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Alesis Midiverb 4
This unit offers many great studio effects, some subtle and some wierd and wacky all of which can be changed using MIDI program information.
This picture has not
turned out too well has it? The main problem is the light reflecting in
the display. Oh and I have just noticed that to this day I have never
removed the protective plastic cover from the display!
Digitech studio quad V2
Monitors
There are many tips on mastering music properly in music magazines such as Sound on Sound and Computer Music. Here are a few of mine...
Referencing of different systems
During music creation it is really important to periodically reference your music on different sound systems so you end up with a piece of music that sounds balanced on lots of different systems. Your music will probably end up being played on lots of different systems, most of which are not ideal, sometimes not even stereo! I used to create stuff that sounded perfect on my old disco speakers (below) but absolutely shockingly awful on anything else!!
I ended up jumping from the studio to the hi-fi downstairs (to test quality) to the car (to test bass :) ) and back again and the music was much more acceptable.
Now I have two monitor systems, one high end professional, one low end hi-fi (with a switch between the two) and the headphones. From time to time I will play work in progress in the car as well. I found playing a track out of the studio is a great way to sort out how I am going to progress with it if I have run out of ideas and can't get into it any more.
Stereo imaging
I always use head phones at times too, to check stereo imaging it is essential because your ears are intimately glued to their respective channels and any affects the room has on the sound are eliminated. I found a nice pair of Sennheiser HD 570s which my ears really liked, but everyone's tase is different. Any sounds in your mix which may be a little too hard panned on the speakers suddenly become very obvious on the phones giving you bount of headaches and dizzyness forcing you to sort them out!
Bass
Using a good pair of monitors with good bass, or a sub can really help develop good bass lines but dont forget your average punter (unless you supply sound systems to all your fans(!)) will probably have something uncapable of reproducing your deeeeep bass - or certainly not quite how you intend so it's really useful to audition on some small book shelf speakers (like the diamonds) to see if your bass is lost.
To "find" a bass again, try adding a higher pitched sound or tone onto your bass to it is more mid - compatible too. Another thing I found really useful is playing with distortion which can add good effects to the sound as well as add a lot of higher harmonics.
Panning
Panning of stuff is important to make a mix sound life like and more stereo, but make sure bread and butter sounds - bass line and often bass and maybe snare and centered. The centering of bass means the system playing the track can deliver max bass using both its channels and when it comes to deep sounds you can't tell if its coming from left or right anyway.
Main monitoring system - Bluesky Prodesk
The top boxes
These are the SAT5 monitors, each having 60 + 60W bi-amped drivers, so each driver has its own amplifier to minimise distortion across the bands, as it should be. There is a 80Hz filter switch to use when the sub is inline.
The sub unit
This is the SUB8 unit which has a 100W powered 8" bass driver. It works below 80Hz taking over from the SAT5's to complete the audio picture. Don't be fooled that it is "only" 8 inch as the bass is amazing and the cone can travel a long long way. The SUB 12 must be phenominal. The SAT5's can be used alone for smaller installations, perhaps where using the sub would make peeved neighbours appear with annoying regularity.
I have been using the Blue Sky Prodesk 2.1 monitoring system for a long time now. Its sound quality I wonderful and I never have a problem getting enough bass! I have had fun getting the sub placed correctly though. It has made so much difference using a decent reference system to produce music on and every sound is reproduced clearly and in a way that does not give you a headache after hours of use.
Sub rear view
This is a rear view of the sub to show the connections made to the mixer and up to the top boxes. Note the sub gain is -3dB, a setting recommended as a starting point for a smaller room. One annoying thing about this is that whenever I reach for the power switch there is a fair chance the gain will be changed by mistake!
Wharfedale Diamonds and Cambridge Hi-Fi amp
I got the speakers in a car bootsale years ago for £15 quid. The idea was to get a system more like the average home setup up at the low end of the budget to compare during making the music. It's also handy to use them when playing with new syth sounds with very low sub bass that may damage the precious Blue Skys!
