My Thoughts by R.E. Fort - Music

Mastering your mix

nospam@example.com (R.E. Fort) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:24:57 -0700

Mastering your mix

How do you mater your recordings?

To be honest I didn’t have a good answer myself. So I decided to do a little research, Google to the rescue. On my Google search this site came up with a pretty good description of the term and processes http://homemusicrecording.com/music/master-your-recording/. The site lists these as mastering aspects to a song, Track volume optimization, Equalization levels, Tonal balance adjustment for consistency, Edit the final arrangement of spacing between songs, Create and edit PQ sub-code, Creation of CD master ready for mass duplication.

What a list, in my mind most of this does apply but when we are talking about the new great hit song my short list is, volume, EQ, left right balance per track, and effects revered chorus and the like per track. I apply these all too each track and some cases to a certain part of a track. It’s all a matter what I hear in the ghost ear, what’s not yet recorded or even played. We all have it happen to us. As song writers we start writing a song sitting at the keyboard or guitar and we hear the drums doing this, the guitar sounds like Benson here and Carlos here the strings increase here and so on.

So, on a guitar track I will record it with my trusty Virtualizer PRO by Behringer set with a simple revered. Once the part is recorded I will listen to it over and over editing EQ mix, a little brighter or deeper depending on the guitar I played. All of my audio files, are edited in Adobe Audition regardless if they were directly recorded in Audition or generated from MIDI plug-ins from Sonar. I do create multiple versions of them as well keeping the first clean recording and then editing and saving a copy this way I can apply the new track to the mix down and see how it sounds against it all.

My brother once told me the best recoding he has heard from me is a song on Island Life called By Request. In that song to be honest I wish I saved all of the settings I used because the mix is very clean. In short, I will master the guitar tracks cleaning them up adding my EQ and FX’s then go on to the remaining tracks doing much the same. On the master mix down of the song I do very little in the way of editing but with Audition you can control a lot per track and master. I will usually add some small amount of FX trying to give the music that almost live feel. I try to only apply EQ to each track there is nothing worse than going through the last mix and do your EQ on it and drop an instrument.

I was speaking with an old friend and guitarist I truly admire, Larry Green he was talking about the canvas of music. The foundation of the recording in my ears is the drums, keys, bass rhythm guitar and maybe the strings although they can be like the solo and melody instruments the brush the artist paints with. With that in mind I master music that way. The canvas has to be clean with all of the subtitle sounds and FX’s in place then I bring in the accents the brush strokes looking at that meters helps a lot then it’s on to the melody and chorus then lastly the final touches. I burn a CD drop it in the car and go for a drive. To be honest the best way I have found is to spend a day or two listening to other music trying to erase the not recorded but heard part of the music from my ear. Then listening to it in a car to me is better then headphones or even the most expensive monitors out there. I make my mental notes and back to the mix. In the case of By Request it took me almost a year to get that CD where I wanted it.

So to sum it up, if it sounds like it needs it, then master it. I master each track making many copies so I can go back and play with each then I bus it down to a master track and only adjust what is needed and I hope and pray that is only volume.

Enjoy and keep playing

Song Writing

nospam@example.com (R.E. Fort) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:33:36 -0700

The New CD Strings and Keys

Well I am officially working on the newest set of music. Today’s blog is on song writing or should I say the process that I go through. From the fear oh god can I still write a song to the tedious how many more times do I have to listen to this to find that one bad note that’s driving me mad.

First Inspiration or Perspiration, I know we all have felt that drive to write the next great song and back in the day I would say I needed inspiration before writing a song and in some ways I believe that is still the case. But I have recently found not a formula but a routine that I seem to get into when I am between projects. I always start playing songs I wrote years ago. That in some ways inspires me to look into new songs. But what amazed me was that I found myself sitting and just playing melodies. Nothing I had heard before, and at first it seems that I am just running scales, working the fingers you know. But the next thing I hear is a melody like in the song By Request. That song like so many of my picking songs, as I call them. Either started with a melody or a sweet mixtures of chords I find while picking around. This is how I get around writers block which hits me like a ton of bricks some times. When I find myself just stuck unable to move forward with a new idea. I have found by going back to the very basics, picking out some chords and playing with transitions then moving on to melodies or running some scales something shows itself. From those melodies comes the next idea. Now sometimes it last longer so trying the Piano or the Bass seems to help as well. The other trick I have found to get out of this mode is to find other music, something I always wanted to learn or a style I have not tried yet, playing with other musicians, open jam sessions and of course listening to some of my older stuff with new ears.

Putting it all together, now this I have found to be the most frustrating and enjoyable thing ever. There is this phenomena that happens with song writers, we hear what's has not been written yet. I am blessed to have three great kids two of which are amazing musicians. Once my son and I were listening to a new song that I was working on. As he watched me he leaned over and said to me. Dad that parts not in the song, I had to stop because I was jamming away to a string section I was hearing in my head that was not record or even written yet, other then in my head. We all do it, its part of song writing we start playing those chords and we hear the guitar solo the bass line the keyboards every aspect of the song is in our heads being worked out. Then at some point, for me at least, when I believe I am done with the song as I am listening to it in the car. I realize that I never recorded the bass or that transition string section that I know will be the hock because it still stuck in my head. To work this out what I am doing is listening to not only the newest song I am working on but the other works in progress as well with headphones, in the car and over the monitors. I also play them at work when I’m working on a project. I keep notepad open when I am at a PC or use my cell phone as a note pad to remind me to add this or edit that. It seems that the times I get the most work done or the most inspiration on a song is when I'm not actively listening to that song. When you mind is elsewhere it seems you can work on the music better it least that’s the way it works out for me.

