The Imperfect / Aug.08.2024

INTERSTICES

i had some nice plays in the studio the last week or so but didn’t have time to gather them into a post here on The Imperfect. now, i find myself heading out of town for a bit without access to my studio or the ability to post updates from there.

i have been thinking a lot about techniques i use in the studio. ones that have stayed with me over the years and become integral to my workflow, my sound, my approach to mixing and mastering. maybe one day there will be a book of “studio tips” (or studio “hacks” as the kids like to say) and i thought, in lieu of being able to post sounds from the studio, i could share some of these techniques that may be useful, or not, in your own approach to creating music. this will also be practice, myself, on how to write and share these. i’ve been doing this for a long time, and i feel i have a book’s worth to share.

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EQ:
1. i am very heavy-handed when it comes to EQ. even in mastering. i’m not one of these guys who says “let’s pull 340hz down by 0.25dB. i’m sorry, but no one is going to hear a 0.25dB difference and even if they can it makes no difference to the overall character of the song. tracks and sounds in my song sessions are often drastically EQ’d massive curves shaved off. sounds isolated from other sounds by what frequency ranges they take up. every sound it’s own pocket. i make frequent use of high and low cut filters and often steep, narrow cuts within a sound to remove a frequency that may compete with another somewhere else in the mix. when i work, nothing is precious, and all sounds are subject to be torn into for the greater good of the whole piece.

2. while i’m on EQ, and even a clue from looking at the above image, so much of my EQ’ing. i’d say 75% (even more in a mastering situation) is subtractive. i almost always prefer to cut, rather than boost, frequencies. this probably stems from my work as a mastering engineer where cutting is generally preferred over boosting. it tends to bring less artifacts, introduce less noise and generally avoid build-up. does your mix/sound need more high end? is it too dull? before you pull up that HF band, take a look at your low mids, pulling those down may let your highs come come out more. you’ve simultaneously cleared up mud and brought the needed air into your sound.

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REVERB

1. i was at an AES show in new york some years ago with rafael irisarri and we were watching a presentation from someone at Sound On Sound magazine about “ambient music.” we knew we were in for a treat and all of our desires came true when he said “to make something ambient, just put a lot of reverb on it.” this nugget of terrible advice has given us years of running jokes.

seriously, watch your reverb levels. yes, reverb is beautiful. i’m a particular fan of hardware reverbs and use some beautiful ones on every song i do, but it is also the biggest culprit of mud, phase issues and trite “ambient” clichés. i really believe reverb should be used sparingly. if everything is bathed in reverb, then nothing is bathed in reverb. i like to balance a lush hall reverb-soaked sound with enough dry elements to give me the contrast and texture. it makes the reverbed sound feel more soft and distant and the dry sounds more tactile and physical.

and i was very guilty, for a long time, of not double-checking my reverb return levels carefully in headphones. often finding, too late, that sounds would be too wet, too reverb-heavy, even if they didn’t seem so while i was working. i am often backing my ProTools faders down 20dB or more on reverbs so they don’t take up too much room in the mix but still provide beautiful space in the background.

2. i think this is an Abbey Road trick, or originated there… i thought i read somewhere. but i always put an EQ on my reverb return with pretty steep low cut filters ramping off nearly everything below 500hz and up top as well, getting rid of high frequency reverb. i like to keep it in the mid range. this really helps with mud and excessive brittleness that may get carried into a reverb. it also helps to keep the low frequencies from being too wide and causing phase incoherence. of course, every sound has its own needs, but it’s a common practice of mine to filter the reverb in this way.

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THE SPL TRANSIENT DESIGNER

1. the Transient Designer from German company SPL was released in the 1990s. it’s a sort of odd-ball device that served a really specific purpose, and that was to have further control over the transients of your sound by using differential envelope generators on the input signal (TapeOp has a good article here). often employed on drums, it allowed the user to give a flabby sound some more life with pointier, sharper attacks, or to tighten up a ringing tom by shortening its sustain. the Transient Designer has been a stapls in recording studios for decades and now, like most equipment, is available as a plug-in (i use the UAD version).

i completely overlooked this tool in my arsenal for a long time. not surprisingly… i don’t use drums very often and never saw the need to mess with the transients of my sounds.

in my constant search for space in mixes, as i mentioned above in the EQ segment, about finding pockets for each sound to exist in, i’ll often run into sounds that are nice, but simply take up too much room. there’s “too much of it.” often a drone, or otherwise busy sound captured from a modular synth performance or the like. using a Transient Designer i will pull the SUSTAIN knob all the way down and the sound will thin out. small pockets of air will come in an the sustains will feel less so. more focus is given to any more punctuated or transient moments, while reducing the level of sound happening between them. a thick, busy sound can become a little less “on” all the time, feel lighter, and take up less room. Alex Somers is responsible for showing me the Transient Designer, but he has more tricks to it that will have to wait to share for a further time. Alex did, however, show me that Transient Designers don’t always have to be used on very transient-heavy sounds. try it!

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and with that, from Gate 64 at LaGuardia’s Terminal C i will sign off. i hope you’ve enjoyed some of these tips and if you care to hear any more in the future, do let me know.

#SongOfTheDay Will Samson “Storms Above The Submarine”