An Indie Musician's Diary VOL. 1

March 10 - 16: Pink Noise, Sub bass etc

Community Intro 

This week has been and is amazing. I'm learning so much and my mixes are going forward. (Right now I am concentrating on gain staging, gain clipping and timing issues.  Despite the fact that I have had to re-record a few vocal tracks that got overly distorted through over editing (when will I ever learn), it's been a productive week.

I've experimented using pink noise to make a rough mix, how to EQ sub bass better and how adding various vocal effects can give me the sound I want on each track. Because there are many different genres on the Change My Mind album that I am working on, I have to learn how to treat each one accordingly and still get them to flow from one song to another in a good way. I've also had to spend some time and money finding reference tracks. 

I keep looking for reference tracks... I've been busy. And, as usual, I have all the housework, a bit of exercise and a bit of social media posts to do. Twitter is growing cause I'm at it every day, subscribers to my various Facebook pages are slowly increasing and I have taken a break from GAB. I made a decision not to be political anymore. I have my opinions but I'm keeping them to myself nowadays. 

I am looking into booking house concerts this summer.  I'll keep you posted how that goes. I don't know what lies ahead. 

There have been some heavy expenses this past month. The accountant, the homepage fee and soon the other fees Wix.com is charging. Sometimes I have to just hold my breath and say, "God if you want this to get done, you've gotta come through and show me how to create value and pay my own bills soon!" If you want to there's a tip jar :-) Thanks!

https://digitaltipjar.com/search?q=elisabeth+kitzing

I wrote a new song this week and recorded it the same day. I did the pink noise trick (See the video) https://youtu.be/EerIGRBoIzw Because it was a dance friendly song I thought I'd try this technique to get a quick mix. I sent it to a reference group and they thought it was catchy. But I know it needs more. I'll put it aside until the album is done. 

Pink Noise Mix Trick

I even shared this video on a producers' FaceBook page where we discuss audio engineering. I got mixed reactions. Apparently, if you don't do a whole lot of work then you are not a real mixing guru. But why not save time when you can so that you can use the time you have more efficiently? I understand that we have to keep a high standard. If this pink noise trick were entirely true, everyone would do this and not take the time and spend the money to send their stuff to audio engineers to get it done. Some thought this was cool, some not.  I just had to try it and with the song I wrote today it was helpful in helping me get the levels to a pretty good level within 30 seconds. 

It does work well enough on a EDM song to get a rough mix, IF you have done all the homework before it with gain staging, (-18dB sweet spot) and you have gain clipped portions to even each track out. But even so, an engineer/producer should automate and consider arrangement choices and fine adjust. Why not incorporate something that gives you a kick forward and helps you out? I, had to try it on my new song and I have to say that ai liked it. 

I shared the song later the same night with my friends. 

How to mix sub bass 

I've been thinking a lot about how to mix the lower frequencies well so they sound great on all speakers, earphones and systems. Sub bass is the bass you feel but can't hear. It kicks in on surround systems and speakers of higher quality as well as in subwoofers. You won't hear it in a pair of earbuds. But it is there and needs its space in the frequency spectrum.

A big problem is when the kick and the bass frequencies overlap. Then they cancel out each other or cause buildups of frequencies that make the mix boomy and may even cause clipping so you turn the rest of the mix down to compensate. Not a good situation. 

Sub bass is the bass we feel in music but can't hear. Mixing on small monitors in my non-perfect room can make it impossible for an indie producer/audio engineer like me to be able to mix sub bass properly. Here is a way to get your low end right every single time!

You can do lots of cool things with the low end of your kick and bass

Here's another short video on that:

What this seasoned man is doing is dividing up the spectrum into three chunks: low, mids and highs and then treating each differently. This method comes of course before the first video. (You have to do things in proper order.) 

Using reference tracks

How to use reference tracks. Now that I have Magic AB I took a quick look at the video at the top of this page. In case you don't know what it is to reference tracks when mixing or are not sure how to do it, this is a good intro for you. You can spend tons of money on plugins to compare but you can drag them in like he does here. Which method is best? Is there no need for the Magic AB plugin I just bought? I think Magic AB is better because, with it,  I can set each song's reference volume and chose reference points.

When he puts the reference songs on the same track it is much more difficult to volume match than using Magic AB. Also with Magic Ab I can pinpoint reference points in my reference track that correspond to specific points in my song. For example, I can reference a certain point in each track's choruses or intros. This saves me tons of time. I don't have to search for the right area in the reference track before I compare it with my song. If too many milliseconds go between the two, I lose information. 

In his video, Rob goes through how to reference without Magic AB, how to find good reference tracks and he even supplies you with a list of his top favourite reference tracks in a free downloadable pdf. That's great if those songs fit with your mixes. Just be sure, no matter what technique you use, to have reference tracks that have the same kind of instruments, feel etc that are similar to your song and make sure to volume match. 

Guitar videos

I have to constantly develop my guitar skills and I try to apply what I learn in the videos I see immediately so as not to lose it.

I saw this about 5 ways to think about playing electric guitars. No big help at all to me...  https://youtu.be/bDbvjingJnY 

And this one was a shock! Amazing guitar one man band. Way over my ability and yet inspiring! https://youtu.be/ENJuNCkPfx0

So you see I learn from hundreds of videos each year - some are more helpful than others. I watch and then apply what I learn. There are loads of (an ever growing number of) guys that do training in audio engineering but I don't have the money for that. 

I get by. But I'll admit that without Rob Williams training at the ProSoundFormula.com site, I wouldn't have a good base to build on. Thanks Rob!

CDBaby
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