ProRec Articles

The Indie Age of Music

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:56:00 GMT

What could be in store for the Music Industry?

Like a fast growing teenager from a broken home, the music industry has been tortured by painful and unexpected changes. Today, major labels are the melancholic parents in denial, missing the old days of sense of ownership. But capitalism in the hands of the little ones is a doomsday device against the corporations.

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The Trumpet- Instrument Recreation At It's Finest?

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:13:00 GMT

We've come a long way when it comes to recreating real instruments in the virtual world. But there have been some common limitations holding us back. The Trumpet sets out to raise that bar. We'll find out if there is a new bar, or if The Trumpet is just doing chin-ups.

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Pianoteq: The Little Piano That Could - A Review

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 05:47:00 GMT

Piano sample libraries are tipping the scales and weighing down the world's hard drive. But does it have to be this way? Modartt doesn't seem to think so. Will Pianoteq be the only piano you need? We'll find out as we journey through the virtual soundboard of Pianoteq.

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Point-to-Point 4: The Old 97's - Blame it on Gravity

Wed, 28 May 2008 05:20:00 GMT

Join Rip Rowan in a new installment of Point-to-Point, as we dissect a song from the new hit album by the Old 97's, Blame it on Gravity, and show how the song came together from pre-production through final mix.

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Synful Orchestra- Do Big Things Really Come In Small Packages?

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:52:00 GMT

Synful Orchestra exemplifies the word "potential". If you are willing to work in an unconventional way in order to get the best sounds, you may be in for a treat.

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JazzMutant Dexter: The Revolution Has Begun

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 02:24:00 GMT

The problem with control surfaces is that by the time there are enough controls on the surface to actually do the job, you've pretty much rebuilt a complete console.

Most control surfaces are simple. Too simple. You get eight motorized faders and a few knobs, a handful of paging switches, and a small, one-line LED display. With this skimpy set of widgets you are supposed to command the thousands of parameters and features embedded in your DAW. A few highly-powerful alternatives are available, most specifically for ProTools, but these devices have a significant physical - and financial - footprint.In the end, the DAW user must either settle for a small set of tactile controls or simply rely on mouse-mixing to get the job done.

At least, until now.

Enter Dexter. Dexter is the result of a highly ambitious effort by JazzMutant to produce a complete control surface from a simple touchscreen. No knobs, no faders, no LEDs, no switches. Just a touchscreen.

When I was asked to review this unit, I was interested, but dubious. Clearly, the advantages of this approach could be enormous. Without the limitations of physical hardware, the touchscreen interface could truly emulate all of the features of a complete console, in an inexpensive, small footprint device

But what are the odds that they'd actually get it right? This sort of whizbangery is usually the sort of thing that seems cool but doesn't work in the real world. To be truthful, I was extremely skeptical and looked forward to delivering one of my infamous spankings to this thing.

Overview

The unit itself is an unremarkable black box, about a foot on each side and an inch or so deep. The metal construction gives it a solid, utilitarian feel. Once the unit is powered on and interacting with the DAW host, the screen presents a familiar looking mixer interface. Dexter is unadorned other than the screen and four illuminated buttons that do not play a part in the control surface interface.

I was surprised by the simplicity of the setup: simply hook up the unit via ethernet to the DAW host, install the Dexter control driver into the DAW host, and start using it. Shockingly, setup really was that simple. I tested the Dexter with Sonar 6, and had it up and running within five minutes of pulling it out of the box. Installation and setup could not be easier.

The 800x600 TFT display is bright and clean, and the surface coating prevents smearing or blurring as you touch the surface. Dexter includes its own CPU and GPU, so your DAW isn't doing the work. Currently, Dexter supports Logic, Sonar, Cubase and Nuendo, with planned support for ProTools.

On the main screen, the user is presented with eight channel strips, a master fader, and a small set of transport and navigation controls. Each channel strip includes a volume fader with metering, Mute / Solo / Record / Automation Record buttons, and buttons to activate the EQ or Plug-ins screens for each channel. On these screens, Dexter offers the capability to control the DAW's built-in channel EQ or to control the parameters of virtually any plugin through a simple "fader" interface (see images). Dexter also offers a condensed channel screen (which provides EQ, plugins, surround panning, and other channel strip controls on one single screen) as well as a dedicated surround-panning screen.

Dexter Main Screen (click any image to enlarge)

With these five screens, Dexter promises to control every feature of your DAW's mixer. And, it turns out, Dexter keeps its promises surprisingly well.

In Use

I opened a current mixing project and immediately began using the device. I tried, as much as possible, to keep my hands entirely off of the computer mouse, to force myself to accomplish as many tasks as possible using Dexter.

Dexter uses an innovative multi-touch screen technology. With this capability, Dexter actually responds to all of your fingers simultaneously when you control the device. This makes it possible to, for example, ride multiple faders at once, or automate volume and EQ at the same time. The multi-touch technology works right, all of the time, just like you would expect a piece of hardware to behave.

The unit is shockingly responsive. There is no user interface delay at all. Controls move with your fingers as if they were physical faders and knobs. These factors make using Dexter much more like using a piece of hardware than it would be otherwise. I was immediately impressed with the accuracy and responsiveness of the touchscreen. It worked surprisingly well, and I'm a bit hard to impress with whizbang gadgetry like this.

As with other controllers, the channel strips can be customized and grouped into pages. So it is useful to group all of the drum channels together into one page, guitars into another, vocals into a separate page, and so forth. Having done this, it becomes possible to control a large number of tracks with relative ease, although on more than one occasion I found myself flipping around through the pages hunting for a particular track. Fortunately, the high resolution display provides excellent track labeling, so finding tracks is easier than when using a controller with the typical single line LED display.

Integration with the DAW host was seamless. Press a button or move a fader on Dexter and the appropriate control activates or moves simultaneously in real time on the computer screen. Tap all eight Record buttons at once and all eight tracks immediately arm. There's no perceivable latency, no jerkiness, no gaps - just a fluid union of controller and DAW.

Recording automation is effortless. Tap the automation record button on the track(s) you wish to ride and hit play. Once your finger contacts the fader, you begin writing automation, and when you lift up, you stop - just like hardware. Dexter also features a realtime scaling capability that allows you to quickly make extra-fine adjustments. It's immediately usable, and I was writing volume and pan automation right away.

But this capability is found in any hardware controller. To see Dexter shine, you need to go one more level deeper.

Power and Flexibility

To control an EQ using a hardware control surface requires using an obscure menu of buttons and knobs (or, "knob", singular). For me, its always easier to work the EQ on the computer with the mouse. Not so with Dexter. Hit the EQ button on any channel and a full-screen paragraphic EQ display is presented. Just slide the EQ points around with your finger - or all four fingers at once - and you immediately shape the EQ curve and hear the results in real-time as you drag the curve around. With one caveat (below), I think it's safe to say that the EQ control is the best-implemented EQ interface on any device I've ever used. I'm not just talking about other control surfaces - I mean any EQ you've ever put your hands on. It's certainly easier and more intuitive than, say, turning knobs on a hardware mixer, and at least as easy as (and more fun than) shaping a 10-band graphic EQ. The first time you EQ a channel with Dexter, you're going to grin big. It's a home run.

