5 EQ tips to make your mixes clearer

Do you ever find yourself wading through muddy mixes?  

Well now's the time to de-frustrate yourself with 5 top EQing tips to help you make your mixes crystal clear!

1. Find that sweet spot

If you want to make that important sound really stand out, try bringing up a narrow band of frequencies, and sweep it across the frequency spectrum until you find the loudest point.   Try bringing that band up by a few decibels or cut it so the rest of the sound can be louder!


2. Cut some slac

Use low pass and high pass filters to cut off the low end and high ends of sounds you don't need - for example, basses tend to be in the 200hz and below area - try cutting below that for the lead instruments to make sure they aren't interfering with the bass!

3. EQ in the mix

I know I used to be guilty of EQing soloed instruments to "perfection" and then, upon re-introducing them into the mix, finding they didn't sit at all - sometimes making the mix even muddier!

Remember that it's okay for instruments to sound absolutely, mind-bogglingly terrible on their own... just so long as they sound awesome in the mix!   Apply your EQing whilst hearing the other elements of the track and you're sure to hear the difference.

4. Overlapping is bad!

Make sure you don't overlap your frequencies!   If a vocal is taking precedence at 2.5khz, make sure your percussion isn't!   Try and think of the mix as a sand pit - the more you add in one place, the muddier it's going to get in that area!   If you can give different instruments different frequency bands, they'll have room to breathe and your mix will be (on average) a zillion times clearer.


5. Analyse This!

Grab yourself a Frequency Analyser if your ears aren't well trained in recognising different frequencies!   This will show you the points where the mix is particularly muddied so you can jump in with your EQing in the right place!   Very convenient.   Most good sequencers will have plug-ins for this already, but there are some great free ones available as well!   Just have a quick Google and you'll be on your way to mixes clearer than a dodgy P.E. teacher's hard drive when the police come to visit.

Modern Movie Music Composition

Music has always been an intrinsic part of the film experience.

Sweeping scores that would seem completely over the top for a pop song have pride of place in films.   But how is a modern movie soundtrack made?   And what makes a good movie soundtrack?

Let's take a look...


The Musical Process

The process of putting music to film follows three distinct steps...


Spotting

For conventional movies, the musical process begins with a rough cut of the film - the composer will have a chat with the director, going through the film and noting down the different styles of music and ideas that would suit the different scenes.

Occasionally, a director will edit the film to temporary music - existing pieces that give an idea for the feel the director wants.   This can annoy some composers, since directors can become so attached to the temporary music that they discard the music the composers have written to replace it, such as in Peter Jackson's King Kong.


Scoring

The next step is actually scoring the film - while some composers still work with the traditional paper notation, the vast majority take to their computers and compose with MIDI.

These are often affectionately called "MIDI Mockups", which are how the composer presents his compositions to the director before the final step.

Sometimes at this step, directors are so taken with the music that they re-edit the movie to fit it better.   Probably the most famous example of this is when Steven Spielberg gave composer John Williams free reign over the music for the chase scene in ET, then the film was edited in time to the music.


Performance

Once it's all orchestrated, the music will be recorded by an orchestra.   Usually, the composer will conduct the orchestra.   This is generally done in a room with a large screen playing the movie, to a click track so the orchestra can stay in time with it.

After the recording session, the music is ready for integration with the actual film, where it'll be mixed and mastered.

Usually the performers don't get credited, but lately they've been creeping into the credits under the name "Hollywood Studio Symphony" - an umbrella term that covers all the session musicians they employed for that recording.



What makes good film music great?

So that's how it's done, but what makes for a great movie soundtrack?   Why do some of them just accentuate the film and others have you humming them every time you see the DVD on a shelf somewhere for the rest of your life?

As John Williams will tell you, it's all about the "Motif" - more specifically the "leitmotif".   This is essentially a riff - the part of the theme you remember that keeps popping up throughout the film.

These are the parts of the music that you relate to the film - things that reflect the feeling of the movie.   For example, in the Harry Potter films you'll hear that same catchy theme music again and again that implies something magical and innocent, yet a little bit dark.   The Terminator theme music with the mechanical drum beat.   The magnificent theme for Jurassic park that reflects the impressiveness of that first sighting of the island.   The scary 3-note motif in "Signs" when the aliens are just around the corner...

So what makes a great soundtrack?   A great film soundtrack contains music that can reflect what is on the screen in a memorable way.   Whether it's harsh electronics, immense orchestras or a combination of the two, film music is capable of being as popular as any chart hit and as epic as any classical composition... and has the benefit of a ready-made music video to accompany it!

Top 5 Craziest Hardware FX Units

There are some wonderful bits of kit in the world allowing you to manipulate your music, but some just go that extra mile and attempt to break the mould with a brand new user interface that is completely different to the conventional buttons and knobs on most pieces of hardware.

