Link

Download link below. And I will be adding a link to the actual site to the list on the right.

Finders-Keepers:

Download

A finders-keepers video, meaning, “no” that’s not my vid.

I’m learning, though, maybe one day.

Enjoy, nonetheless.

Ok, unlike the last “word of the day,” you may or may not know what an oscillator is. This term applies more for the synth-based producers.

Whether virtual or real, an oscillator simply produces oscillating (i.e. rising or falling) waves. These waves can be either fed through an amplifier to generate sound (usually via filters and other modulators, if you want to get anything worthwhile out of them) or used to modulate other parameters (such as a filter’s cutoff). Most modern synths have a variety of waveforms…

Sine- a sine is a curved, flowing wave known for its smooth sound. Sine waves contain only the fundamental frequency with no harmonics, however, and can be a little bland.

Sawtooth- sawtooth waves are great for lead sounds as they’re tonally rich and contain all possible harmonics (in linearly descending intensity down the length of the wave).

Triangle- as with the sawtooth, triangle waves have all the harmonics present, but with less energy in the high range and the strength falling off exponentially.

Square/rectangle- square waves have only the odd harmonics present (third, fifth, etc) and produce a hollow, metallic sound. Consequently, they’re great for odd synth patches and woodwind style sounds. They can also sound great layered over saw and triangle waves. A rectangle wave is a square wave with a “pulse width modulation” (PWM) applied, and sounds even more reedy.

If some of this info I’m sharing helps you out a lot. Go ahead and spend the $10 or $15 (don’t remember) to buy a copy from Barnes and Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, or whatever other major bookstore I’m forgetting. The magazine itself has a ton of great and helpful info, but, the DVD is loaded with even more. As well as programs and plugins for you to use. It is well worth the money.

Anyway- my 10 random tips taken from the file.

1. Hard panning seems to be a dying trend. Yes, we hear it used as an effect, but hardly as an essential part of the mix. Why are people so averse to shoving the guitar solo all the way to the left side of the stereo soundield? Drastic panning can give a mix some much-needed separation, so don’t be afraid to try it.

2. Don’t try to mix on the same day that you’ve been cutting tracks. Make sure you give yourself some time away from the material. When you’re mixing, take frequent breaks to avoid ear fatigue.

3. Never, ever, under any circumstances try to mix with headphones. You will not get an accurate mix. They might be OK for checking the odd detail, but don’t forget, they’re for tracking, not mixing. Headphones (even the “studio” ones) will not accurately reproduce bass frequencies, nor will they clue you in to phase cancellation.

4. C’mon, sing the song all the way through, will ya? Too much of today’s music is obviously constructed by cutting and pasting the same chorus over and over. Give your audience an entire performance.

5. You don’t need to buy a real pop filter- you can make your own by stretching tights over a hoop made from a coat hanger.

6. But of course, the best vocal recording will be one for which no pop filter was necessary. If the vocalist sings at a slight angle towards the mic instead of dead-on, plosives will be minimized.

7. We’ve all made bad purchases, slapping our hard-earned down on that shiny new thing that promises to elevate our recordings to a professional level on a breadline budget. Only when it was too late did we realize that we should have held out and saved for a better piece of gear. Our recordings suffered for our impatience.

8. Having said that, great music can be made on a shoestring budget. Don’t rush out to replace what you already have before you’ve got the most out of it. Even the shoddiest kit can add some character to your tracks.

9. Are your mixes consistently weak in the bottom end when played back on other systems, even though they sound OK on your setup? You may have throuble with bass exaggeration in the studio. Try commercial bass traps. Conversely, if you find your mixes to be bass-heavy on other systems, yoiu may need to look into getting a subwoofer.

10. When tracking vocals, make sure your singer avoids caffeine and acidic drinks, as such things can constrict vocal chords

So- it’s always nice to trip over manuals for gear, especially gear from 81′, and especially compiled into an ever so convenient .pdf file.

“I don’t have a Korg Polysix, and couldn’t possibly afford one, why are you loading this up?”

Ah, but we all know of the Korg Legacy VST (which I already talked a bit about in the software post), which can be found just as easily as a lot of other resources, and I’m not about to go into details as to how.

The VST offers a kind of realistic simulation with buttons/knobs that look like the ones on the Polysix that you can click and toy around with. Thing is, I’m sure there’s some people that don’t know that they’re fooling around with. And, not to mention, some of the stuff and be too small to really see (and the programmer doesn’t seem to reveal info when you hover over the buttons like some of the other portions do).