Likewise with plugins. Most control surfaces let you control and automate plug-ins, but doing so is unintuitively cumbersome and often forces all of the controls through a single knob. Dexter provides up to eight parameters to be controlled (and automated) simultaneously. So you can tweak the compressor's ratio and threshold at the same time, adjust the reverb time and intensity at once, or simultaneously turn up the gain and turn down the output on your amp sim without increasing the output volume. No controller that I've seen makes working with plugins usable like Dexter. Another home run.

I didn't spend much time with the surround panning screen, except to quickly realize that it's simply the best surround panning interface available. If you're doing serious surround work, especially for film or video, Dexter is a must-have. For example, you can simultaneously automate the panning of up to ten channels at once, something that is impossible to do with a mouse or joystick, and the control and feel is fluid and effortless. No hardware based control comes close. Home run number three.

You can also use the channel summary to view and control EQ, plugins, surround panning, and more - all at once. On this screen, instead of controlling up to eight plugin parameters at once, you can use an innovative X-Y grid to control any two parameters simultaneously with a single finger. It's a cool user interface for creating, say, delay effects. Or, map the threshold and output gain of a compressor here and quickly dial in compressor settings with a single touch. It's a cool innovation that really works. The summary screen also lets you control surround panning and effect sends, giving you complete control over the channel in one screen. I think it's safe to say that Dexter integrates more channel controls more usably on a single screen than any other device out there. Yet another home run.

The device is also quite sturdy. Control surfaces are notoriously delicate. The motorized faders and many switches are easy to damage and get dirty and worn over time. It's easy to see that nothing short of abuse is going to cause the Dexter to wear out soon. The unit is durably built, and touchscreens are quite reliable if they are not abused. This is a product that is likely to continue to deliver results long past the time that other units are worn out or obsolete. That's reassuring in this age of seemingly disposable hardware. Home run number five.

Finally, let me praise Jazzmutant for their work on the user interface. While I was waiting for my Dexter unit to arrive, I perused the screen shots on the JazzMutant website to familiarize myself with the product. It seemed to me that the screen shots were really artist renderings of the UI, not the real thing. Nope, they're the real thing. This is one of the best user interface designs I've stumbled across for any sort of product, approaching the kind of slick seamlessness of the iPhone. JazzMutant has wisely opted to keep the UI look and feel strictly utilitarian. Colors and lines are limited to providing context, indicating grouping or control similarity, and never for decoration.

In fact there isn't any decoration in the user interface. Everything has a purpose. The result is a super-clean set of controls that eliminates busy-ness in favor of functionality. In an age of user interfaces so jazzed up you can't find anything - with cool-looking yet unusable controls that leave you wondering if the designers ever user their own products - JazzMutant deserves high marks for getting the user interface so very right. Home run number six.

Minor Criticisms

Dexter is not without its shortcomings, one of which I bumped into pretty quickly. It turns out that while Dexter will control Sonar's master output fader, it won't control other bus faders. They just don't show up in the user interface. According to JazzMutant, this is an accidental omission from the driver that apparently only affects Sonar. JazzMutant has promised a software update which will correct this error. And there's one of Dexter's strengths that I will elaborate on in a moment: serious upgradeability through software updates.

The touchscreen, while exceptional, is still imperfect. My unit didn't respond as well to touch on the extreme left side of the unit as it should, making it occasionally unresponsive to fades on the leftmost fader. With a little practice I was able to control the fader properly, but the screen should have worked better. Also, people with large, soft fingers may struggle to get fine control of the surface. As you lift your finger from the surface, it's easy for the contour of the finger to roll or shift, causing undesirable changes in the control you're working with. With practice I was able to attain good control by using the tips of my fingers or, in cases, the edge of my fingernail. However, I have fairly average fingers with a bit of drummer callous on them. People with fleshy hands will not fare as well.

The unit features very responsive metering on every channel. However, the meters are not labeled, making them pretty useless except for basic "signal present" usage. I'd like it if the meters inherited the settings of the DAW's meters (dB scale, peak hold, etc).

I struggled hard to control the Q parameter of the EQ. Some kind of glitch makes the Q parameter rather jumpy at certain settings. I feel sure that this is a software problem that will be quickly and easily addressed by JazzMutant, and - even with this problem - the EQ control is still a benchmark.

Dexter is limited to displaying only the first 64 tracks of your project. In this age of infinite track count, that's not enough. We need at least 128 tracks worth of control, or, better, JazzMutant needs to remove the limit altogether.

Dexter also suffers from the same shortcomings as other control surfaces. For one thing, on any largish mix, eight is not enough. I always feel constrained by only seeing eight channels at once, when my DAW shows me 20 or 30 at once. As a result, I keep wanting to take my eyes off of Dexter and look at the DAW, which then makes me more likely to grab the mouse and tweak the DAW rather than use Dexter. One day in the not-too-distant future, we'll see a 24" (or larger) version of this device, and it will mean the end of the hardware mixer. Really. More on that later.

Also, there's still a million things that I can't do with Dexter. Arm the metronome? Grab the mouse. Insert an effect? Grab the mouse. Insert a track or bus? Grab the mouse. All of these events force attention away from Dexter and onto the DAW. And anything that takes attention away from the control surface mitigates the usefulness of the control surface. These, of course, are problems that all control surfaces face. And, ultimately, where a control surface really shines is as a mixdown device. Given a song that has been fully tracked and rough-mixed (with all of the needed effects present) it is perfectly possible to turn off the computer screen and produce your final mix with Dexter and no other user interface. And this is a task at which Dexter excels.

Expandability and Flexibility

OK, so Dexter has many of the same shortcomings as other control surfaces. However, as a software-based control surface, perhaps future generations of Dexter's drivers might provide some of these capabilities. And this brings me back to the topic of upgradeability. JazzMutant has already unveiled a powerful upgrade path for Dexter. For example, you can now operate your Dexter as a Lemur - JazzMutant's customizable control surface which can be used to control anything from softsynths to lighting. This makes Dexter a tremendous creativity tool for electronic musicians and producers who depend on softsynths. You can use Dexter to build customized synth controllers - or, really, controllers for anything that responds to MIDI. This is a free upgrade. Moore's Law wins again.

Jazzmutant's willingness to keep expanding Dexter with software updates makes me very optimistic about this product. Try upgrading your hardware control surface and get back to me with the results. In the next 18 months we could easily see Dexter expanding into even greater areas of control over your DAW and other devices. It's very promising.

Conclusions

Let's face it: this device could really, seriously suck. There are so many ways that JazzMutant could have gotten it wrong. But they scored big with this thing, and deserve the highest praise from our industry.

Dexter is a remarkably innovative and exciting product that, in this reviewer's opinion, irrevocably changes the playing field for all future generations of control surface devices. Only in its first generation, Dexter already proves that a touchscreen-only device can stand toe-to-toe with hardware devices - and improve on them in many material ways.

Folks, this is only going to get better. The screens will only get bigger, resolution will only increase, touch sensitivity will only improve, the software will always become more powerful. Hardware devices are pretty much already logically constrained. We're not going to see order-of-magnitude improvements in them. But we will with future generations of Dexter. It's got Moore's Law on its side, and I'm betting on Moore's Law.

So I'm going to make a bold prediction. Based on my work with Dexter, I predict that in a generation or two, and with a larger format, touchscreen control devices will become the high-end state of the art, replacing big-name hardware-based devices in top studios. Why? Because, done right, the damn thing just works better. It's more expandable, more flexible, more visual, and more reliable than hardware. To be sure, there's work to be done to improve this product, but Dexter proves that this is a controller format that really works. And that makes Dexter the most important product to hit our industry in a decade. I'm sure that many people will think me a fool for saying so, but in a few years, this technology will redefine the way we interact with our DAWs.