It's time they were recognised - here's the Top 5 craziest hardware effects units!

Korg nanoPAD

Korg's Mac-based MIDI controller provides several pads and an X-Y touch pad to give the user a variety of methods to trigger and alter their effects.   While this does require software to function, it is a hardware unit, so it can sit proudly among the others in this list!

Behringer Tweakalizer

Behringer's entry into the field of obscurely operated effects processors comes in the shape of the fantastically named "Tweakalizer" - a device that looks not unlike a CDJ, with the prominent jog wheel taking up the majority of the space on it, but a plethora of lights, knobs and buttons adorn the silver casing, making it look like something that fell off a UFO.

With the previously stated jog wheel, it allows the user to dial in effects, making it interesting to use as well as futuristic!

Pioneer EFX

Another one that chooses the jog-wheel approach, but this time with considerably more effects and the high-quality pioneer brand behind it; The EFX series of controllers are for those rich musicians who want something more fun than a rack mounted unit!

Alesis airFX

Here's one for those gear freaks out there that love their fun user interfaces - an Infra-red beam creates an invisible sphere of control that the user puts their hand in, moving it to change the effect parameters.   Fun, huh?   The airFX is unfortunately discontinued now, but I'm sure a quick eBay search will give you your fix of Theremin-like effects manipulation!

Korg Kaoss Pad

Quite possibly the most popular effects unit that dares to be different - the Kaoss Pad is used the world over by musicians ranging from Brian Eno to Matt Bellamy to The Prodigy.

With its intuitive X-Y touch pad interface, it's certainly got the fun factor down.   While it may look a bit like a toy, its effects speak for themselves, with hundreds of options available on the Kaoss Pad 3.   With all these features and the brilliantly accessible light-up pad user interface, the Kaoss Pad gets a well-deserved number one spot.

What is Classical Music, Anyway?

There is a very common misconception among musicians that haven't had any formal musical training.  

Many people hear something with an orchestra or fiddly piano in and will confidently tell you "That's classical music!"   I know I was guilty of doing so; but in a lot of cases, it might not be.   Classical music is more specific than that - let's ask some questions...

What's it all about?

Classical music is generally instrumental - It is considerably simpler than other forms of similar genres such as baroque and romantic, with usually a light, chordal undertone and a melody on top.  

You're likely to find the piano as the main solo instrument, but later in the classical era things became more powerful, with heavy programmed beats and dirty Reese bass synths (Not really, but it was more powerful.)

When was it created?

Although lots of people use classical music to describe anything that has an orchestral element to it, the actual classical music period was from 1730 to about 1820.  

The transition from Baroque (which was popular before classical) to classical began in Italy, where the snappily-named Domenico Scarlatti brought his unique musical style to the world, but other composers such as Gluck and C.P.E. Bach (the 2nd son of Johan Sebastian Bach) are more widely accepted as the people who originated the genre.

How did it get popular?

From about 1730 to 1750, the popular audience hungered for something new - something different to the baroque sounds of yesteryear, something that was being provided by the new "Classical" style (Ironic, right?).   Yes, they called it classical back then - it was part of the wave of "Classicism" which was becoming popular at the time, where they tried to emulate the architecture of ancient Greece.  

When composers like Joseph Haydn came out, this cemented the style in people's minds - and as even more popular composers succeeded him (Mozart and later Beethoven) the style became conventional.  

Why did it die out?

As with most genres of music - it became old fashioned.   People once again wanted something new.   Mozart had re-introduced the world to more minor keys and shown them that major, happy sounding music isn't the only style in existence.  

Composers Beethoven evolved music into it's next popular genre - "Romantic music".   Just as Classical music followed "Classicism", Romantic followed "Romanticism" - a new philosophy that emphasized the power of powerful emotion.  This can definitely be heard in Romantic music, where lots of minor keys made for powerful, emotive music.   Remember the song "Ride of the Valkyries"?   That's a great example.

Where did it go?

After it died out, Classical music laid low for a while, drinking in seedy bars and not drawing too much attention to itself until in the 20th Century, when the "Neoclassical" genre popped up, with proponents such as Stravinsky bringing it into the public eye.  

Since then, classical music has been used heavily in movies and TV to reflect different emotions and set different scenes.   Its heavily instrumental approach makes it ideal for backing music and scientific research has proven that it temporarily boosts children's IQs by 8 or 9 points on average, which is seriously cool.   It apparently improves "spatial-temporal reasoning", where you can visualise things over a period of time.  

And that about covers it!   From early, simple and catchy compositions to the evolution of the epic pieces by Mozart and Beethoven.   Classical music will no doubt be thrust upon your ears when watching movies and it will continute to reflect the sense of order and harmony from times gone by... until someone decides to invent "NeoNeoClassical music" and it all becomes popular again.

