achambily wrote:I agree! 
And especially for
Classical music it requires only a
tiny bit, as you noted . . .
Since my current focus is more on composing and playing silly
DISCO songs about ladies underpants, I have to be very careful about avoiding "pumping" everything in
Classical pieces, since articulations, dynamics, and all that typically subtle stuff is very important for
Classical music . . .
I use T-RackS 3 Deluxe (IK Multimedia) on the Mac, and while I really like its Brick Wall Limiter and Opto-Compressor VST plug-ins for "pumping" stuff on
DISCO songs, the Pultec EQP-1A3 Program Equalizer VST plug-in set to the "Smoother" preset works very nicely for instruments in
Classical pieces, where it does a tiny bit of gentle smoothing with respect both to volume and tonality, which is fabulous . . .
Pultec EQP-1A3 Program Equalizer ~ T-RackS 3 Deluxe (IK Multimedia)http://www.ikmultimedia.com/t-racks/features/Fabulous! :)
Could you please tell us more about that ?
What do you use ? What are the settings ?
I would like to try it in order to get a thick big heavy loud sound.
BACKGROUNDAlthough I did sound reinforcement for a while in the 1980s, my primary focus over the years has been playing electric bass and electric guitar, which from a high-level perspective is focusing on being a musician as contrasted to focusing on doing sound reinforcement, recording, producing, audio engineering, mixing, and mastering, which I think is same focus for most musicians . . .
This focus is quite logical until one decides to start doing everything toward the goal of creating recorded songs in the digital universe, at which time one soon discovers that there is a lot more involved than simply being able to compose songs, to play instruments, and to sing . . .
Overall, my current perspective on audio engineering, producing, mixing, and mastering is that it is at least as complex as composing and playing instruments, if not more complex . . .
And while it was relatively easy for me to get good sound when everything was analog and the recording media was analog magnetic tape, it has not been so easy to discover how to get good sound in the digital universe, in part because (a) the rules are very different and (b) a lot more things are not only possible but practical . . .
So, once I realized that I needed to focus on audio engineering, recording, producing, mixing, and mastering, I embarked on a grand plan to make sense of all this stuff, which is coming along nicely . . .
Explained another way using the Beatles as an example, the work done by George Martin and the audio engineers at Abbey Road Studios is significant to the level that absent George Martin et al., the most likely scenario is that nobody outside of Liverpool would have known much of anything about the Beatles . . .
In addition to producing, recording, mixing, and mastering, George Martin also was the choirmaster and musical advisor, which in some respects is even more important than the producing, recording, mixing, and mastering aspects, which is relevant to this reply, because it is one of the primary reasons I decided to delve into music notation and Notion 3, for sure . . .
It takes a while to make sense of all the digital studio software, and it takes a while to devise a system that works . . .
I have been focusing diligently on devising a digital recording system that works for approximately five years, and I am making good progress, but there is so much stuff involved that it is a bit mind-boggling . . .
Mind-boggling! OVERVIEWThe general rule is that everything begins with recorded tracks, and the quality of recorded tracks is very important, both in terms of signal strength and high-fidelity, so one of the keys is to have well-recorded tracks, since everything else is built upon this foundation . . .
You can get reasonably good recorded tracks in a home studio, but there are limitations, where one of the biggest limitations is the quality of microphones, with the reality being that some of the microphones in professional recording studios cost more than everything in a typical home studio, including all the instruments, computers, software, and so forth and so on, but there are some reasonably good and inexpensive microphones, and some instruments can be recorded directly rather than being played through amplifiers and recorded via microphones placed in front of the loudspeaker cabinets . . .
Look at it in terms of faded watercolors versus deep and rich oil paints, where if the recorded tracks are more like faded watercolors, then for all practical purposes it is impossible to get deep and rich sounds, no matter what one does with respect to advanced signal processing and so forth . . .
In computer jargon, the short version is "garbage-in, garbage-out", so the overall goal is to begin with well-recorded tracks, for sure . . .
For sure! And from my perspective, one of the most
amazing aspects of Notion 3 is that its computer-generated VSTi instrument tracks are
stellar, which actually might make the Notion 3 Mixer and its associated sound generation algorithms
unique in ways that few people other than me realize at present in any immediately conscious way . . .
