As many of you already know, I am now teaching at two colleges: University of Massachusetts Lowell and the New England Institute of Art.  At both schools I teach in the Audio Production departments, but at UML, it is called SRT or Sound Recording Technology. I can recommend both of the text books.  They have different perspectives and both are well established texts in the field.

The first book that is required reading for UML’s  class 78.305 “Survey of Music Technology” is Experiencing Music Technology by David Williams and Peter Webster.  The book is quite expensive in stores, but is a little cheaper at Amazon as usual. A new edition of the book has just become available to update the content with internet technologies, contro surfaces and other innovations from the last 10 years.

Experiencing Music Technology

The second book is also expensive unfortunately. Audio in Mediais in its 8th edition and is one of the most updated books on the subject. This text covers everything from acoustics to post-production. It’s fantastic overview of music technology from mics and loudspeakers to control surfaces and signal processors.

Audio in Media

So, convinced as I was that I needed a TI based chipset for firewire on my Dell 6400 Crap-Top, I purchased the SIIG ExpressCard Firewire adapter. I was actually able to get the laptop to track audio with the MOTU Traveler! I was so happy that I had a functioning machine that I immediately went to do some mobile tracking.

So here’s what was working (sort of):

If I used a Lacie Extreme External Hard Disk using the USB 2.0 Interface I could record up to 5 or 6 tracks of 24 bit 88.2 Khz audio at a time. USB interfaces are not known for their ability to move a lot of data and are VERY rough on your CPU cycles. If I tried more than 6 tracks at a time, the CPU would get pinned at 100% and I would get drop outs or other unacceptable problems with audio.

Here’s what wasn’t working at all:

When I switched to using the Lacie External as a firewire drive I was unable to get even 2 tracks of audio without drop outs. I found out about this at a mobile recording gig. Both my customer and I were SUPER pissed.

I submitted a Tech Request to MOTU and here’s what I learned:

Reprinted from my MOTU Tech Support Response:

Hi Hendrik,
Due to the firewire implementation of Windows XP Service Pack 2, firewire audio interfaces may not work properly if multiple firewire devices are being used simultaneously.
You can remove Service Pack 2 as follows:

Go to the Add/Remove Programs control panel.
Locate Service Pack 2 and remove it.

If you cannot remove SP 2, you can minimize this behavior by disabling inputs and outputs if you are not using them, such as the optical ADAT I/O. Also, we have found that while the behavior is still present in Vista, by changing your host’s Buffer Size you should be able to find a setting which allows multiple devices to work in your system.
Additionally, there is a second Service Pack 2 FireWire issue which may compound this. Microsoft has offered a hotfix that may resolve this. Go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885222 for more information and instructions for installing the hotfix. This does not affect systems with Vista.

This would seem to suggest that there is no good way to record mobile on a Windows XP Service Pack 2 computer. Firewire is only the real choice for an external disk. If you want to record, then you’re going to need to use the internal drives.

Give Apple another point on this one…

Most rock acts that call looking to book studio time at Indecent, are really interested in what kinds of drums sounds I am able to create. It’s very hard to talk about these types of sounds over the phone without listening to audio samples. This posting shows off one of the typical drum mic set-ups that I like to use. Every project has a different flavor, and so every drum/mic set-up has its own unique approach. However there are some techniques that I consistently employ to get the most typical sounds for rock and pop music.

The photos from this particular mic configuration are from the drum tracking sessions for a 5-song project that I am producing for Sierra (http://www.sierrarocks.com/) , a folk-rock artist that I heard for the first time several months ago. Our goal was to get a pretty natural, acoustic drum sound that wouldn’t be out-of-place on a singer-songwriter album based on acoustic guitar and vocals. I already knew that I wanted to work with Penny Jane Larson (http://www.myspace.com/pennylarson) on the record because Penny and I have great chemistry in the studio and and she’s just a great f*ing drummer. Sierra and I worked up tempos and some feels in our pre-production work and sent MP3’s to Penny so she would have an idea of where Sierra was coming from.

