Five Things to Do BEFORE the EQ

By Jason Johnston

It is so tempting. Those fancy little knobs or virtual sliders where you can dial up a little more high or low frequency, maybe scoop out the mid or try to get a little more life out of that vocal sound. But, there may be some actions to do BEFORE you reach for that Equalizer (EQ). So, use some restraint and think through this list to see if these questions apply:

the UAD Cambridge EQ

1. Is it the Right Microphone?

If you find yourself immediately adjusting the EQ to get a little more "presence" out of the microphone, maybe it's not the right mic for the job. You can't boost something that is not there. And if it is there in just a smaller amount, you will also be boosting the noise with it. If you have some other mics you can try, take a couple minutes and do it. It always serves you to know your microphones - read the manual, study the frequency response graph that came with them or look them up online.

2. Is it the Proper Mic Placement?

The distance of the microphone from the source you are recording can make an enormous difference in the frequencies. For instance, have a cardioid microphone really close the source will boost the proximity effect, creating a much boomier lower end (also called the James Earl Jones effect...). Putting the microphone further away will thin out the sound. This can be effective when recording backup vocalist or other instruments that will not be front-and-center.

When it comes to recording acoustic guitars a mic in the wrong place will make it sound dull and lifeless and in the right place will make the sound come alive. Trust me - you don't want to be trying to create sonic life out of a lifeless track with EQ! It will be like beating a dead horse.

When recording drums, mic placement is king. Even a good mic in the wrong place will have you fumbling to your EQ for more thud, snap, crack or sparkle. I know the band is waiting. Just tell them that perfection takes time and find those proper placements for the drum mics to get the sound you want.

3. Do I need to Change the Strings, the Drum Heads, the Picks, get a setup etc.?

If you are trying to capture a sound and make it sound better than the instrument does in real life you will have a difficult time of it. Many instruments have "consumables" that wear out over time. I often instruct acoustic guitar players to change their strings a few days before, play a little bit to let them get worked in (so they will stay in tune) but not too much to smack the life out of them again. New strings on a guitar might sound a little bright to your ears, but tend to record very well. A proper guitar setup with a trusted (and timely) guitar tech is usually a good choice before an important recording.

In a similar way, Drums have heads that need to be replaced depending on use, especially when it comes to the kick batter head and the snare head. If you are looking for that "smack" try tuning and mic placement first, but if the head looks like the original that came with kit in the 60's you might have just found your problem.

4. Is the Cable the Culprit?

Signals sent from a microphone or guitar cabinet are converted into low level electrical impulses and sent through cables first before going to your recording device. If it is sounding lifeless, the cable could the culprit. Either because they are low quality to begin with, or because of wear and tear, the signal may not be getting through as cleanly as it should.

Do this test sometime: Go out and buy one high end cable like the Monster Pro 1000. Put your pile of old cables on the floor. Setup your best microphone and record something like a voice or guitar in the same piston strumming the same chord over and over using a different cable each time. You'll be amazed at the sonic and volume difference you will come up with.

5. Is it the Room?

If you are using a microphone, think about the room in which you are recording. Your microphone will not only pick up the source but the room the source is resonating in. This is especially true of louder sounds and instruments. If the vocalist is sounding a little dull and lifeless on the top end, and you know you have the right mic and placement for the job, maybe your room is too absorbent in the high frequencies? You can remedy this by replacing some of the absorbent material with hard surfaces to make the room brighter. I heard of one studio hanging old CD's in their vocal booth to help reflect a few of the high frequency sounds. Use your imagination but think about the room you are recording in.

Okay, you can use your EQ now....

When you need to use the EQ: 1. Use it sparingly at first.; 2. Cut first, boost second. 3. Use your ears not just your eyes. You've heard the phrase "We'll fix it in the mix." Well I like this idea much better: "Let's do it right the first time." Think about what you are recording, where you are recording, and the method or tools of recording it first before reaching for that EQ.

Jason Johnston is the leader of the Revolution, musician and part-time professor of Music Technology at Sheridan Arts College.

Programming Believable Drums

By Jason Johnston - the Rebel Leader

Can you program your own realistic sounding drums without (gasp) a drummer? Some say yes, some say no. Here are a few tips to help you get at least a little closer.