Some have claimed that, with the advent of multitouch screens in laptops and desktop screens, we will soon all be using these screens to control our DAWs, and so the life span of Dexter is ultimately short. I disagree. Perhaps, eventually, desktop operating systems and DAW software will all elegantly support a multitouch screen. However, merely slapping a screen on today's DAW software won't work at all, because the user interface has to be methodically redesigned to support the touchscreen. There will be a long transition time before DAWs natively support a touchscreen with anything like the usability of a Dexter.

Instead, I see a fusion between Dexter and its future generations and DAW software. JazzMutant clearly has the user interface issues mastered and is in a great position to advance the state of the art. Therefore, the most important thing to happen next is for DAW software manufacturers to get behind this technology in a big way. The more we can bring the DAW into the touchscreen - the more that the two become one - the better and better this is going to become. Avid? Steinberg? Cakewalk? Apple? Are you listening? Because this is revolutionary stuff.

At a street price just under $3500, Dexter is not cheap. In fact it is over twice as expensive as its typical competitors. However, Dexter's immediate usability, its upgradeability, the slick implementation, sturdy construction, and strong support from JazzMutant make it a reasonable high-end contender in a world of control surfaces that mostly miss the boat. JazzMutant is clearly onto something with this product. If you're in the market for a control surface, Dexter is definitely a device that's worth your attention.

Visit http://www.jazzmutant.com/ for more information.

KEL Audio HM-1 Condenser Microphone

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:48:00 GMT

I have a problem. I’m a sucker for cheap gear. I can’t resist the low-price carrot. This makes me do silly things -- buying the Alesis 3630 comes to mind, or picking up mics sight-unseen, sound-unheard. Usually, this does little more than clutter my tiny studio, but now and then I luck out.

The KEL HM-1 was just such a carrot. Sold direct by KEL in Canada at an introductory price of $69 (they're now $129, and include a shock-mount and carrying case I didn’t receive). I sprung for two on a whim. KEL’s money back guarantee helped fuel the decision. A lucky pick, or more clutter? Let’s find out.

My motivation (price aside) for trying the HM-1, was to find a less expensive, smaller alternative to the AudioTechnica 4050s I love on toms. In cardioid, 4050s are great tom mics; unfortunately, they represent more money than I want to put in front of a spastic drummer, and being large, they make good targets. At 2” x 5”, the side-address KELs are less likely to be smacked into next week, and with a response of 30hz-20khz, -18dBA self noise, and 134dB max SPL handling (per KEL’s specs), they seemed like they might be up to the task.

Dealing with KEL was simple. The microphones shipped from the US, and the company was great about keeping me informed as to the status of my order. Packaging was spartan: a small, foam-lined cardboard box housed the microphone, clip, and a foam windscreen, yet each mic came with an individual frequency plot. Nice touch for a budget mic.

The Sound

How does it sound? Very good, thank you. It is, as KEL advertise, a dark sounding microphone, much like a high-frequency-damped version of the Audio Technica 4050, and with a similar output level. They're half-inch diaphragm mics, with a hot output level, and take standard 48v phantom power. The capsule is internally shock mounted (encased in and supported on a rubber housing), and the chassis is thick metal, delivering a mic with reasonable levels of handling noise and body resonance, even without an external spider mount.

The HM-1 does tom duty very well – plenty of low end “doooom”, and enough stick attack to give good definition to the drum. The small profile and low weight (around 6 ozs) make the HM-1 easy to place in cramped spaces, and the cardioid pattern is tight enough to reject surrounding drums sufficiently to allow for gating during mixdown. I would have liked the pattern a touch tighter, but for instruments other than drums it’s not a problem. At this point, I was already a happy camper.

On overheads, the lack of sizzle is nice for creating a muted vibe – very complimentary to jazzy styles. On a recent session, I used an AKG d12e on kick, sm57 on snare top, and two HM-1s behind the drummer pointing between the rack tom/ crash/ hats on the left and ride/ floor tom on the right, around 5’ in the air. This gave a great sense of balance to the kit, full tom and snare sounds, nicely seated cymbals – perfect for laid-back drums in the mix. If you want a bright, up front cymbal sound, the HM-1 won't give this up without a good deal of HF EQ boost.

This dark tonality makes the HM-1 one of my go-to mics for electric guitars. Ignoring the fizziness of heavily overdrived amps nicely, it presents a rich, up-front tone that can be thickened or thinned by milking the proximity effect of the mic. A long standing client’s favorite guitar tone is his tele straight into a blackface champ with the HM-1 straight on the grille, up close. Very Stonesy.

On acoustic guitars, it's hit or miss. I've tried the HM-1 on various instruments from an inexpensive plywood parlor guitar to a jumbo, all solid wood '70s 12-string Guild. The rule of thumb is the thinner sounding the guitar, the better the HM-1 will sound. The Guild, for instance, sounded muddy and tubby, just too much bass. The parlor guitar, on the other hand, sounded full and rich, though in person it's a quiet, boxy instrument. The HM-1 on an antique potato-bug mandolin sounded great.

I use the HM-1 a lot on an old Farfisa PianOrgani—it’s a reed organ, essentially an accordian with a motor rather than bellows. The KEL takes the edge off the reedy tone nicely, so I suspect it would flatter harsh sound sources like violins and brass, though I've not had the opportunity to try this.

Voice is my least favorite source for the HM-1, though the podcast world seems to have embraced it. The HM-1 is sensitive to bottoming out on ‘plosives, so a pop filter or an extremely controlled performer is an absolute must. I’ve actually used the KEL to help teach mic technique due to this unforgiving nature. Tonally, the muted highs push vocals further back into a mix than I like, and if you use the the included windscreen to tame ‘plosives, this darkens the tone further. On a shrill vocalist though, it's a good starting point.

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to use the HM-1s on a live gig mic’ing a Steinway grand for the Swell Season (http://www.myspace.com/theswellseason). This was a mixed bag. The piano sounded great -- the HM-1’s toned down a bright upper midrange nicely, and the rest of the piano’s register sounded rich and full. Feedback, however, was a different story. Grand pianos are inherently difficult to mic for live use, and the venue’s super-reflective acoustic environment coupled with the HM-1’s somewhat loose cardiod pattern and healthy sensitivity forced me to keep the gain lower than I wanted. Lesson learned: the HM-1 is a studio mic.

A note about the clip. Crappy mic clips are one of my pet peeves. The butterfly style shock mounts included with Studio Projects / Apex / Nady come to mind. Terrible. So I love that the HM-1 came with a mutha of a clip. It’s the same style design Neumann uses on the TLM 103: a hoop screws to the mic bottom with about a half inch of threads, and the XLR connector mounts through the center of the hoop. Very tight and secure, and easy to rotate for placement. Angle adjusting is made via an oversized, knuckled thumb screw at the clip’s pivot point. Slick.

Quibbles

I would have loved a -10dB pad on the mic. Due to the HM-1’s high output level, I couldn’t use it with the preamps on my RME Fireface without overload when recording a loud Mesa Boogie amp. The capsule wasn’t distorting, the RME was. Moving to a different preamp solved the issue, as would have an external pad (I've made some since). I wouldn't fight if KEL included a low-cut filter, but for the price, I'm not going to demand it. My other complaints about the mics I received (no shock mount, no carrying case) have been addressed by KEL; having looked into after-market mounts and Pelican cases, this justifies the price increase.