Penny and I decided to use the “small” house kit at Indecent, which is a 7-piece birch Premier kit with a 20″ kick and 14″, 12″, 10″, and 8″ toms. Penny only needed the 14″ and the 12″ so we didn’t bother to include the other pieces, because they would just ring, rattle and cause problems. Penny brought a copper Slingerland snare drum that sounds very woody and warm. She used that drum for everything that didn’t require side-sticking and she opted to use another snare with hardwood hoops for the more mellow stuff. I have the Evans EMAD system on the kick drum and Evans 2 ply heads on the toms. Penny did a great job tuning and damping with duct tape and tissue.

After we got the drums to sound really great in the room, I started mic-ing up the kit and choosing mics that I have had good luck with in the past. This first stage is mostly driven by experience. I’m not listening the drum mics at all at this point, but rather placing specific mics where I think that they will sound best. After everything is set-up, then I move to the control room to choose pre-amps and compressors. Basically we arrived at a set-up that looked like this:

In this particular setup (and in most of the setups that I favor), the majority of the drum sound is derived from the overheads and the room mics. Note in the picture the drum overheads are attached to a heavy studio boom stand and are separated using a Jecklin Disk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jecklin_Disk). This provides for a near-perfect stereo effect. I use two omni-directional mics (TC25’s) from Earthworks’ Drum Kit. I place the mics 7 feet off the ground below an area on the ceiling that has been well treated with acoustic foam. This tends to cause the mics to pick up the drums directly and not the reflection of the sound off of the ceiling. The TC25’s are ruler flat and provide an extremely accurate picture of sound in a room. They don’t color or alter the tone of the drums, the room or anything else.

I also use a room mic (notice off to the left in the photo) made by Shinybox. This is a ribbon mic called the 46 MXL (http://www.shinybox.com/ShinyBox46.php) complete with a premium Lundahl output transformer. The Shinybox ribbon competes with mics double and triple its price like the Royer 121, for instance. The mic is extremely warm and pleasant sounding with a pronounced roll-off of high frequencies. The mic has a figure 8 pattern which picks up some of the back of the room as well as the drum kit itself.

The next most important part of the sound is the kick drum. The overheads and the room mic usually get a great snare sound, but most of the time the kick is over-emphasized in my small drum room. There are a lot of different ways to handle a kick drum, but I have been happiest using two mics in the hole on the resonant side of the drum. I usually use an AKG D112 (http://www.akg.com) because it has the classic kick sound with tons of low end. In order to get a little definition I prefer that drummers use either a wood beater or the hard plastic side of the new hybrid beaters. This provides for a certain amount of click. Also in the hole, I point an Earthworks SR25 (http://www.earthworksaudio.com/16.html) small-diaphragm condenser right at where the beater hits the head of the drum. This provides for a much more defined and punchy kick sound. I usually mix the two mics’ signals together pretty equally, or I favor the SR25 slightly.

Snare and Tom mics are only used to emphasize the sounds already in the overhead mics. For the snare drum I use a Shure Beta 56 (http://www.shure.com). It’s basically a Beta 57 with a slightly different body. The mic sounds pretty good, and it has a tight pattern which helps to reject sounds from the hi-hats, kick drum and rack tom. The specially mount on the mic is unfortunately poorly conceived and can make it difficult to patch in a mic cable. It won’t work with the Drum Claw for instance, and usually can only be used with the smallest extension of the boom arm on most stands.

With snares and toms, I try to split the difference between close mic-ing and distance mic-ing. The closer the mic is to the rim of the drum, the more ring ends up in your sound. Pointing the mic at the center of the drum helps. This is where your get the least amount of sustain and the most attack. I try to get my mics several inches up and above the rim of the drum pointing dead at the center of the drum. The further away the mic is from the drum head, the more of the drum head the mic actually picks up. To get a natural sound you want the mic far away from the drum head; to get isolation and a more artificial sound, you get closer to the head.