[
NOTE: My current strategy is to peg the Notion 3 Mixer tracks to 0db and to do whatever basic panning is desired, at which time I save the project, close Notion3, and then switch to Digital Performer 7, where I record the Notion 3 generated tracks as high-quality soundbites by controlling Notion 3 via ReWire, where Notion 3 does the audio rendering and Digital Performer 7 does the recording, which results in high-quality soundbites that I can enhance with various VST plug-ins in Digital Performer 7, since once the tracks are rendered and recorded as soundbites, I close Notion 3 and work exclusively with Digital Performer 7, unless I need to add some strange sounds from Reason 5, which I do by creating music notation in Notion 3; exporting the notes as MIDI; importing the MIDI notes to Reason 5; and then controlling Reason 5 via Digital Performer 7 using ReWire, which is a bit strange, but it works very nicely . . . ]
Nevertheless, there are times when a VSTi instrument needs a bit of finessing with respect to the overall dynamics and high-fidelity of the computer-generated track, and this is where one switches from wearing a composer or musician hat to wearing a producer and audio engineer hat . . .
DETAILSI knew a tiny bit about mastering, but most of my focus over the years has been on mixing, with some focus on recording and a lot of focus on special effects (primarily reverberation and echo) . . .
So, at first what I imagined to be outstanding mixes actually were pretty bad . . .
[
IMPORTANT: Start listening at a lower volume, since while the first song is not so loud, the second song is a bit "hot", so the general idea of the exercise is to hear the difference in a song that does not have good levels and a song that has strong levels, which requires that you keep the volume level constant in your listening device, which ideally will be studio-quality headphones, although loudspeakers will work . . . ]
For example, this is a prototype mix for a song from 2007 that was on the Surf Whammys first album ("She Likes To Play"), and everything was recorded here in the sound isolation studio with me playing real instruments and doing all the singing. The computer was an Apple iMac (G5), and I used the MOTU 828mkII, Digital Performer (MOTU), and T-RackS 2 . . .
[
NOTE: Although I did not realize it, at the time there were problems with the recording levels, which in part was caused by using cascaded external mixers to feed the MOTU 828mkII. Since then I have switched to running microphones and instruments directly to the MOTU 828mkII, and the recording levels are much better, which in part was due to a bit of help from the MOTU folks in doing some tests of the various equipment here in the sound isolation studio . . . ]
http://www.surfwhammys.com/music/05_All_I_Want_To_Do.mp3The signal levels of the instruments and singing generally are good, and with what I know at present I can remix and remaster everything with very nice results, but the important aspect is to use this as a reference point with respect to the difference a bit of increased knowledge and skill makes for the overall sound of a song . . .
This will be easier to understand if you listen with studio-quality headphones like the SONY MDR-7506 (
a personal favorite) with the volume level set and then kept constant . . .
Now, listen to this song done this month using computer-generated instruments in Notion 3 . . .
http://www.surfwhammys.com/Put-It-O-Me-1-18-2011-ST25-N3-DP7.mp3If you kept the volume level constant, it is not difficult to observe that the sound is deeper and richer, which primarily is the consequence of the various VSTi instruments being professional recorded using high-quality recording equipment, although I did a bit of enhancing of the instruments in Digital Performer 7 using some of the T-RackS 3 Deluxe VST plug-ins . . .
Both of these are
headphone mixes, which generally are not so good as loudspeaker mixes, but so what . . .
So what! I switch to doing loudspeaker mixing later, but it is easier for me to work with headphones when I am developing a song . . .
Basically, one of the important aspects of mixing and mastering is to make
tiny adjustments rather than big adjustments, which makes it more of an art than a science . . .
Once you have properly recorded tracks, the key is to fine-tune everything in such a way that all the sonic information is revealed without distorting it or whatever . . .
Whatever! So, the general rule is that the focus is on revealing subtleties rather than blasting everything, which in some respects is a bit of a challenge when one is working with headphones, since after 10 or so hours of headphone listening the ears tend to become a bit saturated and the ability to distinguish subtle nuances decreases with the result that I often need to revist a mix done after 18 hour of headphone listening, since it will be entirely too "hot" when I listen to it after taking a day or so to allow my hearing to recover, but so what . . .
So what! There is a good bit of information about T-RackS 3 Deluxe at the IK Multimedia website, but on the
Classical piece in this topic I used the Pultec EQP-1A3 Program Equalizer VST plug-in on some of the instruments to bring them a bit forward in the mix, which specifically is heard in the what I refer to as the "third version", since the first version only has the original instruments replaced with instruments from Miroslav Philharmonik . . .
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/t-racks/features/The Pultec EQP-1A3 Program Equalizer VST plug-in is set to the "SMOOTHER" preset with no changes after the fact . . .