Conclusions

I’ve had my pair of HM-1’s for around three years, and I love them. My only regret is not picking up a third at the introductory price. Both the sound quality as well as the “if it gets bumped around, who cares?” factor makes the HM-1 one of the few microphones I almost always have set up in the studio, ready to go.

Audio Production Tools for Linux

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:07:00 GMT

Just the thought of Linux conjures up many different variants of emotion. For some, there are thoughts of freedom; for others there are thoughts of horror as hours of lives have been lost trying to configure this beast. Does Linux have anything to offer the Pro Audio community? I hope to shed some light on this subject for you, as I do believe that Linux is a tremendous gift to the Pro Audio community and society as a whole.

I am not going to give you an entire history lesson about how Linus Torvalds created the first Linux kernel and so on. There are huge books and thousands of web sites on the subject. If you do want a history lesson I would suggest Wikipedia. I am going to discuss modern audio technologies, the Linux equivalents, different high end Linux audio programs, and different Linux flavors.

I’m involved in the 3D animation and compositing world, and in these markets Linux is the norm rather than the exception. So, if any of you do post- production work it may be beneficial to at least know what Linux is and be able to talk to your clients intelligently about it. We will also discuss the pros and cons of Linux since you need to know the good, the bad, and the ugly.

A Linux Primer

If you have never heard of Linux before there are a few things that we should discuss. First, Linux is not “set in stone” and can take many forms. It is not OSX 10.4, for example. When someone says they don't like Linux that usually means that they don't like a certain variant of it. It is probably the only variant they have tried. Linux can be used in mobile phones, Tivo, and even complete operating systems. It is so flexible (both the license and the software itself) that there are actually versions of Linux designed with the sole purpose of being used in a recording studio. Everything from the driver to the included software will get you up and running, recording music very quickly.

When a custom version of the Linux operating system is designed, it is called a distribution. This is really one of the most confusing things about Linux. Some of the more popular distributions or “flavors” of Linux are Red Hat, Suse, and Ubuntu. The license to the Linux kernel guarantees that it will always be free both in a monetary sense and in a freedom sense. No one can own Linux. To use Linux in a project you must agree to put those projects back out to the community. To learn more about the Linux license here is another Wikipedia link. The good news is that most Linux related projects are free to the end user.

I am not a programmer. The thought of tweaking a Linux system at a low level fills me with dread. So I found ways to get a reliable Linux system running without too many tweaks. I am looking for a quick, out of the box, up and running experience. Apologies in advance if I leave someone’s favorite distribution out. I am writing this article with the Pro Audio community in mind - not the computer hacker Linux community.

Before we dive in, it would also be a good idea to discuss some of the technologies in Linux and the more traditional software equivalents. As most of you know, you can’t do audio in the computer without a low level audio driver. This ensures that latency is kept to a minimum. Windows has ASIO and WDM, OSX has Core Audio, and Linux has ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.) The list of pro audio interfaces that are supported is staggering. This page can tell you if your sound card is supported.

Another fantastic gift to the Pro Audio world is from Propellerheads. They found that there was a need to move audio and MIDI data in real time between different applications, and thus Rewire was born. Linux has a similar technology called JACK. This works just as well as Rewire, if not better as it has more than sixty-four audio channels. The last Linux technology that needs defined is the main plugin format. Windows and Mac users have VST and Audio Units. Linux users have LADSPA (Linux Audio Developer's Simple Plugin, API.) This plugin format works amazingly well. There are hundreds of plugins available in this format and most of them are free. However, there are no commercial plugins. I would love to see URS and Waves make plugins available in LADSPA form.

Popular Distributions for Audio

So let’s take a moment to discuss Linux distributions designed for the Pro Audio user (there are several ways to get Redhat and Ubuntu turned into a Linux DAW, but it almost always seems easier to just get a distribution that’s designed for it.) Almost all of these are free so if you have a spare computer sitting around feel free to download anything in this article and play.

First stop: Ubuntu Studio. If you have not guessed it from the name, it is a modified version of the Ubuntu distribution. This distribution is designed for the Multimedia Professional.

Its focus is not only on audio, but video and animation as well. The strength of this distribution lies in the fact that it is based on Ubuntu. There is simply an overwhelming amount of tutorials, forums, and so forth on how to tweak and use Ubuntu on the web. It has a very nice installer and is easy to use.

The next distribution we are going to look at is 64Studio.This distribution is based on one of the oldest distributions of Linux, Debian (Ubuntu is also based on Debian.)

Like the its name, it is designed for sixty-four bit operating systems. This is a significant upgrade over Windows XP Pro, as sixty-four bit processors give you a huge performance upgrade and the ability to handle much higher RAM counts. The company that makes 64Studio, (64 Studio, LTD) offers commercial tech support for the distribution. This makes the distribution very appealing as Linux is often criticized for not having enough tech. support options. This distribution also has something for all Multimedia Professionals, but its main focus is Audio Professionals.

The last distribution to discuss is different in this aspect: it is a “live” distribution. This means a person can boot off the CD/DVD and receive a full operating system without changing the contents of your hard drive. It’s an ingenious concept, but I feel that most Audio Professionals will want their operating system installed on the computer. Luckily, you can install about any “live” distribution to the hard drive.

The name of the “live” distribution designed for audio (and not as much for video and multimedia) is Studio To Go. The cost is $150.00 (U.S.) - you are basically paying for support. It has tools built in to perform professional recording, mastering, sequencing, and notation. If you look at the picture, you can see that it has support for VST plugins (this feature is not unique to Studio To Go). The user can add notation to any of the distributions, which is wonderful that the creators of Studio To Go thought of this particular feature as a priority. Hundreds of soft synths also come with Studio To Go ready to be utilized.

Audio Software

Now that you have a Linux distribution up and running, let’s talk about what software you are going to use. First of all, you will need a DAW. The 10,000 pound gorilla in Linux multitrack digital audio workstations is Ardour. This is a fantastic application. It very much tries to emulate the feel of Pro Tools. It supports full automation, loop recording, external control surface support, LADSPA plugin support, it can sync to MIDI time code and is just a fantastic editing environment. I have used Ardour from start to finish in two different CD’s and was blown away.

One of Ardour's coolest features was its crash recovery. I have never used a DAW software that I couldn’t crash, but I have used a few that came close. When Ardour crashed, the program restarted in under five seconds, and all my inputs and outputs where routed correctly. Plus,the tracks that I had armed to record where still armed. It was almost as if it didn’t crash at all, like it took a snapshot of itself just before crashing. Amazing! In fact, never once did my clients even know that it had crashed. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Pro Tools. As you know, when it crashes its a big mess.

So the million dollar question will obviously be: “Is it as good as Pro Tools, Sonar, Nuendo, or Logic?”

Yes and no. The MIDI support in Ardour is very lacking although that is being worked on. Ardour performed its best for me on live recording projects and not composition. It’s a fantastic editor/recorder/mixer. I would not recommend it as a tool for song writing. The biggest negative is that learning Ardour will not get you a job. I don’t care what anyone tells you; if you want to be a studio engineer and work for someone else then you learn Pro Tools. Period. Not learning Pro Tools is like a graphic designer refusing to learn Photoshop.