Either way, enjoy.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/manuals/p6user.pdf

So today’s word is MICROPHONE

(c) CM magazine DVD, A-to-Z PDF

It doesn’t matter how good your system, your voice, or your playing is. If you want to capture real world sounds, there’s one thing all that digital magic can’t make up for and that’s a bad recording…Here, we’ve outline two basic models: condenser and dynamic.

Dynamic: Dynamic mics use a plastic diaphragm attached to a coil of wire suspended in a magnetic field. Sound pressure causes the entire assembly to move, producing a very small electric current. Dynamic mics are very rugged making them ideal for live work, and relatively cheap. The drawback is that, because of the bulky diaphragm assembly, they aren’t as sensitive to high frequencies. They can still do a good job on vocals, though, and are the ideal choice for close miking drums and guitar amps. A classic dynamic mic is the Shure SM58.

Condenser: Also known as the capacitor mic, this type has two very thin metal plates (often gold), one of which is fixed. Sound makes the other plate vibrate and thanks to a polarizing charge, a very small current is produced. Because the vibrating assembly is very light, these mics are much more sensitive to higher frequencies, but they’re also more delicate. Large and small diaphragm versions are available, with the former great for warm sounding vocals and the latter great for capturing the highs…

Microphone pick up patterns:

Cardioid- Also known as unidirectional, this is the most common type. Here the mic picks up sound from directly in front (the name comes from the heart shape of the pickup pattern when plotted on a graph). Cardioid is ideal for less forgiving acoustic spaces. Hyper-cardioid mics are even more directional.

Omni-directional- These mics pick up sound from all around, and are great ambiance mics but not well-suited for any other type of work in untreated acoustic spaces.

Figure 8: These pick up sound equally from in front and behind. There are various applications for this (multiple backing singers sharing a mic, using a pair to stereo mic a piano, etc), but for most purposes cardioid is a better choice.

Ok- apparently I can’t post the pic full-size, so:

I wanted to start with “mic” because there’s always talk about what kind of mic is more suitable.

I found a blog of the supposed “best mics for hip-hop recordings”.

Ka-boom!

My first DTP project

I did this newsletter for a desktop publishing class I took when I thought I was going to be a journalist. If you read the paragraphs I say some really stupid ish.

Alright. I need to vent and get this out of my system.

Since putting producing on hold for almost a year and coming back, it’s almost like I have to learn some things all over again. Somethings come back, other things I have to work for. Right now I’m fighting with Reason’s “new” apreggiator (the RPG-8). And…I’m fighting with it, mostly because I wanted to create an arpeggio and I can’t. K?

And you’re reading this like “what the hell? how is it that an arpeggiator cannot create an arpeggio?” Great question. (I WISH I had the effin’ answer). The key to answering that question is asking another. What is an arpeggio?

An arpeggio is a broken chord where the notes are played one after the other, rather than all at the same time. Since I’m a tonic scale kinda chick, I’m used to those notes being the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes. In school band, we used to have to play all of the major scales followed by their arpeggios (I used to play a mean-ass marimba). Because I’m a percussionist with a relatively low level of theory- I usually think of chords according to the arpeggio of the tonic note. (*Dodges tomato being thrown*)

I say all of that to say that my frustration (and confusion, really) with the RPG-8 is that in basic use of this arpeggiator (i.e. wiring it to an instrument, setting the parameters, and playing a MIDI controller) it, indeed, doesn’t create arpeggios, but “arpeggiated” octaves. From what I can see, when you play a note on the controller, the arpeggiator created an arpeggio-type rhytmn jumping from that note to one or more of it’s higher or lower octaves, depending on the parameters you have set.

Bummer.

You-already-knew-I-was-going-to-say-this, but FL’s arpeggiator (and by arpeggiator I mean the FUNCTION tab of the channel settings dialog box. In the second box (it’s titled “arpeggiator,” so you can’t miss it), you simply decided if you want it to move up, down, back and forth, or random. Set the tempo and gate for it, and chose what chord the arpeggio is based off of. Siiiimple.

[I was intending to put an FL video here, but I didn't like the ones I found. Maybe I should do one of my own]

Further proof that you don’t really need fancy tools to do simple shit.

However- we all know that Reason is very flexible. Here’s a different but very versatile way of doing something similar. I guess since you can change the notes easily yourself, you can make it based on any chord you want (although the work here is alittle more manual).

Before I hate on the RPG-8 too much, I do intend to read this blog and see what else it’s capable of.