Well that’s enough for today look for more thoughts on work soon

Thanks

To Mic or Not to Mic

nospam@example.com (R.E. Fort) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:33:35 -0700

To Mic or Not To Mic that is the questions. For guitarist that are looking to get there guitar to sound as they hear it coming out of the Marshall Stack or that great sounding Nylon Acoustic there is always that question. For me and I can only speak from what I have tried and my environment, I still don't know which is best. I do know that I only purchase acoustic electric guitars which I have had some hard core guitarist discredit as cutting out some of the sound quality of the wood but for me it's the best method to get my sound in the computer and on CD. My only issue with micro phoning an amp or the guitar itself is the noise factor. Regardless of what you do you are still getting more noise this way then you will by running direct. On my CD Island Life the song By Request, is all done on my Fender Acoustic Electric. I have been told that its one of the best mixed songs I have done full of layers but what I hear when I listen to this song is the strumming of the guitar and the clean sound of the strings.. This was all recorded by running out from the guitar into the mixer and routing through the Virtulizer Pro to add a soft chorus and Revered that's all. The times that I have tried using a microphone in front of the guitar or amp I seem to get some much more ambient noise that I spend more time cleaning it up then I do in writing the song or working on the mix. For me, it's a no brainer if I have the ability to take my guitar and run it directly to the my mixer then that is what I will do every time. Now this is not to say you wont have noise by going direct

-- R.E. Fort Without Music... Life has no Soul Life, Health and Prosperity

First Music Blog

nospam@example.com (R.E. Fort) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:13:37 -0700

Hello Music fans. I plan on updating this blog at least once a week with new information I find online about sound recordings cool new software and anything music related and maybe not music related stuff that catches my eye. For this first installment a little background. I have been in the computer industry as my day job since the mid to early 80's. I started out with MIDI back then as well, and in fact it's MIDI that got me into computers. When I started with MIDI it was still a card you had to break out your soldering kit to make work in your PC and that was the upgrade I purchased from my first rig. I have recorded with pretty much everything from a boom box in the garage to a full digital studio over the years. Now I believe I have a pretty cool in home studio and I think that is where I will begin talking about what I have found works and doesnt work for a good home studio. With a good set of software a decent PC, good mixer and some skills you can create some great sounding recordings. Below I have listed some of my own gear. I plan on going into details on each with pictures and suggested settings. Mixers: This is the heart of any home / pro studio. With a good rack you should be able to decrease the noise from your other gear and get a clean as possible recoding to your hard drive. Remember one thing and I really believe this, if the mixer is the heart of your studio then the cables are its veins. Cables carry that hot new song you are working on that will change the world only if it can be heard correctly. Cables can make or break that connection. I know I have been in my fare share of studios with mixers the size of my first dinner table and could not get a good clean sound all because of cables. Bad cables will make the most expensive hardware sound like crap so dont be stingy but by all means dont go crazy either. We will go into cables another day but let's just say I still dont have a single monster cable.

Behringer EuroRack MX1604. Behringer makes some pretty sweet hardware and I have found that this unit sounds great and gets the job done. The unit I have has lots of ins and outs and for what I do that's important. This board does not have digital, coaxial or SPDIF inputs or outs but I let the PC / sound card take care of that. It has 4 ¼ or XLR inputs 4 ¼ stereo inputs, Tape in and out, AUX Send and Receive along with XLR main out and ¼ main outs. It also supports a Control out that took awhile to figure out how I was going to use it. I take both of my Keyboards and run them into two of the mixers stereo inputs. This allows me to pan them and send them to the effects unit if I need to add any other effects not supported by the computer. This unit has four ¼ or XLR inputs, I use two of them for Guitar inputs and I dedicate another to the bass guitar that way I dontt have to worry about mix changes. The last I use a XLR Sure mic but as you can tell I don't do and vocals any longer and I don't mic my acoustic guitars but that's a subject for another blog.

Effects Processor: one of the staples of every home / pro studio is a good effects processor. If its enabled with MIDI then your even doing better. This gives you control over the unit so that when you open your song those settings are enabled. One of the issues with doing this is finding a good sequencer program that supports this. I am still working on this one but so far it's been fun. Behringer Virtualizer Pro This was a big move for me. Forever and I mean forever all of my guitar work has been done straight or clean guitar and then I would add effects through whatever software I was using at the time once it was recorded, most of the time this would have been Cakewalk Pro Audio 9, Sound Forge or Audio Audition. The problem with this and why I made the move to this unit was. When you are playing with effects, you tend to play too the effects. You hear it differently and play solos or chords based on that sound the same you do for any other type of instrument. Now when I play I am able tweak the sound just right before sending it to the PC.

So I think I have talked enough for one session enjoy the music