This preset works nicely for high-frequency instruments, but for bass instruments I like the "FATT-1A" preset, which I usually modify a tiny bit, although this screen capture is the factory preset with no modifications . . .
In particular, there is a Hofner Bass at far-left and far-right in "Put It O Me" (The Surf Whammys), and it is enhanced with the "FATT 1-A" preset, which works very nicely for getting classic 1960s vacuum-tube blur and deep bass TONE, where you can hear a bit of the Hofner Bass by itself in the right channel at the end of the song . . .
However, there are quite a few additional bass instruments in "Put It O Me", where for example what you hear at top-center actually is a combination of two synthesizers, an electric piano, and a bowed contrabass section, so there is more stuff involved in the overall bass than one might imagine, really . . .
Really! And I use the "Master 1" preset of the T-RackS 3 Deluxe stereo mastering VST plug-in on the Master stereo output, which is what you hear in the completed song . . .
The mastering VST plug-in is a combination of several of the individual VST plug-ins, but everything is defined via presets from the factory, so I start with the factory present and only make tiny adjustments when necessary, based on the general view that the folks who designed and programmed all the T-RackS 3 Deluxe stuff probably know more about it than I do, so unless something does not sound right to me, I leave it alone . . .
For reference, this is the link to a photocopy in PDF format of the original Pultec EQP-1A3 Program Equalizer manual, which is helpful in understanding the way this device was used . . .
http://www.recproaudio.com/diy_pro_audio/diy_files/eqp_1a/PultecEQP.pdfOne of the primary uses of the Pultec EQP-1A3 Program Equalizer was in radio broadcasting, where radio stations would use the device to sweeten the sound of songs, which at the time were on vinyl records, as well as to provide a bit of overall consistency in volume levels, where the device was set one time and then left alone, which is what the "SMOOTHER" preset does . . .
And it helps to understand that "Program" in the name of the device does not refer to computer programming, since there were only mainframe computers in those days. Instead "Program" refers to the music played by the radio stations being its "program" in an entertainment sense. Hence, one of the primary uses of the device was to equalize the sound of the radio station's "program" material, both in terms of frequency response and loudness, and this device is particularly
stellar for enhancing bass instruments with deep and rich bass TONE, which is fabulous . . .
In the electric bass universe, the fact of the matter is there are a grand total of two electric bass guitars that have truly profound deep and rich bass TONE, where these are the Hofner "Beatle" Bass and the Gibson EB-0 Bass (and its dual-pickup version, the EB-3, but only when the big pickup is used), and the reason is that these particular electric bass guitars have shorter scale necks and unique pickup and body characteristics that overall map to the strings behaving more like rubber bands with respect to the way they vibrate in the lower bass and subsonic frequencies, which simply does not happen on electric bass guitars with longer scale lengths like the Fender Precision Bass and Fender Jazz Bass instruments, although the Fender electric basses also are stellar but more from the perspective of having more precise intonation and brightness . . .
The Hofner "Beatle" Bass and Gibson EB-0 Bass guitars are more textural, which maps to being a bit imprecise with respect to the absolute accuracy of the pitch of notes, so there is a bit of blur, which once you discover how to "work it" is quite
amazing . . .
Another thing I notice in the various
Classical pieces that folks post every once in a while is that nearly all of them tend to make an effort to park the contrabass in the middle of nowhere, which is
not the brightest idea . . .
In this respect, the rule is that in some respects there are a grand total of two important instruments, and one plays bass while the other plays melody . . .
If there is singing on the song, then the important instruments are bass and singing, and the fact of the matter is that a skilled bass player can make anything sound good, even a really bad singer, but more importantly a a skilled bass player can make a really good singer sound great, as you can hear in the remastered version of "Heartbreak Hotel" (Elvis Presley), as well as on every Beatles record featuring Paul McCartney playing bass, for sure . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC_1n5lv5m8For sure!P. S. There is a limit to the number of VST plug-ins one can use in Notion 3, so if there are a lot of instruments that need a bit of finessing, then it is better to record the Notion 3 tracks as soundbites in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application like Digital Performer 7 (Mac only), Logic (Mac only), or something similar in the Windows universe, where by virtue of the Notion 3 computer-generated VSTi instrument tracks being rendered and recorded as soundbites, the DAW software does not need to do so much computer processing, hence can handle more "heavy" VST plug-ins for special effects and so forth . . .