You can see from the picture above that I have moved the mics further back that most typical tom configurations. The creates a more natural sound, but does allow for more potential bleed from other drums. I usually don’t compress the tom mics to help minimize the sustain and bleed of the other toms. Here I am using a Shure Beta 57 (http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/WiredMicrophones/us_pro_Beta57A_content) on the rack tom and an Audix D-4 (http://www.audixusa.com/products.html) on the floor tom. The D-4 sounds fantastic on lower toms and even on kick drums and bass guitar cabs.

The only other consideration is the hi-hat. Here I am using a single Audio Technica AT4041 small diaphragm condenser microphone. I point the mic straight down on the top cymbal a couple of inches from the edge. This helps to reject the sound of the toms and snare and provides a little bit of isolation for the hi-hats. In the configuration below the mic is also rejecting sound from the two crash cymbals on either side of the hi-hats.

All of the mics went into tube pre-amps except the Shinybox 46MXL which went into a modified T1953 using Burr-Brown OPA2134UA op-amps for all gain stages. The D112 went into an LA-610 with a bit of compression. The Earthworks mics for the overheads went into TL Audio stereo tube pre, and all the other mics went into ART tube pres: 2 Dual MPs and a DPS-II. I opted to record with no additional compression other than the LA-610 on the kick. The tube pres compressed the sound slightly and I was able to get a very natural and warm sound without any extra processing.

Please write if you have any comments or questions!

This is a response to a student question, from Akeem Custis, about how to get rap vocals to sound thicker, warmer and better in general.

First, your mic and preamp are very important. Some mics are warmer and fatter than others. The same goes for preamps. I have gotten some great results with the EV RE-20, which is a dynamic mic. Mic placement is pretty important on rap vocals too. You want to use a cardioid mic to boost up the lows a little with the proximity effect. Make sure that you have at minimum one really good pop filter. I often use two pop filters: one foam “windscreen” on the mic itself and a metal Stedman pop filter as well. Sometimes I use one pop filter in front of the other or different types. Turn the mic slightly so that the mic isn’t pointed directly at the artist’s mouth. This is called an “off-axis” mic placement and also helps with plosives.

Since I don’t know what you’re recording with, I would suggest first compressing the vocal heavily. With the attack and release in auto, use a 6:1 ratio to reduce gain up to 15 dB, then boost the vocal as far as you can without peaking. If you put a boost of 2-5 dB at around 150 Hz that can also fatten up a track, especially in the male vocal range. If it starts to sound muddy, then just back off on the peak filter. Your bandwidth should be between 100 Hz and 200Hz or about 1 octave.

When you add additional vocal tracks of doubling, you can also create phase problems and end up with a thinner sounding vocal than if you hadn’t added the additional tracks. One way to handle this is to pan the additional tracks so that they’re not all sitting on top of each other. This will tend to sound much bigger than tracks all panned center. Usually on rap vocal tracks, the hooks use doubled voices (or tripled or more) panned out. This creates a bigger vocal production to set the hooks out from the verses. Most of the time, the verses aren’t panned out so heavily and there are many fewer vocal doubles.

I have had really good luck with doing doubles, but using different tones of voice to avoid phase problems. For instance, have the MC record the first take of the track in the tone they would use live. Now do a whisper double. This one won’t interfere with the frequencies in the first take very much. Now do a hard aggressive double. Listen to these 3 takes together in mono to see how you’re doing. Mix the different voices up or down as appropriate.

If you have already recorded the tracks, then you can try using a doubler with the additional voices panned out. This will probably cause some of the phase problems that I already mentioned.

Good Luck Mixing!

Are you new to recording? Do you want to get the most out of your recording dollars? This is a guide that I provide to clients so that they can make sure that they do their best work in a recording session.

Come Fully Rehearsed.
Don’t waste your money by rehearsing or writing in the studio. You want to come in and start working immediately. As a vocalist, you should have the songs completely memorized. You shouldn’t need to read lyrics or music. The phrasing and flow should already be worked out and you should be able to perform the songs acapella, without any background music at all.

