[ddots-l] RE: [ddots-l] Re: [ddots-l] Re: [ddots-l] Raúl Midón
- From: Bryan Smart <bryansmart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:54:23 -0400
I think that it is worth saying a little more about Steve's comment that you
need to leave room for instruments to breathe. I know that everyone won't fully
grasp that meaning.
First, what I'm saying here applies if your intent is to make a track with
distinctive instrument sounds. In electronic styles from Hip Hop to Trance,
layering is more important. Even so, those layers are balanced with each other.
Without going too far off track, though, I just wanted to point out that I'm
talking about styles like non-electronic pop, Jazz, country, etc.
For a track where instruments are as distinct and clear as possible, you need
to carefully consider how the instruments will work together musically and
sonically.
In terms of musical cooperation, it is useful to think about the instruments in
terms of them fitting together in time like a jigsaw puzzle. If your
arrangement is a single guitar, it might be very busy and strumming 8th notes
all the way through the song, with the exception of a few other larger notes
that are part of creating the rhythm. If you put it with other instruments,
though, you need to calm it down, so that it doesn't bury the others. It needs
to open up holes in what it plays for the other instruments to have moments to
shine through. For myself, I love playing bass lines. When I'm writing a demo
with only 2 or 3 parts, I'll let myself go wild with playing lots of small
notes to assist the bass with keeping the rhythm, doing lots of runs and licks
to help keep everything sounding exciting, etc. It's loads of fun. If there is
a piano, guitar, and bass, that isn't so bad. By the time you expand the mix
with a second guitar, some background layer like a pad, a vocalist or lead
instrument, and other overdubs, though, playing bass like that sounds too busy.
Remember that what makes your arrangement seem clear is when people can clearly
hear the parts. If one part takes up too much of their attention, then it is
difficult for them to notice the other parts. In the case of my bass part, when
I expand out the arrangement, I must avoid all of my acrobatics. In most cases,
that's fine. A large part of the rhythm that the bass was conveying in the demo
has now been handed off to drums, guitar, and percussion. Many of the runs and
licks are lifted off of the bass part and given to overdub parts. So, what is
left for the bass is to hold down the basics.
I'm not saying that your bass, or any other part should sound boring, but you
should avoid having the bass do things that other parts are already doing, or
else drawing too much attention to itself. When I'm working on the full
arrangement, the bass parts is one of the first tracks that I'll put down. I
obviously don't know everything that I'll record later, but I have a general
idea of what is coming later, and I know that the bass needs to hold back a
bit. So, what I'll do is to start playing that super busy bass part from the
demo. Then, I'll play a game where I try to see what parts I can start leaving
out, while still keeping the feel. Maybe I played lots of swing 16th notes in
the demo, but, in the full version, I realize that I can get by with just
leaving them in for some key places. I will still play runs and licks, but I'll
drop them from most of the track, saving them to play in fills or breaks. At a
certain point, it is possible to take so much away that the bass loses its
feel. Then, I've gone too far. What I try to do, though, is to strip it down to
the edge. What ever I take away from it, I can give to another part.
An important part of this is to leave holes in time. You don't need to play an
instrument through the entire bar. Particularly when you first start to build
rhythm tracks, having these holes will make the track sound empty and dead. The
urge is to fix that by filling it up/making the parts more busy than they are.
You need these holes, though. The tracks that you add later will fill them up.
If you're making instrumental music, parts like horns quite frequently play
inside the holes in time that are left by other instruments.
Besides giving each instrument its chance to shine, this increases the impact.
For example, horns can be loud, and have strong percussive attacks. They can be
very rhythmic. If, however, they play in a hole left by the other instruments,
it makes them seem even more powerful. It is like the track is going by, there
are these brief little holes of dead space, and, every now and then, you'll
hear the bright stab of a trumpet in the hole. It just hits you harder. Hope
that you understand. Beyond a point, talking about music becomes difficult.
Be careful about too much layering. Sometimes people like to layer instruments
like guitars to make the part sound larger. As-in, the same, or a similar part,
will be recorded multiple times on to multiple tracks. This will make the part
sound larger and more powerful, but, the more you pour this on, the muddier the
part will sound, and the more you'll bury other parts. If you want to double a
guitar or keyboard part, that's alright, but you need to restrict the amount
that you use it in any one song. For example, you could double a keyboard and
double a guitar, but, if you 4-part layer a guitar, you probably shouldn't try
to layer anything else. You've kind of used up your layering quota for this
song. If you 4-part layer a guitar, and 4-part layer a keyboard, then you'll
barely hear the bass or other instruments, so you'll think, "hey, I need to
layer them, too". The more you keep pouring on the layers, the more muddy the
entire thing will become.
The other way that parts work together is in terms of just their sonic
relationships. Think of an acoustic bass, piano, and flute. Bass is low
pitched, piano is middle pitched, and flute is high pitched. Each of those have
their own frequency range to work with-in. If you try to play two basses at the
same time, the sound will be too muddy, and it will be hard to hear each
individual one. The higher you go in terms of pitch, the easier it is to pick
out multiple instruments. You might put strings with a piano, and be just fine.