Now most people on ProRec own studios, or just record their own bands. Then you don’t need to worry about what everyone else uses and you can use what ever you want. One last thing about Ardour: There is a OSX version, so you Mac users can have at it!

Next, of course, we need a dedicated audio editor. There is no clear leader here but the top three are: Audacity, Sweep, and Rezound. They are all actively developed and have similar functionality. Audacity does have both OSX and Windows versions as well so anyone can use it.

For the purpose of this article, let’s focus briefly on Sweep. Sweep has the features you would expect from an audio editor. The user can zoom with the scroll wheel. It supports LADSPA plugins, Scrubbing, 32-bit files, and live audio recording. I also love that I can change the color scheme. Sweep is a joy to use. One thing that must be said about both Linux and OSX programs: They do one thing and do it well! Many Windows programs tend to be jack of all trades, master of none, monolithic programs. I love the simple elegance that I receive when a program just does its job. That’s how I’d describe Sweep-it just works!

Next, let’s discuss two MIDI sequencing programs: Rosegarden and Hydrogen. Rosegarden is almost a full featured DAW (although I prefer the audio features in Ardour.) But its focus is MIDI sequencing. As you can see from the screen shot, it does not necessarily have the most modern look, since most Linux programs go for function over form. It reminds me of old Opcode stuff. I personally don’t care how a program looks as long as it does a fantastic job.

Rosegarden excels in a few areas. First it has excellent support for external synths. I know many readers are soft-synth only users and are amazed that anyone ever had to actually plug in a MIDI cable. But for those of us that still have fond memories of tweaking that real ADSR envelope to get the sound just right will love being able to plug everything in to a MIDI patch bay and patch right in to your old synth and tweak away, without having to change your workflow. Very nice! Rosegarden also has great notation features. It supports LADSPA as well as JACK so it can play well with most other Linux audio programs.

I would suggest that Hydrogen is like Reason’s Redrum module on steroids. It’s a pattern-based sequencer that you can load your own .wav files in and jam away. Perfect for those Hip-Hop or Electronic music folks. I love this program. Again its very simple but what it does it does very well. A user can sequence with a MIDI input device or with the pattern editor and then export the performance as a .wav file or a MIDI file. It has a full mixer and supports JACK, so you could run the audio directly into Ardour. Great stuff. Hydrogen also has Windows and OSX versions. So I expect to hear some block rockin’ beats from everyone!

Finally, after all your recording and music making is done you will need to master your project. Thats where JAMin comes into play. This is an amazing full-featured mastering suite. Think of it like T-Racks. It has a spectrum analyzer, lookahead brick-wall limiter, loudness maximizer, and all kinds of other tools that an inexperienced engineer can get in trouble with. I have used this program in a pinch when a project did not have the budget for full-fledged mastering, and the results where exceptional. A user should definitely work with a professional mastering house when possible, but if the money is not available then this is the next best thing. The user interface is clean and self explanatory. It also supports JACK so I can run my audio output from Ardour right in to it without having to bounce down to a stereo .wav file. It’s just a nice little time saver and it sounds great!

Conclusions

So what is the conclusion to all this tinkering? Is it time to throw out your current DAW and switch? That’s a tough call. Linux is as perfect an audio platform as OSX is with audio drivers being built in to the heart of the operating system. But it can be a fickle friend. If Linux breaks, it can be difficult to reconfigure. There are times when installing a program can be difficult (although most of the time it’s easier than installing a program in Windows, but not always). If your audio card does not work “out of the box” then if can be very challenging to set up if you are new to Linux.

Don’t let the zealots fool you. I love Linux but it still can be challenging to work with at times. That being said, I love having full control of my system, not having to worry about viruses or spyware - and most of the time it is a very predictable system. Not to mention the financial situation, which is great, as the user doesn’t have to purchase any software at all. If I’m being particularly tweaky I can write whatever functionality into the software I want. If only I was a programmer. A comforting fact: no company is going to go out of business and leave the users in a pinch. If the developers get bored, another team of programmers can pick up where they left off and there are no legal issues.

I personally have not completely replaced my studio with Linux. I have a Mac that runs Reason/Pro Tools and Logic, a Windows PC that runs GigaStudio, and a Linux machine that runs Studio64 with Ardour/Hydrogen/JAMin as the main apps. This way I get the best of all worlds.

I am amazed at how far Linux has come in the last few years. The sheer amount of programming hours that has gone in to all the programs available is staggering. I don’t think it’s time to throw out Sonar, Digital Performer, or Logic for Linux but I think its fair to say that musicians and engineers do have a third platform choice now that is completely capable of competing in a Pro Audio environment. For more Linux audio information, visit my Linux for Audio forum here on ProRec.

Cascade Fat-Head II

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:22:00 GMT

A few months ago a friend of mine (who has a habit of buying anything cheap just to see what it will do) purchased a pair of Cascade Fat Head II mics. Since I had no experience with ribbon mics at the time (and he was busy recording a live show) I picked them up to see what they sounded like.

The mic comes in an aluminum case that has inside a very good universal shock-mount, cleaning cloth and a very nice wooden box for the mic. The mic itself seems to be well made (and looks good to boot) - a great package especially for two hundred dollars! Like most ribbons, the Fat Head II is bidirectional (figure 8) and should not have phantom power applied to them (although the manufacturer now claims these mics are phantom-safe). Ribbon elements don't like wind blasts, so use a pop screen if you record vocals with it.

Unlike most ribbons, the Fat Head II has a max SPL of 165 db, so there's no problem with recording the guitar stack of doom here. Something else that seems to be unique to these mics compared to most ribbons nowadays is the fact that these guys use a completely symmetrical ribbon design, meaning that they sound identical from either side. Most ribbons now have a design that gives you a slightly brighter and darker front and back of the mic. The symmetrical design makes these mics a first choice for M/S or Blumlein miking.

Usage Testing

So now to the sound. I connected the mic to a Chameleon Labs 7602 mic-pre (eq bypassed) and placed it just off-center and six inches from a speaker on a Mesa Boogie cab with a Peavey Valve King head and started playing. The first thing I noticed was that it sounded like the amp, not a recording of the amp!

In the last few years I've been experimenting with multi-mic set ups (including some bass drum mics) in an attempt to recreate the sensation I get from the low-end chunk of the amp while standing in front of it. Well, mission accomplished!! It was freaky feeling that from the monitor in my control room. I called a couple of guitar player friends of mine and said "you gotta check this out!" In they came and a few minutes later everybody's grinning from ear to ear!

Now this was my first ribbon experience and I thought that if this 200.00 mic sounded like this what would a Royer or an AEA sound like? I called 2 fellow engineers who own these two mics (Hector Santiago who owns the R-121 and Jose Vila who has the AEA R-84) and did an informal shoot-out.

I connected all the mics to three 7602s (again no eq), placed the mics in pairs six inches and just off-center from adjacent speakers of the same Mesa cab (same position as the Fat Head) and recorded them in pairs to do some same-performance comparisons. We recorded several different sounds: first heavy distorted rhythm, then lead, clean and finally overdrive semi-distorted rhythm.