Start at the Source

Programming drums is all about triggering samples with MIDI information. The same rules apply to working with a real drum mer for a recording: You want some rhythm. You want some feel. You want a kit that sounds good. In the world of MIDI this entails having a sample based plug-in of some sort. Our two favourites around the rebel base are Addictive Drums and Battery 3. You can also find drum samples as part of other larger sample libraries like Sampletank and Dimension Pro. It is important to start with a decent enough source sound, or you will just be frustrated if you are trying to make them sound realistic.

Ready-made or Play-it-yourself

Some plug-ins come with MIDI beats built in, like Steinberg's Groove Agent 2 or the aforementioned Addictive Drums. These beats may not be exactly what you want, but they will sure get you grooving in a hurry. With any of the drum sample plug-ins you can also used pre made MIDI beats by companies like Groove Monkee. And then there is the long, often painful, but always rewarding direction of programming the beats yourself. You can do this by using a MIDI controller to trigger the sounds. A typical drum layout on a MIDI controller is found below.

An easy way to program is to play your best through the whole song and then go back and cut and paste the parts you like.

Make Some Frequent Mistakes

You can quantize your drums, which is something that forces the MIDI information into a particular grid, but remember: real drums sound like they are being played by a real person. And real people make mistakes. Don't forget to either leave in some mistakes or make some frequent ones if you have quantized your track. Not big ones, just small changes to make the track sound human. Take the snap off in Cubase or put it to Slip mode in Pro Tools and just slide around and humanize a few of those MIDI hits.

Share Your Reverb

One great way to blend your MIDI drums into the rest of your track is to create a "send effect" with some room reverb, then send not only your MIDI drums, but also a little bit of the other instruments to the send effect. Let them mix and mingle and create the illusion to the listener that they were all once in the same room together.

Supplements

If your drum sounds are not cutting it, maybe it is time at the end to supplement them. Many programmers will record some real cymbals, percussion or snare drum over top of their programmed drums. This can a lot of difference if you take the extra effort.

Wrapping Up

These are just a few of the drum programming tricks and approaches I have used over the years to try to create realistic sounding drums using MIDI. And the best part of all: There is no need to rent a van!

Backing Up A Pro Tools Session

By Jon Tidey - codename: Static

This will explain what you need to do in order to properly export a Pro Tools session to back it up or to send to someone else, with complete confidence that nothing will be lost in the process.

Open ProTools and push Ctrl/Command O and select the session you want to archive. So everything looks nice and organized fit all the tracks to the screen and Alt/Option A to view the entire session.

You may want to consolidate any regions that are chopped up, or anything that doesn’t start at the same time as the other tracks. This will also allow you to take the audio files and mix in another DAW. To do this select from the start of the session to the end of the region and use the hotkey Shift Alt/Option 3 to consolidate the track. This will create a new audio file, any fades will be written to the file, effects will not be however. If you are sending this to someone else this is a really good thing to do.

Next you will want to remove unused regions and audio files from the session. Go to the region list (right side panel) and Ctrl/Command Shift U to select the unused regions. Ctrl/Command Shift B will bring up the Clear Regions dialog. You want to remove only. This will minimize the amount of files that need to be copied.

So now comes the part where you save it to a new location. Push Ctrl/Command 2 to verify the session sample rate and depth. Go to the File menu and select Save Copy In…

Note that the Session Parameters should be the same as the current session. In items to copy you MUST click All Audio Files. You don’t have to click: Don’t copy fades files, but it makes the saved session smaller, and missing fades are recreated on opening anyway. Saving the session plugin folder is a good idea if you saved anything to it during the mix, you should have. Keep Copy Of on the file name to indicate this is not the original session. Make sure you are saving to a different drive than the one you are working off of, remember you want your backups on a different drive always. The exception would be if you are saving the session to burn to a DVD. Optionally, you may want to add the date to the file name as well.

Click Save and it will begin writing everything to the new location. This can take a while depending on the size of the session and computer speed. Thats it.

You can now take this Protools session to anyone else in the world with a Protools system and begin work again in seconds.