well within a limited range.

Beat Frequency
If two sounds are of close enough frequency and similar enough tone, you may experience a 3rd note. This subjective tone is produced in the same way as the 3rd note you get when tuning two guitar strings to each other. If you can hear the 3rd note, then you know the strings aren't in tune.

The beat frequency is the note caused by the interference and reinforcement of the two source soundwaves. It can be used musically in its own right, although I've used it more often to create tension and then resolve.

A diversion into low numbers
Due to playing musical notes, rather than sine waves, it's going to be a lot more difficult to guess what the subjective tone will sound like or if you'll be able to hear it.

For instance, 8 notes to a 4/4 bar at 120bpm means that notes are playing at a frequency of 1 ÷ (60s ÷ 120bpm ÷ 8 notesperbar x 4 timesignature) Hz= 4Hz. We're not going to hear 4hz and that's just for one of the source notes, let along the difference between that source note and another in order to create the subjective tone. However, and it's a big however, the subjective tone can still be audible since each of the notes has it's own amplitude pattern. It's the combination of the two source tones that brings about the potential of an audible subjective tone.

Best thing to do: experiment. It's easier to spot in the treble range. I don't think there's one in the mp3 here, but there was in an earlier version where I had a different tone. That was the only difference.

What else?

Introduce melody and/or different rhythms. The loops above were just to show the concept.
Vary the tempo gradually as opposed to the step-changes I used.
Introduce more than two musical instruments
Use frequencies that are very close together for uncomfortable results
Use frequencies that are multiples of each other (or at least have common denominators) for a more synchronised rhythm
Focus on the beat frequency

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.

My Home-Grown Mastering Process

Alan — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:47:42 +0000

Introduction

When I master tracks myself, I do it within Logic Pro. I do not delude myself into thinking that the results of my efforts will be better than that of a professional mastering engineer. My view is that that there are times when mastering tracks yourself is the pragmatic choice. In this article, I provide details of my mastering process. This builds on the article about why process mapping is relevant to music and audio.

Process Map

Click the process icon to see the larger, more detailed process map.

The Individual Tracks

After mixing and applying eq for the track itself, I check the stereo-image (especially mono-compatibility), then export the track without dynamic compression at 96Khz/24bit and type 1 dithering, just to handle dithering from Logic's internal bit-depth down to 24bits. There's a lot of debate about whether dithering at this stage is necessary. I'd usually say that if I can't hear the difference, then I don't do make the change, but for some reason, dithering at this stage is one step that I do perform. By exporting at that stage, I receive the clearest version of the source file that I can have.

Putting the Tracks Together

I then import the track into another, empty, Logic Pro Song that I use just for mastering CDs. This is where I'll look at the mix of tracks and applying effects across the CD. I'll apply any eq to even out the tone across the whole CD, automate the fade-in-out levels and pass the mix through a compressor if appropriate.

Once I'm happy with the mastered sound, I export that to the destination format. Assuming it's a CD, then 44.1kHz/16-bit with type 3 dithering (or noise shaping). At the same time, I'll export an mp3, complete with mp3 ID tags.

Burning the CD

I load the CD tracks into Waveburner and burn the CD from there. This involves setting the gap between tracks to 0 seconds since the fade-ins and fade-outs have already been rendered as part of the "mastered" mix from Logic in the previous steps.

Convoluted?

I think my process is too convoluted. I would use Waveburner earlier in the process instead of loading the tracks into the empty Logic Pro track. I did try that route but I was never comfortable with its stability. It just crashed at odd times and I'd have to start again. I found the safest way was to use Logic Pro a second time for arranging all of the tracks together.

Caveat

I'm not advocating that we all should master our own tracks. Mastering engineers have a role to play for finishing your CD or other production.

Why am I publishing this?

I've never seen the process described well enough that it makes any sense. I understand the principles well-enough, I've no problem with that side of things. It's putting those principles into use using the software applications at hand that causes the issues. I've seen snippets of information but they never fully answer when you should dither or not and how, when to compress, etc. I want to encourage debate about the processes we use and I'm volunteering some of mine to get the ball rolling.

Ideally I'd like some of the processes to start tackling the main questions I see on recording forums. Hometracked.com has a list of 7 popular questions which align very closely with what I see as well.

Talk

The process diagram is a bit simplistic, but it should be enough to get the debate started. I can add in the extra detail as conversations progress. Want to share your own processes, let me know.

