In this episode, I share news about the Kramer tape plugin from Waves, give some compression tips when mixing, and look into the Indie Bible resource package that helps indie musicians promote their music.
Reminded why I do the music: The end of the year was spent making enormous amounts of good food, and hanging out with my precious family, and eating up all the food whilst talking about everything that is important to us. It was great to take a little vacation from doing the music. It is great to spend some concentrated time to love on others and be loved by others. The pause reminded me why I am doing my music and writing my books - to spread love to those I love and help people find peace of mind in a crazy mixed up world.
I really didn't have much time to learn a lot of new stuff during the holidays, but I did get some time to continue on my ProSoundFormula.com mastering course, check out some plugins, compare Scribed to MS Word for book publishing and check out CD Baby a little bit. (I can still kick myself in the but that I didn't have my PRO affiliation in place before the CDBaby Pro sale ended! I would have been able to buy it for $49 instead of $89! Grrrr!)
Today's video
"Do This is Every Mix" (above) is from Behind the Speakers. Here's the link to the same info as the video above as an article: http://behindthespeakers.com/fix-phase-cancellation/ It has some good basic tips that is great to be reminded of - volume levels while mixing, fixing phase problems, etc. He has great tips for free.
Buying the Kramer tape plugin
End of the year plugin deals: First, there were the Black Friday deals, then there were the Christmas deals and now there are the end of the year sales for audio plugins. Its a good idea to keep track (throughout the year) of what these various plugins do and how they are normally priced in order to be ready to leap on them when they are really cheap. No plugins will make you into a great engineer. You can create great music with the stock plugins that are in your DAW, of course. But having a few great specific tools in addition to those gives you more and better options so you can texture the tracks and not just compress them. It takes years to get the feeling on when to use them and how to use them efficiently. That is why it is best not to add them faster than you know how to use the ones you already have.
Waves end of the year sale is a good one. (One should never buy anything from Waves for the original price. Always buy them when they are on sale.) I will buy Waves Kramer tape for $29. I have been eying it for a long time as it showed up again and again in just about any audio engineer's explanation about how to mix/master many tracks well. It gives a warmer feeling.
I look at it this way. All plugins cost money but the investment cost per song will be spread out as I publish more and more songs.
So, now I bought it, installed it and updated my plugins that I already have a license for in the Waves Gold Package. Then I went into Logic and updated them all within it. After that we ate Jansson's Temptation, a Swedish potato casserole with gingerbread spiced fish (one of my favourites) and then I played around with the new Kramer plugin within the Change My Mind song mix.
It is going to take some time to know when and how to use this correctly. I am still getting acquainted with the plugins in the Waves Gold bundle I bought last year.
Compression tips in mixing
Behind the Speakers also has a good video about compression mistakes: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0zhE55-plk)
Attack times: He talks about the speed of the attack can affect the presence of the vocal. The slower attack seems to push the lead vocal forward in the mix.
Release times: Use a faster release for faster vocals. The needle should be bouncing for a fast song. The compressor should only be turning down the loudest pasts of the song. We don't want to compress the whole thing. The compressor should ebb and flow.
Compress within the context of the song not while soloing individual tracks.
Don't use compression as a crutch. The key to a pro sound is to get 80 - 90 % with the help of compression and then automate the rest. Write off the words that get lost and automate them individually.
Don't compress if it makes things sound worse! Easy to do but also easy to avoid! Louder always sounds better to our ears. When you compress, if the end result sounds louder, perhaps it is that you have forgotten to reduce the gain. The compressed volume of the track should be the same as the uncompressed volume of the track. You don't shoot for louder with compression, just better all round levels. Keep an eye on the gain reduction and flip the bypass on and off to compare. Louder isn't necessarily better!
Learning Mastering
Limiting vs. Compressor during the mastering stage
I am back to the ProSoundFormula course about mastering again.
Compressors - change the sound and the inner dynamics of a mix
Limiting - is used to raise the loudness of a track as translucently as possible.
Because compression changes the sound of a track, coloring it, not just cooking it down, it is wise to use compressors sparingly and incrementally during the mastering stage.
There are single band compressor and multiband compressors used in mastering
A multiband compressor is great when mixing because it can help you cut out nagging frequencies and de-ess vocals. But it can destroy the dynamics of the mastered track. It is used by professionals in the mastering stages when they have frequencies that need fixing and they can't go back to the mixing stage. but be careful!
The Indie Bible
Through MusicGoat, I got a link to check out the Indie Bible for free. After checking their online service which helps you find music reviews, contacts at radio stations and other places where you can submit your music, I decided to give it a try.
At the cost of an expensive book, you can get an amazing tool for an indie musician who wants to promote his or her own music. You get an online search engine motor to find where you can submit your songs for promotion, licensing and review along with contact information. You also get a book that explains all the how to apply for reviews, how to submit music and much more. I just started looking at the book. It is amazing. I am starting to plan the release as I finish the album and this is going to be an awesome tool.
It's a sad thing to think about the upcoming cost of submission fees to get the music out. I keep reminding myself, just one day at a time....don't worry. Things usually work out when the day arrives.
Until next time....