All of your concentration needs to be on creating emotion with your voice, getting the tone that you want and performing your best. You shouldn’t have to worry about the words or the notes at all.

Wear comfortable, but quiet clothes.
When you come to record make sure that you are wearing your quietest, most comfortable clothes. Any clothes that rustle like polyester track suits, corduroy, squeaky shoes, big bulky sweaters, and leather jackets are all no-no’s.

Don’t wear jewelry– you don’t want that jingling on your recording. Earrings can hurt if they’re getting pinned to your head with headphones. Leave you cell phone in the control room, because they can cause interference with microphones. I have noticed that “press-to-talk” phones from Nextel and Cingular are the worst culprits in the studio and the Sidekick can cause lots of sound problems.

Get the sounds that you want.
Bring in CDs that have the sounds that you are looking for. Want to get the aggressive distorted vocal from Korn or Nine Inch Nails? Do you want a mellow R&B sound like Al Green or Marvin Gaye? Do you want to get the delay sounds from Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction? The engineer that you’re working with should be able choose mics, preamps and compressors to get the tone you want. Everything matters when you’re trying to dial into a sound. How close you are to the mic matters a lot. Most vocals mics are cardioid and they have a proximity effect. This means that as you get closer to the mic, you also get more bass response from the mic and a greater sense of intimacy. Artists like Frank Sinatra and Barry White utilized the proximity response to tune their vocal performances on recordings.

Don’t ask your engineer to put reverb or delay into you headphones. Time based effects, like these, should be added during mix down and actually can cause problems on your recording if they are being piped into you headphones. If you just can’t stand the sound of your own voice in the headphones without effects, then ask the engineer to add as little reverb as possible to avoid any problems later.

Getting a great headphone mix.
One of the engineer’s jobs is to make sure that you have the best possible headphone mix. You should be able to hear yourself and the music that you’re performing with. MCs usually want the headphone mix to be heavy on the drums and the bass so their rhythm is as tight as possible. Singers usually want to emphasize the bass and whatever chordal instruments (piano, guitar, synths) are in the mix so their pitch is correct.

Some vocalists prefer to leave one ear piece off their ear to allow them to hear their voice in the room. This is often a big problem! When you take the ear cup off your ear, the sound from that ear piece is bleeding into the microphone. This can cause the sound of the band to end up on your vocal track causing phase cancellation problems or mix problems for the engineer later on.

If this is what you need to do, ask for headphones that have only one ear piece or bring your own headphones. It’s a good idea to bring your own headphones anyway so that you can listen to yourself on headphones that you already know. Don’t bring crappy headphones! Invest in a set of professional headphones from a good manufacturer. You want the kind that covers your whole ear and feels really comfortable.

Here are my recommended pairs of headphones:

Vic Firth Isolation Headphones. These headphones fit TIGHT on your head and are great for preventing bleed through to mics in the studio. If you need a loud head phone mix and you want to minimize bleed then these are for you. They are made special for drummers who usually need a very loud headphone mix to be louder than their drums. They also block out other sounds in the room and can be used as hearing protectors. Only downside seems to be the rubber ear cups get sweaty in hot or long sessions. These are also not the best sounding headphones in the world and really aren’t designed for critical listening, but for under $50, what do you expect?

Sony Pro MDR-7506 Headphones. These are an industry standard set of studio headphones and they really sound pretty good for the money ($100 or less). They have a “closed ear” design which blocks out some of the outside sounds and prevents bleed into microphones. One of the advantages is that these headphones fold up and come with a nice leather bag for carrying them around. They have both the professional 1/4″ stereo plug and the consumer 1/8″ Stereo plug so you can use them with an MP3 player.

Beyer Dynamic DT-770. These are my favorite all around studio headphones. They have a closed-back design and they block out background sounds. They also do a great job of preventing bleed into the mics. These headphones have some of the best audiophile quality sound that you can buy and they sound simply amazing. After you get used to listening to music with these, you will never go back to an inferior set of cans. They are a little pricey ($250 or less), but they are worth every penny. All of the parts can be ordered in case you wear them out.