Top 5 Massive Hits that sampled Massive Hits

How often have you heard a song on the radio and heard a song you like... only to hear someone else singing over the top of it?

Recycling hits has become an increasingly popular past time for producers and here are 5 of the biggest hits that sampled other big hits!

5. Rihanna - SOS
Sampled: Soft Cell - Tainted Love

How many of the people listening to Rihanna's huge hit know it was lifted from 1980s English synth pop duo "Soft Cell"'s number 1 charting hit "Tainted Love" - itself a cover of a song by Gloria Jones.    The original was written by "Ed Cobb" in 1964 - it's gone from motown to electro pop to... uh... even electro-er pop?

4. Jason Derulo - Whatcha Say
Sampled: Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek

Jason Derulo's debut hit the number 1 spot in America, but that was in no small part attributed by many to the heavy sampling of Imogen Heap's minimalistic "Hide and Seek".

3. Jay-Z - Izzo (H.O.V.A)
Sampled: Jackson 5 - I want you back

The song that brought the words "Shizzle" and "Sheezy" to wannabe gangsters the world over samples the hit from the king of pop's original band.   While this version discusses Jay's career as a drug dealer in earlier life, the original was slightly more upbeat story.

Incidentally, this was produced by Kanye West - a guy who has a tendency to heavily sample other hits to make even bigger hits as we'll soon see...

2. Eminem - Stan
Sampled: Dido - Thank You

Eminem's critically acclaimed song "Stan", a song about a disturbed and scarily obsessive fan was made considerably more accessible by the addition of Dido's verse lyrics from her song "Thank You".

Stan became a number 1 before Thank You became a massive hit, making this one of the few songs to become a hit after the song that sampled it!

1. Kanye West - Stronger
Sampled: Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Kanye struck it big, going from rap megastar to pop megastar with his smash hit "Stronger", which sampled Daft Punk and even featured them in the video.

However, Daft Punk can't exactly talk since they sampled "Cola Bottle Baby" by Edwin Birdsong for their song - so this is actually a sample of a sample, clearly meaning it should be at number one on this list.  

What do the Pros use

Have you ever compared your mix to a charting single and thought to yourself "How come my mix isn't that professional sounding? ...What have they got that I haven't?"

Well, apart from the money to pay highly experienced studio engineers to assist them, here's what else some of the most popular professional producers in the business use to make their hits...

A quick note: Most producers tend to be notoriously defensive about their gear, so these lists are not by any means the entirety of their production suite!


Dr Dre's Studio Equipment:

5 MPC 3000's
Pro Tools
ARP String Ensemble
Rhodes
Clavinet

Dre's Production style remains firmly in the old school; he uses 5 MPCs to lay down the beats (he has 5 because he can't be doing with changing the disk when he needs different sounds!) which go straight into Pro Tools.

Perhaps surprisingly, he uses a lot of live instrumentation on his productions - even re-recording parts instead of sampling them, as well as some authentic analog synths.


Timbaland's Studio Equipment:

Korg Triton
Yamaha Motif 7
Ensoniq ASR-10
Yamaha NS10s
Neumann U 87 mic
UREI 1176 compressor
Neve 1076 preamp
Digidesign Pro Tools
Various VSTi software synths

Timbaland is big on his keyboards, getting a considerable amount of his sound from the Triton and Motif 7.

Obviously not one to skimp when it comes to vocals, he combines the £2000 Neumann U87 with his similarly wallet-busting compressor and preamp choices into a crisp, well-produced vocal tracking combo!

Tiesto's studio Equipment

Andromeda A6
Waldorf Microwave XT
Novation Supernova rack
Access Virus XL
Korg Karma

Tiesto is clearly one who enjoys his hardware synths!   Drawing from all over the place, from the analog Andromeda A6 to the digitized Korg Karma, he's not afraid to experiment with both sides of the electronic music spectrum!

Pendulum's studio Equipment

Prophet 10
Z3TA
Alesis Andromeda A6
OSCar
Steinberg Nuendo 4
Mitchell & Todd active monitors
Roll Music stereo compressor

Rob Swire of Pendulum experiments with VSTs, analog synths, vintage synths, digital synths and live instrumentation.   This is one versatile studio setup!   Using the OSCar for dirty basses and soaring leads, A6 and prophet for pads and recording their own drum sounds, they have carved out their sound from a plethora of sources.

Apparently a massive part of their sound is the Roll Music Stereo Compressor, which beefs up their sound considerably!

Top 5 things to happen to Electronic Music in 2009

2009 has been a big year for electronic and computer music.