However, also putting a rhythm guitar, and organ, and an electric piano in to
the mix would become very muddy. All of those instruments commonly play in
similar frequencies. You can help this by spreading out the frequencies, like
having some instruments play higher or lower. For example, you could have the
strings play in a higher octave. You can also help this by spreading out the
notes in time. For example, the piano can mainly focus accented notes right on
the quarters, while the rhythm guitar can focus accented notes on the 8th notes
between each quarter (like in Reggae). This way, the two parts are easier to
hear because they aren't playing notes at exactly the same moment.
Mixing tricks can help parts stand out better. For example, the bass can be
easier to hear if you remove some of the bass from other instruments (like
piano or organ). Non-distorted rhythm guitar can easily cut through a mix if
you remove most of the lower frequencies, leaving mostly the bright upper end
to come through. Mixing tricks aren't nearly as important as everything else,
though. Mixing is the last resort to save a song if it doesn't sound good
naturally. Most songs can use some enhancement from mixing, but mixing isn't
where you should try to make all of the parts play well together.
The part about mixing that is the most important, though, are the levels. I
know that we talked about this some when I worked with you one on one. Pouring
on volume is like pouring on layering. You can't keep turning everything up.
You can't have a lot of everything. Its like when you cook. You can add lots of
subtle flavors, but, in order for the dish to taste right, there has to be a
dominant flavor or focus. If you have some food that is extremely sweet, salty,
sour, spicy, bitter, etc, all at the same time, people say its to rich, they
get overloaded by the intensity, they can't make out much of any one flavor,
etc. You should pick maybe 3 or 4 instruments that are absolutely essential to
the song. As-in, if you took everything else away, these 4 could carry the
song, though it wouldn't sound as full. Balance those first. In pop/rock/dance,
that's probably the main drum tracks, the bass, one rhythm/comp part, and the
lead vocal. Once those sound good, then you can start adding in other subtle
flavors. Add tracks in the order of importance. The first ones that you add
will be the easiest to balance. The last ones will be the hardest. So, add the
important stuff first. When you get to the hard tracks at the end, they'll be
hard to balance, but they won't be as important to the core of your song.
These are just principles. There aren't rules. That's why they call this an art
and not a science. Try a few different ways of working, nothing
serious/important, just for the experiment, and listen to what happens. You'll
start to hear why some things work, and why others don't.
Bryan
-----Original Message-----
From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Steve Wicketts
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2010 5:04 AM
To: ddtots
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: [ddots-l] Re: [ddots-l] Raúl Midón
Hi Jim,
Raúl Midón is obviously a very accomplished vocalist - musician who has
recorded using real instruments played by other very accomplished musicians.
If you listen closely each instrument allows the other instruments room to
breathe, it's all about the quality of the sound of the instruments, musical
arrangement and production.
Raúl Midón and the musicians and producer have done a beautiful job.
Jim you maybe doing what I use to do, crowding the mix with as many sounds as
possible.
My music used to be not the wall of sound, more like the wall of noise.
I'm able to write and arrange a little better these days, but can't produce
without advice from people who understand production.
Darren Hartland from this list is very good at spotting what is missing or
maybe needed in production.
I recently sent a project to Darren so he could take a listen. Darren noticed
that the bass guitar was lacking depth so I soloed the bass guitar and started
looking at EQ, Compressors and possible Bass chorus to enhance the sound.
isolating one sound and improving it, can take time to find what is needed to
enhance the overall sound of the song.
It's like one face of the rubik cube, you may want three yellow, three red, and
three orange.
creating that combination just takes patients and time.
I think that the secret is,
1: choose your sounds carefully,
better to have a few quality instruments arrange well than crowd a mix with 15
weak sounding instruments.
2: think carefully about how each instrument is played.
If it's a virtual guitar, no good having seven note chords, also the lower
guitar strings would not usually be played using major or minor thirds.
Horns are more realistic sounding if you have an instrument per horn rather
than a preset stack.
Trombone, Tenor sax and trumpet one octave apart from each other are very
affective for brass stabs.
Having each horn as a separate instrument also gives you more control over the
level of each instrument.
Think like a drummer, don't have cymbal open high hat, bass drum and tom
playing at the same time, this would take three hands.
real sounding strings always work better with say intervals first note, fifth
note and tenth note.
synth strings are warm and work on all chord types.
3: choose effects carefully, example, Sonitus Modulator, Hollow or Hollow man
preset on a virtual guitar can sometimes be very affective.
Jim, why not post something you've done, there are many people on this list
whose knowledge of music arrangement is weigh beyond mine and I'm sure they'll
give advice on how to improve your songs production.
Just for the record, Raúl Midón I believe would be in the top 5 people on this
list for production at that level.
I personally don't get that kind of production.
Steve W
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Jackson <mailto:cs2007@xxxxxxxxx>
To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2010 6:18 AM
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: [ddots-l] Raúl Midón
Indeed, and I wish I could come close to having such a professional
sounding product...Which brings me to this point, if anybody is willing to give
some tutorials over, (I guess skype), that would really get me going in the
right direction with perfecting my audio recordings, I would be willing to rob
the piggie bank and pay for services. If so, please me contact me off list.
Thanks
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Wicketts <mailto:steve.wicketts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: ddtots <mailto:ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 6:54 PM
Subject: [ddots-l] Raúl Midón
Hi Bill,
What a talented and polished performer, love the feel on Raúl
Midón's songs.
Steve W
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