For more background on process mapping, I've started an online book on the Fundamentals of Process Mapping.

Process Diagram License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License

Budget compressor that works way beyond expectations

Alan — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:39:30 +0000

Budget or not

I subscribe to the view that you almost always get what you pay for at the lower end of the market. So it's nice to come across something cheap that works well.

The compressor

I bought a compressor the other day, but not for use as a studio compressor. I bought it as an effect for my guitar rig.

I'm using it to push the preamp a little bit for a fat round sound. There are some of the standard compression knobs such as Attack and Release. There's also a Ratio switch for high or low. The Emphasis knob controls how much of the high frequency signal is passed through without compression, allowing for the rattle of strings to come through. This is a great feature if you're thinking of using it on bass.

The pedal is easy to use if you don't think of the knobs on the top row as having much to do with traditional compressors. I'm still trying to figure out the compressor knob. I know what I think it should do, but it doesn't seem to. It seems to be a mixture of ratio (relating to the hi or low levels from the switch) and threshold. One way to find out is to do record an A-B comparison and look at the audio file properties. I'm curious what it actually does do so I'll do this at some point.

The Output

The sound out of the compressor isn't crystal clear. It's not that noisy either, to the point that you can't hear any added noise when the amplifier is on a clean setting. I haven't measured it more accurately than listening by ear.

The resulting sound has a nice warm quality with the guitar's tone being slightly subdued. Feels like a more rounded tone. I guess some of the higher frequencies have been removed. For an all-purpose compressor, that's a problem. For putting in front of a guitar or bass amp, I see that as a positive. I wouldn't use it on every song either, but I can see it getting a lot of use.

With the amplifier on a high gain setting, there is more hiss and hum with the compressor switched on. That's not necessarily being introduced by the compressor other than the fact that the make-up gain is increasing the floor level.

Snake Charmer

It's the Vox Cooltron Snake Charmer Compressor pedal and I bought mine for £39, a big reduction from the RRP of £149. That's a great price for a compressor pedal and fits into the budget pedal price, undercutting a lot of more "pro" models. The Cooltron pedals are marketed as having tube technology. They do indeed have a tube inside. I have no idea if the tube is adding to the tone, to me it was just a gimmick, but I'm glad I tried the pedal despite that.

Bass

After trying this in the shop using a guitar, I couldn't wait to get it back and try on a bass. It has a nice tone on that as well, although there are some issues. Two things to bear in mind:

It's a compressor that isn't configured as a limiter, so a sudden loud signal will still get through to your amp.
I think it's designed for use with guitar frequencies, but rolling the emphasis knob to the extreme will let more of the bass' higher frequencies through.

I've found that I had to keep the attack on the left-side of 12 o'clock otherwise it outputs a click if you hit strings hard. The click isn't anything in the source and is still in the output despite the amplifier's limiter being on full. My guess is that the pedal introduces it into the signal chain. I want to check that before I confirm it. I'll see if I can get the same sound using a different bass amp, a DI and also using a guitar into the same amp. Either way, I'm a bit wary about introducing that click to any sensitive equipment until I can find out where it's coming from. The compressor pedal is still useable and a joy to play with on bass, but keep the attack knob down.

Edit - I've tried the compressor on the same settings with a (passive) electric guitar into a guitar amp. I didn't hear the click.

Vocals

I wouldn't put this in the signal chain for recording clean vocals. It's not designed for that and I really doubt whether it's clean enough although, again, I haven't measured it. From what it's done to the guitar, I can imagine it working well as a nice effect on vocals, perhaps on a send mixed in parallel with the original or on an insert for much rougher sound.

Conclusion

In all fairness, I didn't expect that much from the pedal before I tried it. I was dubious about the valve gimmick. But for using the pedal as something that cleanly adds tone, wow, it's got to be heard. It also has the bonus of having the usual compressor feature of adding sustain to notes. Great. Unlike most effects that I just use in one or two places, I'm looking forward to trying this in a variety of applications. It can never be my go-to compressor, in the end it is just a guitar effect pedal, but it definitely has a place for changing the sound of a signal in a positive way.

At this price, it's a steal. Almost a no-brainer.

If it were more expensive, I may still buy it but only if I wanted the exact sounds it produces and I couldn't get them from a more versatile compressor.