The Amp was just bought new from Richer Sounds. One thing I have noticed is it has really quiet inputs so you need something quite beefy to drive it! When running from a computer I had to connect the headphone output into the tape or whatever input of the amp, the line out was not sufficient!
Old monitors - home built monitors
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I built the
monitors as shown on the left when I was 19 years old, originally as
disco speaker but they ended up being used as monitors in my
studio.
The sound they produce is loud but that's about it and there is little in the way of quality. I guess they are great for recreating a non-ideal environment such as the one my music will be listened in. For more accurate sound reproduction I have a small pair of hifi speakers and there is always headphones. These speakers have served well, however and have endured may parties and discos. In fact I think they are virtually bomb proof. I have also bult a mosfet amp to go with them but this is only used for parties! |
These have now been replaced by the above systems, but don't worry, they still re-appear for the odd party!
The Mixer
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Having used a homebuilt mixer since I first started recording music I have finally replaced it with a bought one. The mixer, centre of my studio is now a rack mounted mixer (mainly to save space) and is a Behringer 2804 Eurorack. |
The mixer
has enough inputs for everything I need and there is still some spare
and there are enough auxes for my requirements. Mic inputs are provided
but I don't invisage using more than one of these - unless - hey! I
could mic up my
drumkit! Yes!!
I had a problem with
this unit as one day for no reason it didn't power on and the lights
went mad and there was no sound. I returned to Behringer who charged
100-200 uk pounds to fix and it turned out to be a decoupling capacitor
on an IC!
I notice this unit gets -very- hot after a couple of hours of
use as well, I think it needed a fan or something installed, or maybe
just different electronics! I'd be interested to know if anyone else
has had heat problems with this model or similar.
Recording gear
- Expander section
- Compressor section
- Peak limiting section
1 - the
expander cuts the level dramatically when a lower threshold has been
reached, the idea being that noise is removed when there is nothing
desirable to record.
2 - the compressor can vary in complexity but always has a desired level you set, above which the gain is reduced so the level does not exceed that level. There is invariably a ratio control (calibrated 1:1 , 2:1 etc to 1:infinity) which determines the effectiveness of the compression. 4:1 is supposed to be a good starting point. The Behringer also has attack and release controls which can be set to auto.
3- the
limiter abruptly cuts the level above a set threshold , useful for
removing heavy spikes but will adversely affect the sound if used too
heavily.
Behringer
Composer pro MDX 2200
On the Behringer the two channels can be synced, essential for stereo use and there are many other features such as sidechain which allows an auxillary sound source to affect how the compression works.
Minidisc(tm)* recorder
I have now
started using a 'Hifi' minidisc deck to master all of my tracks, and
after trying to use high quality tapes it is wonderful. Gone are the
days of not knowing where on a tape a track is or finding undesirable
glitches in the recording.
Sony
MDS-JB920
Though minidiscz* is not supposed to be up to the recording standards of DAT or ADAT etc I will say I have not noticed any sound degradation whatsoever when mastering anything I have done in comparison to the original. This is in stark contrast to the problems I have had using MP3 compression. I guess the guys at Sony had time to perfect their 'ATRAC' compression algorithm.
For those who don't know, the disks are very handy in physical size and you can store track names and disk names so you know which is which just by flicking through. Some disks come with a nice selection of labels and protective covers and there is software for your computer to automatically print the labels with designs of your choice.
So impressed by the Minidisc was I that I immediately bought a second recorder! This time in the format of a walkman which I now use with a stereo mic to grab sounds out and about. The unit has been to Venice, Dublin, Milano to name three (in the course of work) and has recorded many interesting sounds I am now using in new tracks.
Apparently
Kiss 100 are using Sony MD for all their jingles (and other stuff too?).
*Minidisc
is a trademark of Sony Corp.
| © Alan Mathers |
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Aug 2006 |