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Reflections on engineering/mastering vs songwriting
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fuzzikitten
Annunaki
Started Topics :
40
Posts :
603
Posted : Oct 20, 2004 19:17
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After completing what I felt was a milestone in songwriting several months back I decided to take a little hiatus from writing music (and eventually a 2-week break from music entirely).
Last night I sat down and opened up my latest song and gave it a listen. Normally I do my engineering as I write the song, under the belief that it's easier to come up with melodies and grooves with sounds that fit into the mix. But in the months away from writing music, I have been reading a lot more about engineering and EQing and decided to pretend like I was a studio engineer being asked to engineer this song - without touching any notes or worrying about arrangement.
I went through and stripped off every EQ, reverb, compressor, phaser, ring modulator, and whodingerflangerwhatchagizmo until all that was left was my naked little ugly track.
Horrible sounding indeed!
And then I started with the kick and bass, focusing on getting the sound *just* right, EQing both with the Waves Q10 Parametric EQ (and I used just about every point on it) and also side-chain compression. Then I did this with the hihats, rims, leads, effects, etc etc etc.
At the same time as I was listening, I would be bouncing the track to a .wav and studying the spectrum in Spectrum Lab (I love that program, and it's free! http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/ ) to do a visual cross-check that my frequencies were balancing nicely.
It took me about 4 hours, but by the end of it I was in a very good mindset for doing mastering, and my ears were getting very critical/familiar with all the different frequencies.
It sounded *much* better - most notably was how much more pronounced the bass was. I was very mindful to keep my other elements out of the bass range, and it made a tremendous difference. 
I believe I will still do some basic engineering as I write tracks, especially for blending the kick and bass (it's such a foundation) and some creative compression on leads, but...
...but from this experience I have learned that getting distracted with engineering while I'm in a creative mindset is *not* necessary, and that I can do a MUCH better job of engineering after I let a song sit for a bit and then go back to it with some objectivity.
So now to worry about getting better at automation in Cubase, and better synth sounds. 
peace!
-Alex |
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WAVELOGIX
Wavelogix
Started Topics :
136
Posts :
1214
Posted : Oct 20, 2004 19:31
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well fuzzikitten ....
i know wat exactly u are going thru and i myself faced this situation some time back ...
well i myself have tried both method .... mixing @ the same time while sequencing ... which takes longer .... but ultimately once ur sequence is done .... u almost have a trk ready ....
but the backseat of this method is tht .... as u are mixing the sounds @ the same time .... u are soo dependent on eq ., compression , limiting n stuff ... tht one often fails to understand the true potential of good sound tht can be obtained frm the synth itself ..... so once u start giving more time to how u going to obtain the best sounds frm the plugin u are using ... and try to use as little as eq and other plugs on the sound .... which ultimately make it clean ....
for example if u have two synths playing diff melodies back to back ..... try tewaking the oscillators and the filters of the synths in such a way ... so tht the 2 sounds automatically gel as closely as possible with each other .... without the use of eq .... well afterwards of course u can use a 4 band eq .... to make them sit pretty close ....
but i hope u understand wat im trying to say ...
bottomline is tht ... whn u are programming ur sounds ... try to imagine what area of the freq spectrum will they occupy in the final mix and try getting as close to tht as possible frm the synth it self ...
then later on when u mix .... even ur "dry " mixes should sound gr8 !
thts the way i work and some tims i feel .... after mixing ... i actuallly screw up my mix .... lol
remeber they alwayz say ....try to get the best sound frm the source as possible
thts the bottomline ....
respect ...boom! |
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illusions
Erebus
Started Topics :
40
Posts :
626
Posted : Oct 20, 2004 19:49
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nice topic here fuzzikitten -
i've been told numerous times that i shouldnt be working this way - but i find i get the best results from starting off with the creative/artistic process of programming my synths, making melodies, even placement within the track. once all that is done - i start "mastering" the track from the ground up. bass, percussion, melodies, fx.
i find that if i finetune each and every sound while im making it - i end up loosing the flow.
and alex - i completely agree with you. let the song sit for a while before getting back to it. works wonders for me
would really like to know if there are any pro artists on here that work the same way
boom! |
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fuzzikitten
Annunaki
Started Topics :
40
Posts :
603
Posted : Oct 20, 2004 20:01
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Quote:
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On 2004-10-20 19:49, illusions wrote:
i find that if i finetune each and every sound while im making it - i end up loosing the flow. |
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This is EXACTLY it. When I get in the creative groove, the ideas come so fast, and unless I keep jotting them down and moving it forward, then it just kind of sputters out and I'm left with half of a great track that doesn't go anywhere.
Global, if I understand you, you are saying that I should try and tweak my synths so that they sound good without EQ? This makes a lot of sense to me, trying to get as close as possible to a tight mix without EQ or compression. This is similar to advice I have heard about drum sounds, that I should go through and pick each element that sounds good w/out any EQ/compression. That way I can get it sounding *really* good with EQ and compression later.
It reminds me a lot of painting (which I've been learning recently), how I'll lay down and initial layer of colors and get a rough idea of what it is I'm doing - while still trying to get as close to it as possible. Then I go back and put on another layer, and another layer, each time making it a little bit closer.
Well, something like that... |
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Spindrift
Spindrift
Started Topics :
33
Posts :
1560
Posted : Oct 20, 2004 20:37
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With this type of music, when the synthesis of the sound has so much with the FX as well i find it very hard to separate the process like in traditional engineering.
I also quickly get bored with parts in a track when polishing it to long.
I think the best way to avoid this is not to polish them a lot
Manytimes a track is about the whole of the elements working together. So stick it down, and do your EQ and FX.
Then if you thought it sounded good, don't go back and polish it when you added more parts.
For me that most of the time ruins the original flow and inspiration in the track.
Sure you need to know some things to get a really good workflow.
Some synths that you know you find good sounds on quickly. What FX to use, and on what settings.
Off course you have to learn that even if you want to be successful in polishing the tracks, so if you don't know already, it's just a question of how you want to learn it.
Possibly it's faster to learn this things if you produce many tracks, and don't care about if all of them is 100% perfect. Chances are that if you just go with the flow and let your inspiration take over that there will be a least a few gems among the tracks as well.
And your mistakes will be more obvious in finished tracks that you play on many systems in different circumstances.
Of course there is many different ways to deal with the creative process, and none suit everyone...but there you go...my thoughts on it anyway
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