Here's what we found. Against the Royer, The Fat Head was big and smooth sounding with an articulate midrange and clear top that sounded really close to the amp in the room. The Royer sounded leaner with a mid boost somewhere between 1.5 and 3k - sounding more present but not quite as ballsy as the the Fat Head in the low end. This shocked EVERYONE in the room, especially Hector who owns the Royer. In fact the only application that we liked the Royer better was on the clean sounds because the mid boost on the mic brought out a nice shimmer to the sound.

Next up was the AEA and here the difference was the low end 'cause the AEA sounds HUGE, almost to the point where it was too much! The sound vs. the Fat Head had more girth in the mid low (increased distance from the speaker would have fixed this I suspect) making for a slightly congested lower-midrange - kinda "vintage" sounding (I hate the word but it describes what we all heard) but nevertheless a very cool sound.

Now here is the kicker: I've often read about how ribbons take eq really well so I started using the console eq on my Ghost to see if I could get the Fat Head to sound like the others. Lo and behold with some minor tweaks here and there they sounded so close that no one in the control room could tell them apart!

Now on this particular amp in this particular room these were the results we got. I'm not saying that the more expensive mics are not great, however, I strongly suggest that BEFORE you spend over a grand on these mics you rent them and try them all out in your environment head to head, because I really did not hear a quality difference between these mics, just a tone difference. I've since used them on drum over-heads and with some top end EQ they sound great in this application as well. I haven't got the chance of trying these mics in Blumlein but the company is now selling a stereo Fat Head II package that includes a Blumlein-stereo adaptor bar for 399.00, and judging from my experience I'm sure they'll work very well in this application.

The mic comes in two versions (the Fat Head and the Fat Head II) but according to Cascade owner Michael Chiriac, the mics are internally identical - the differences are cosmetic - so if you are on a budget get the regular Fat Head for 159.00. The company also provides an upgrade path for the mics by changing the stock transformer for a Lundhal adding 150 dollars to the price. Personally I've got zero issues with the stock tranny but I am curious as to what improvements these transformers can bring about.

Conclusions

When I started this little experiment I was fully expecting this mic to get its ass handed to it by the more expensive ones - but in the end it ended up as the overall favorite! I've since sent the shoot-out recording to the manufacturer and it has been placed (with my permission) on their web site. I was not commissioned to do this, but it ended up being something that all of us on a budget (which is pretty much almost everybody) should know about, so I sent it to them. Up until this point I had no affiliation whatsoever with Cascade but I firmly believe that these things are bargain number one. For the money they are stupid good and the proof is in the pudding.

Hector and Jose both ended up buying the mics for themselves. After the tests were done and I sent the CD to Cascade I found out some interesting things about this company. Yes, they are assembled in China, but Cascade owner Michael Chiriac makes sure that every mic that his costumers get is in perfect condition both cosmetically and operationally. The man is passionate about his products and will go the extra mile to make sure you are happy with your mic. Their product line has a wide range of mics to choose from (both ribbon and condenser) and I now own 2 Fat Head IIs, an X-15 stereo ribbon (basically 2 Fat Heads), a Vinjet long ribbon (review forthcoming) and a DR-2 dual ribbon mic. Don't take my word for it, try them out yourself. I bet you won't be disappointed.

Check out Cascade at http://www.cascademicrophones.com.

Drum Clinic pt. 1: Kick Drum Viagra

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 02:18:00 GMT

Getting a good kick drum sound often seems more like luck than skill. It's all too common: a small, thuddy kick. Poor attack. No tone, or bad tone. The kick doesn't cut through... or, if it does, it sounds so bad, you wish it didn't.

Fortunately, there's new help for your limp, flaccid kick drum. It's not a perfect science, and will require work and practice on your part. But with some effort and skill, you can get a bigger, thicker, more masculine kick drum sound. A sound you'll be proud of. A sound you'll want to show all your friends.

OK, scratch that last part. That was wierd.

Goals

It's important to know what kind of sound you're going for. There are a lot of "good" kick drum sounds, but of course they won't all sound good in your particular mix. Take the popular metal kick sound from early Metallica or Korn CDs: tons of clicky attack, a really deep, thuddy fundamental, and no sustain or ambience. In most mixes, a drum sound like this would be utter and complete crap. But in a metal mix, it's almost essential. Besides being a part of the "signature sound" of metal, there are reasons why this sound works in a metal mix:

the bright, in your face attack helps cut through the thicket of ultradistorted guitars
the muddy, thick guitars and bass practically demands that the kick tone must be lower and deeper, requiring a deep fundamental tuning
the drummer's use of 16th note kicks requires a very fast, tight drum sound to articulate the performance

Conversely, in a jazz or natural sounding pop mix, a kick drum that has a natural sound is preferred:

the mix is dynamic, leaving room for a less exaggerated kick attack
the lighter guitars aren't covering up the low-mids / upper bass regions, allowing a more "woofy" kick sound
there are no 16th note kicks, allowing a little more tone, sustain, and ambience in the sound

Or, for example, if you're doing a classic punk mix, you don't want lots of deep bass. Part of the energy of this sound is having a "snappy" bass sound with both the bass guitar and the kick. The kick should be punchy, but not thuddy.

So it's really important to have a clear idea of where the drum sound needs to be.

A lot of drummers just don't get this. The drummer is heavily influenced by, say, Tommy Lee, and has this monster kick drum that sounds bigger than life, but he's playing with a alterna-pop band that covers the Lemonheads. Newsflash: his kick drum sound may be cool, but for this recording, it's all wrong. If you record his kit, and try to get a mix, you'll never succeed. So it's absolutely important that you are able to work with the drum sound to get the intended tone from the drum. Garbage in, garbage out.

I'm a drummer, and I've spent over two decades recording drum kits. I've made a ton of mistakes. Over the years, I've learned a critical lesson: really good engineers are excellent drum technicians. For this reason, I have a kit set up in my studio that I'm intimately familiar with. I know this kit like the back of my hand, and I strongly advise drummers to use my kit.

The last time a drummer convinced me to use his kit, here's what happened. We loaded in his kit and set it up. I pulled all the drum mics off of my kit and miked up his kit. I started getting tones and recording some test tracks so he could hear them.

This drummer is a good player. He has a jazz / drum line background, so his drum tastes are what I call "drummerly": a ringy, high-pitched snare; an undamped, boomy kick with a front head; highly-pitched, undamped toms; and really bright cymbals. This makes for a kit that sounds really good all by itself in the room... but the dominant ringy snare and tom overtones, the glass-cutting cymbals, and the boomy kick are completely unmanageable in a pop mix.

And so it went. We started by working on the snare, tuning it down, adding a ring-off, and, finally, replacing it with my snare. Then the kick: pulled the front head, added a pillow, replaced with my kick. On and on this went until finally, we had replaced all of his drums with my drums. The entire process took about three hours and was a complete waste of his time and money.

I've played a lot of kits with a front head, both ported and unported. A well-tuned kick drum with the right unported front head can sound absolutely monster in the right room. I played a kick like this for several years. It was especially cool in a long, semi-live room - since it was so loud and moved so much air, it needed very little amplification, and sounded amazing.

However, the simple truth is that what sounded so good was the drum-room interface - as much the sound of the room as the drum. Chances are slim to none that you'll be recording the kick in this sort of room. More importantly, even if you have a nice live room, you have to realize that the microphone hears differently from your ear.