Have a think back and remember all the things that have changed in your workflow since the year began - all the plug-ins, the new services and even brand new pieces of must-have software.

But what have been the biggest things this year to hit the electronic music scene?   Let's take a look at the Top 5 things to happen to Electronic Music in 2009...

5. DJ Hero

Whatever your opinion of DJ Hero, there is no denying that, much like Guitar Hero before it, it will open its music scene of choice to a massive new audience.

The combination of Pop, Dance and Hip Hop music has thoroughly brought Electronic music to the gaming masses, solidifying a sense of interest in production and, perhaps more importantly, performance of the genre in a whole new generation.

This could have massive repercussions on the electronic music scene - a huge influx of people buying DJ gear as they realise their calling in life requires a mixer and some headphones perhaps?   Or a slew of punters rushing to find tutorials on producing music, so that they can be on the sequel?

We'll have to wait and see!

4. Spotify

Spotify technically launched in October 2008, but in 2009 it went online for free registration rather than invite-only.   This resulted in people being able to get a scarily large library of music for absolutely nothing.

This is a huge thing for all music producers - being able to get their music out with a new and exciting platform... or looking out for the newest way to get exploited by a large company.   Either way it's something big.

3. Accurate Pitch Bending

Going into the more technical side of things now, Pitch bending has quite thoroughly evolved.

Gone are the days of chipmunk-style vocals; technological advances this year have allowed us to pitch up several octaves whilst still retaining the natural sound on the vocals, preserving the punch of the percussion or the grit of the guitars.

Scooter will be crying into their pitch-bending plug-in.

2. Flexible Time Stretching

Not only has pitch bending undergone a revolution, time stretching has followed suit, with DAWs now allowing sounds to be stretched beyond recognition... without them actually being beyond recognition.

Software such as Propellerhead's "Record" and Logic Pro 9 has made it an industry standard that audio can now be manipulated just as easily as MIDI, without tempo being an issue any more.

Hell, some DAWs allow you to not even record to a click track and then can automatically put you in time!   Maybe talent would be a thing of the past if it were not for the need to stay in tune...

1. Melodyne DNA

...Or did I speak too soon?   Melodyne deserve the top spot thoroughly - they have created software that can analyse an entire song, show you all the notes within it, then allow you to manipulate those notes.

Think of the uses for synth-creation and sample manipulation - being able to grab and change that harmonic overtone in a synth sound without having to spend years EQ-ing a patch to perfection.

This also has massive repercussions elsewhere - remixing will be changed forever; chordal instruments can be pitch (and time) corrected as easily as vocals now, and robots will take over the world.

Okay, perhaps that's a slight overstatement, but with so many seemingly sci-fi technological advances happening in such a short space of time, it's easy to lose track of what's real and what's not.

If 2009 has shown us anything, there are certainly some changes coming to the music world in the future; that's for sure.

Saint Joe gets his hands on... Analogue Synthesis

5 New Years Resolutions for improving your productions

So as 2009 fades into memory, those of us who feel the need for tradition are looking for some resolutions to follow in the New Year!

Here are 5 suggestions for resolutions that will help improve your productions in 2010!

1. Always take time to EQ correctly

Have you ever found your mixes too muddy or too thin?   Taking a long time to go through each layer of the mix and cut out the overlapping frequencies can give each section some space in the mix.

Try concentrating on making the kicks and snares prominent, and then cut the other synths, samples and instruments around that, making sure they don't have too much harmonic content in the same frequency areas as the main percussion.

2. Try out some new synths and samples

It can be really easy to fall into a habit of using the same synths and samples all the time (just ask Benny Benassi).   Spice things up by trying out some new and exciting samples or spending some time creating a brand new synth effect - making your tracks will feel fresh and fun again!

3. Do some research into music theory


While some of you might already know the basics, a lot of producers aren't familiar with music theory - have a quick Google and see what you can find, maybe even take up piano lessons (or other instruments if you'd prefer - you can get MIDI flutes, guitars and even saxophones to record your synth parts with!) and you'll start to understand why your riffs invoke certain feelings in the listener!

4. Attempt a new genre of music

This can be a fantastic way to learn a lot of new techniques in a short space of time.   Have you not tried out Dubstep yet?   Or are you yet to try out some older genres like techno and trance?   Give them a try and you're sure to learn something as you produce!

5. Experiment with new mastering techniques on your tracks

It's such a shame that so many producers spend all that time mixing a track only to not master it properly!   Make it your resolution to try out some new techniques with mastering the final mix and see if you can polish your tracks up to that professional level!

Things like multi-band compression, harmonic exciters and brick-wall limiters are all plug-ins you might want to try!

So whatever you manage to eat less chocolate, exercise more and manage to kick the habit or not, make sure you give your production ability the attention it deserves!