However, if a Notion 3 song has a reasonable number of VSTi instruments, you can use the T-RackS 3 Deluxe mastering plug-in on the Master stereo output, but it is a "heavy" plug-in, so it all depends on the number of VSTi instruments and other factors with respect to whether the additional computer processing requirements overwhelm Notion 3 . . .
Another important factor is that some VSTi instruments are "heavy" with respect to computer processing requirements . . .
And the fact of the matter is that Notion 3 is doing an amazingly complex level of work, all of which is very computer resource intensive, so at some point it is smarter to record the Notion 3 instrument tracks in a DAW via ReWire to get them rendered into high-quality soundbites, at which time you switch to working with soundbites and Notion 3 is not involved, which is explained in most of my other posts to this FORUM in various levels of detail . . .
P. P. S. Regarding the Beatles and George Martin, while the Beatles certainly were brilliant composers, musicians, and singers, my perspective is that the idea for using prolation canon in "Help!" originated with George Martin and was one of the various options from his vast expertise in music theory that he provided the Beatles and then let the Beatles decide which of the various options they liked, so in this respect George Martin was the choirmaster and the Beatles were diligently dutiful choirboys, which in some respects tends to suggest that absent George Martin the Beatles would have been more like the Sex Pistols in the grand scheme of everything, really . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolation_canon[
NOTE: I have been reading and studying "Recording the Beatles" (Curvebender Publishing), which is an extraordinarily detailed book on the way everything worked at Abbey Road Studios, and my current perspective is that everything was done with what can only be described as "military precision", where I would not be the least bit surprised if there was a specification regarding Pop singers along the lines of ". . . the Pop singer shall stand upright with eyes looking forward directly in front of the microphone which shall be setup according to Abbey Road Studios guideline 220.5.2.A; the Pop singer shall sing at a distance of no less than 3.5 inches and no more than 7.5 inches from the designated and correctly setup microphone; and the Pop singer at all times shall refrain from unnecessary dancing and fidgeting" or whatever, which silly as it might appear is quite consistent with the way the Beatles "worked" microphones when the were doing concerts, and I suggest this is the direct result of a lot of guidance and instruction by their choirmaster (George Martin) . . . ]
http://www.recordingthebeatles.com/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU7JjJJZi1QReally! P. P. P. S. This is a better balanced bit of
Classical music with a
Heavy Metal drumkit augmented with
Indian tablas, where some but not all of the instruments are enhanced with T-RackS 3 Deluxe VST plug-ins at the individual instrument level, and the Notion 3 Master stereo output is mastered with the full T-RackS 3 Deluxe mastering suite plug-in using the "Master 1" preset, which I adjusted a tiny bit, where for reference there are 22 instruments and this is done within Notion 3, except that the WAVE output file was converted to MP3 using iTunes, for sure . . .
http://www.surfwhammys.com/Ode-To-A-Mod ... -ST-N3.mp3For sure! Basically, there is so much stuff involved in doing music in the digital universe that it is a bit mind-boggling, so it helps to understand computers and to be diligent with respect to learning new information . . .
And in this respect, one of my goals is to devise a system for doing everything, which is coming along very nicely, since at present I have identified and verified a way to do nearly everything that I need to do, and each way is defined to the level of having a set of formal procedures, rules, and so forth and so on, which is very important with respect to not needing to mess with computer stuff . . .
Most recently, I discovered a way to use the pop-up MIDI keyboard in Digital Performer 7 to control the various standalone IK Multimedia VSTi instrument user interfaces in real-time, which makes it easier to make custom modifications to various VSTi instrument presets, since I can play a note with the computer keyboard and then make adjustments to them via the mouse and then save the custom modifications as a user-defined preset, which I then can use in Noiton 3, where I "play" the instrument with music notation . . .
And I am reasonably convinced that I can use the Alesis ION Analog Modeling Synthesizer via MIDI with the MOTU 828mkII for doing additional synthesizer work, although I need to do a few experiment to discover how this works . . .
For a while, I was a bit concerned about being able to create Dubstep "noise bursts", but after messing with digital music technology for a week or so, I am confident that I can do it, as well as a lot of other stuff, with most of it ultimately being done via music notation in Notion 3, although some of it probably will require using real instruments or using Notion 3 to generate MIDI that I can import to Reason 5 to create recorded tracks in Reason 5 that I can get into Digital Performer 7 by controlling Reason 5 via ReWire, where the already recorded tracks in Reason 5 will be recorded as soundbites in Digital Performer 7, with all the computer-generated instruments and sounds ultimately deriving from music notation in Notion 3, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! :)