This topic could fill a book, but, in a nutshell, when you're in a live room with an instrument, your brain can decode the sound of the instrument and psychologically "filter" the sound of the room. A room mic has no such filter. It captures all the sound of the room, so that when you play back in a different room, your brain can't filter out the source room. That's the room mic. A close mic doesn't "hear" the room at all, so the very attributes (boominess, for example) that make the drum sound good in the room probably sound terrible if the room isn't part of the equation.

For these reasons, I usually prefer to remove the front head altogether, although I'm always open to leaving it on and working with the sound. However, my experience is that usually, it's better when it's off. Use some tape on the front head hardware to prevent buzzing and rattling.

Also note that the beater is often noisy. It seems like most beaters squeak or rattle. It's shocking how these ugly sounds can work their way into a mix. One time in a hundred, it'll sound really cool. The other 99 times will suck. Get a good, quiet beater.

Note that most of these complaints are either irrelevant or even incorrect for live gigging. For that reason, most drummers' kits that sound good live don't sound good in a studio. That's why I'd encourage you to get a kit, or, at least a kick and snare that you can tune up specifically for your studio and the kind of music you typically work with. I've found that having a good sounding drum kit always at the ready is one of the most productivity enhancing elements of my studio, and ensures that I don't end up having to record drums that sound like hell. Remember: nothing makes your mixes sound professional like a good sounding, well-recorded drum kit.

An Uphill Battle

Knowing the sound you want is only half the battle. The next question is: how will you know when you actually are getting the sound you want?

Bass response issues are the most prevalent monitoring problems in all studios. It's worse if you're a home recordist in an untreated room using the typical semi-pro monitoring solution. The bass response in your room is almost sure to be wildly inaccurate. Consider this response curve from the typical bedroom studio:

There is almost no way at all that you can tell what the drum really sounds like. When you play a kick drum in this room, you aren't hearing the drum. You're hearing the room's resonances. Headphones won't help much, because headphones have a similarly exaggerated bass sound. Headphones are probably flatter than the room, and with lots of practice you might be able to start to get an acceptable reference from them, but it's still mostly just shooting in the dark.

So you just have to have a good monitoring system and a lot of room treatment. This article won't go into the specifics of room treatment, because that's covered well elsewhere. But the point is: without an accurate monitoring system (including room) you won't know if the drum sound is good or bad, and can't make informed decisions. It's just impossible to know what's going on with a kick drum.

Control room isolation is also important. Chances are that if you're trying to EQ the drum while the drummer is playing, unless you have good isolation in the control room, a lot of the deepest bass is bleeding through into the control room, making the drum sound a lot bigger than it really sounds in the recording. You're going to have to record test tracks and adjust based on playback.

Now that we've covered the basics, we're going to assume you have a reasonable acceptable drum and a reasonably accurate monitoring system with which to hear it. Now what?

Close Miking

You need a mic that can reproduce bass well and which is matched to the needs of your recording. Popular mics for this application are the AKG D112, Shure SM7, Sennheiser MD421, or even an Audix D4 or Audio-Technica Pro25. Dedicated kick drum mics are good in general, because they're designed to capture the deepest bass and to withstand the intense sound pressures in a kick drum. But MD421s (an all-purpose mic) are great on kick, as are lots of other mics, even SM57s. These mics usually have less deep bass and more "snap" than dedicated kick drum mics, which may be exactly the right sound for your mix. But don't use a large diaphragm condenser in a kick. Chances are you'll damage the transducer.

The kick drum mic is usually placed a few inches back from the head, pointing towards the spot where the beater contacts the head. I usually place the mic 4" back, 2" off-center, pointing sideways towards the contact point. This seems to give a more balanced bass response. But sometimes the right spot is further back, or closer, or more in the middle, or even a couple of inches outside the shell. You have to move it around and listen. The sound inside the drum is highly variable.

You will usually -but not always - want to hear just a little tone. If the sound is all "slap-punch" but no "boom" at all, it may be a little too dry sounding in the mix. But the tone should usually be minimal, not loud - sort of an "aftertaste", not a primary flavor. Adjust the damping in the drum to adjust the tone. I prefer a soft pillow set in the bottom of the drum, held in place with something heavy (I use a mic base). Push it a little harder against the head for more damping, further back for less.

Not getting enough "slap" in the sound? Consider a few drum tune-up tips before reaching for a different mic or EQ:

If the drummer has a "falam slam" or other contact patch on the head, try removing it. I only use these for live applications to prevent breaking the head. I've never thought they sounded better.
If the head is brand new, turn the drum on its side and (carefully) apply a lot of pressure to the drum. If you're not too heavy, you can almost stand on it. Bounce a little on it to stretch it. If the head is really new and elastic, there'll be a low slap/tone ratio.
If the beater is very soft, replace with hard felt or even a wood beater.
Does the drummer really kick the drum hard? Unless the song really requires a dynamic kick (like jazz or smooth vocals) the drummer should kick the drum hard. A lot of drummers don't have a hard, consistent kick. That takes practice.
Is the drum tuned too high or too low? I usually get the head just tight enough to produce tone, then tighten up "a little more". If it's really tight or loose, that's going to affect the slap-to-tone ratio.

Not getting a good tone? That's a little easier: just tune it. Start by tuning the drum up or down a little before reaching for EQ. And adjust that pillow and move the mic around. You may find that a little change produces a significant result. If you can't get it in tune, or notice any dimpling or obvious signs of head fatigue, change the head.

Some engineers like to mic the front side of the head. I don't. The point of a close mic is to isolate the sound of the individual drum, and the front side mic will usually have as much snare as kick. And the only thing you can get from the front side that you can't get from the back side is a little more top-end snap. I'd rather work with the drum to get that sound than try to wrestle with a front side mic. Of course, if you have a kit and a front-side mic that works for you, that's great! Go for it.

Distant Miking

I always use some kind of room mic setup when I record drums, and the main thing I'm working on is the kick and snare - mostly the kick. That's why I think of my room mics as distant kick mics. I like to get a room mic that focuses on the kick and truly jack it up with compression.

A lot of engineers like to submix their drum tracks into a compressor and blend that back in with the uncompressed drum mix (discussed below). However, I prefer to do a similar trick with the room mic when tracking. Often, I'll use a single mic about four feet in front of the kick drum (head off). I like large diaphragm condensers (like a Telefunken ELAM 251) or a robust dynamic mic (like an MD421, probably my favorite) for this application. Usually I'll use my dbx 576 preamp / compressor for this application.

The goal is to really capture the "roar" of the kit, and to use compression to exaggerate the attack of the kick and snare. I'll usually scoop out some low-mids (around 250 Hz) and roll off just a little treble to de-emphasize the cymbals. Then I'll compress the snot out of the track with a 4:1 compressor, and sometimes even hit the limiter just a little. I'll make sure the attack and release settings allow all of the transient to come through, so the kick (and snare) have a pronounced snap to them.

The reason I prefer to effect the sound while tracking (rather than when mixing) is because there is so much interactivity between the mic, its placement, the EQ, and the compression that I want to know that I'm getting a sound I can commit to before I track it. When done right and placed behind the overall drum mix, this track is like a steroid injection. The drums will have more energy and attack, but not sound really effected.

Since my room mics are all about the kick drum, I find it important to phase-align the room mic with the close-miked kick. I don't usually worry about doing this with any of the other mics. In your DAW, just move the room mic forward in time so that the primary peaks coincide. If one is out of phase, flip the phase so that both tracks are creating positive initial swings.

A lot of engineers prefer a stereo room miking setup. When you room-mic the kit in stereo, you'll usually be trying to capture more of the sound of the room, so you'll be much further back and higher up. This can be a great sound, but will focus less on the kick and more on the rest of the kit. This can sound good, but I'm a "kick-snare" freak, and prefer to use my mono mic setup in front of the kick drum - it really locks in the center image and creates a very punchy kick.

As a matter of fact I have done mixes that only use this single mic. A notable case in point, as well as an utterly shameless plug, is the track "Freedom" from my 2006 release, "Rhythm/Pleasure 2". I played the drums on this track, recording the kit with a single ELAM 251 about 5 or 6 feet in front of the kick (as in the photo above) into a dbx 576 (as described above). I basically just distant-miked the kick, and needed no other microphones at all on the kit. Of course, this doesn't produce a pretty, photographic stereo image of the drum kit, but I think that, for this track, the compressed, focused mono sound - with its tight, punchy kick - did just the trick. I also like the minimalism this approach offered in what was otherwise a sonically over-the-top mix.

EQ It

Now let's talk about EQ. Like a surgeon preparing for the first cut, you can perform miracles or kill the patient. With a good sounding kick drum, sometimes I need no EQ at all. That's best case. Usually, I need some EQ. I start by managing the deep bass. A useful tool here is the high-pass EQ. You want an EQ that emulates a "real" EQ curve. Examples include the Sonitus:FX EQ and the Waves Renaissance EQ. Apply a high-pass EQ and set it around 40 Hz. As you turn up the Q control, you not only cut the low bass off more sharply, but you also produce a boost just above the EQ turnover point. This is very effective for emphasizing the fundamental of the kick while reducing the elephant farts that suck power out of your drum sound.

I often set the turnover point just below the fundamental, so that the boost emphasizes the most powerful frequencies in the drum. But sometimes, if I want a tight sound, I'll set the turnover higher, around 80 or 90 Hz. This can give that powerful hit-you-in-the-chest sound, but it's also likely to produce a muddier sound. To hear what you're doing, turn up the Q until you can really hear the boost frequency, and sweep the frequency slowly, listening for the effect. Use only the smallest amount of boost that you can get away with.

I often like to pull out some low-mids, to give a little more room for guitar, vocals, and bass. Setting the low-mid EQ around 300 Hz, with a moderately wide Q setting, pull out a few dB. Pull out the low-mids until the drum is hollowed-out sounding so that you can hear what you're doing to the drum. Now add the mids back so that you're only reducing the low-mids by the smallest amount you really need.

A gentle high-shelf is useful to bring out the "slap". Set the frequency to around 1.5KHz and add 1-3 dB. You'll hear the slap come up a little.

For now, I encourage you to only make moderate changes to the EQ. Push it in the direction you want it to move, but don't try to get it there all at once. We're going to make some more changes with compression.

Compress It!

It's almost impossible to offer a compression prescription for kick drum. If I'm using the distant mic on the kick, I rarely compress the close mic. When I do, it is to increase the attack of the drum.

There is a widespread misconception that the purpose of a compressor is to decrease dynamic range. If you believe that, then you don't understand compression. Compressors can increase dynamic range just as easily as they can decrease it. The secret is in the attack setting, and that's how I use compressors to add attack and dynamics to the drum sound.

To hear the effect, add a compressor set with a 10-15 ms attack, a 150 ms release, and a 4:1 compression ratio onto your kick drum track. Now crank the threshold way down to hear the effect. You'll hear the attack-to-tone ratio really increase. Now adjust the threshold so that you're getting the attack-to-tone ratio that you want. You are increasing the dynamic range of the drum.

The other consequence of this compression is to increase the length of the sustain. Since the compressor will release over the length of the sustain, this has the effect of turning up the volume along the length of the sustain. Adjusting the release can help here, as can adjusting the pillow to be a little tighter (or looser) to taste.

Play with the compressor. You can achieve lots of change in the sound with the compressor. Usually, however, I don't use much compression on the close-miked kick drum track, preferring to get the attack from my distant mic setup.

Give it Space

If you listen to kick drum sounds in recordings you like, chances are you'll notice a little room ambience. The kick & its ambience is probably not completely mono, but has a little stereo spread. A good stereo room mic pair is a great way to get this, but getting a good room sound involves... yes, a good-sounding room, good mics, and lots of practice. And, it's going to change the sound of all your drums. I often use room mics. Here again there are no prescriptions. It totally depends on your room and what mics you have available. This is one more reason to have your own kit and to take a lot of time tweaking it and your mic rig to get the results you prefer.

Another, more predictable method is to use a good digital reverb. Even on kick drum sounds that I want to be "dry" I'll usually add a little ambience with a reverb. I use a short reverb, like a short room sound. I'll usually increase the "space" or "width" control of the reverb to exaggerate the stereo spread, and turn the reverb down low, so that it's barely audible. Also experiment with putting the reverb in front of the compressor instead of after it. You can get some cool, powerful effects this way. The increased stereo spread and slight ambience will make the drum sound just a little bigger in the mix, even if it's low enough to not be particularly audible.

Submix It

One useful trick is to split the signal to a separate submix bus, and do some exaggerated EQ, compression, and reverb on the split signal. Then fold a little of that back into the sound. Try doing some whacky EQ boosts or cuts, then compressing really hard. Consider some whacky reverb before the compressor so that you're getting a really intense explosion of sound. Now fold just a touch of this back into the mix. Done right, this can add some cool energy and intensity to your mix, even if it's subtle enough to be almost unnoticeable in the mix. Instead of using your kick track as the source, try using the room mics as the source, and filter out the high end altogether so that you're working with just a big slab of ugly, effected, stereo bass. Experimentation is the key.

Rescuing the Victim

Suppose you have a great performance, but a lousy kick drum sound? Fortunately, the kick drum is the easiest drum in the kit to rescue with a little sampling magic. Don't turn your nose up at this solution. More of your favorite music has been altered with samples than you realize. It's easy, and the truth is, it can sound really good.

Tools like Drumagog and Drum Rehab offer a decent solution. These tools detect the transients in the drum track which are used to trigger samples. Other tools like Sonar offer transient-to-MIDI capability that can be used to trigger MIDI hardware or software samplers. With the right samples you can truly save a dying patient right on the operating table.

Let me tell you of an extreme case. I had been given a final mix of a song that, in most ways, sounded great. It had this cool, live, raucous garage feel that was perfect for the song. Turns out it had been recorded live on an 8-track in this guy's living room, which was why the sound was so present and immediate. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, there was almost no kick drum at all in the track - or in the source, so even a remix wouldn't solve the problem. The musicians were really depressed because it was a great, unique performance of a cool song that sounded bad because of only one significant flaw.

I loaded this mix into Sonar into two stereo tracks. One track held the original mix. On the other track, I used a couple of EQs, a limiter, and a gate to isolate what little kick drum was in the track, choosing a frequency that stood out above the bass guitar. I created a track that was just a very short noise blast with every kick, and used Sonar to detect these transients and replace them with an appropriate sample. By finding a reverb that closely matched the live sound of the room the rest of the drums were recorded in, I was able to blend the sample kick back into the original mix in such a way that it sounded just like the rest of the kit. The result was that the song sounded great, and the band was dumbfounded.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some inspiration to improve the sound of your kick drum tracks. If you have some of your own favorite techniques, let us know. And stay tuned for Part 2, where we'll beef up your snare sound.