OGRE

Listen/purchase: WILDER by OGRE Sound

WILDER is out now and streaming in full everywhere. Celebrate with me this Friday 28th with an exclusive listening party on Bandcamp!

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Hope you enjoy this slice of Ballardian cinema for your ears; a perfect soundtrack for the dystopian self-immolation of the internet.

Plot Synopsis for Wilder:

Recognising the portentous warning signs of a global extinction event, elect individuals retreat to Hermetica: a sealed biosphere and luxury resort; a privileged vantage for the super-elite to watch the last catastrophic moments of humankind play out on screens as entertainment.

Whilst life support and ecologies are governed by an artificial intelligence, under the Labour For Life Initiative, a non-elect staff, selected by trades, skills and other desirable physical attributes, are housed within Hermetica. After all, a biosphere needs maintenance, its elite residents require hospitality, and the eventual rejuvenation of an apocalyptic world must have bodies to do the heavy-lifting.

After months of exposure to what began as casual current affairs viewing, growing into algorithmically curated media debasement (decapitations over breakfast before hot-yoga; the live-flaying of a village playing out on the screens of the gymnasium), Hermetica’s elite residents begin to desire something more, something that even the capital-expenditure sim’s most outlandish scenarios can’t provide.

Slightly belated, but hopefully worth it!

University of York Music Technology Group - Ambisonic Tools (VST + AU)

At its heart, granular synthesis involves the playback of small elements, or 'grains', from larger segments of audio. For example, you might start with a long field recording, but only select a small portion of it which can be looped to create exciting new textures and tones. There are near infinite possibilities, as you can change loop speed, playback start points and modulate the samples in real time.  

Granular synthesisers are essentially ROMplers, but as a production tool are often shied away from as they can be confusing compared to the subtractive style synthesis we're often used to. So in this tutorial we'll build our own sort of granular synthesiser by stacking samplers and treating those as oscillators. 

You can always take things further and to new levels of complexity by adding filters, lfos, envelopes etc. 

Step 1 - Setting up the samplers

In this tutorial, I'll be using Ableton Live's instrument rack and simpler (though obviously this can be implemented with any sampler, and if you'd rather not use an instrument rack you place a simpler/sampler on its own individual track, and route them to a bus). 

Step 2 - Load some samples

The next thing to do is to select some samples to create your patch. Obviously, sample selection should be based on the final timbre you want to achieve. So, for example, if you wanted to create a futuristic, mechanoid soundscape, you may select some foley recordings of machinery and hydraulics, in conjunction with some synthetic elements. 

Step 3 - Select some grains

The next step is to select a chunk of your sample, and loop it to create a tone. This can then be tuned to an accurate pitch. To do this you can loop a constant tone and then tune your sample accordingly. 

Step 4 - Repeat For Each Sampler

Build the remainder of your patch. This may take some experimentation with both sample choice and playback length. You may want to include some longer, evolving sounds as I have above. These should also be loopable. Also ensure that your samples loop seamlessly, and pick wave crossover point to avoid clicks. In Live's simpler and sampler you have the fade control which helps smooth things out. Again, tune the sample to a specific note, or if you're feeling adventurous you could tune in intervals like 5ths, and adjust the number of voices accordingly. Don't worry too much about extreme tuning, the patch can sound granular and lo-fi if you want it to!

Step 5 - Finishing Up

With the instrument rack, you can pan each sampler to taste, as well as applying effects and plugins to each sampler chain. You could also get the samples to interact with each other by using the side chain inputs on some of Live's plugins, and assign parameters to macros. 

I took two days away from music and screens this week, for the first time in over a month. It's really refreshing to take a break every now and then, and not a luxury I can usually afford. My ears feel rested and ready to revisit a few mixes, hopefully from a fresh perspective.

In part this was inspired by last week's post musing on Zen Mixing, and the idea of having everything working in equilibrium is something I subscribe to. 

On my days off I have walked (something I tend to do everyday anyway), exercised and tried to soak in the sounds outside the studio to refresh my ears (and what little sun that's still floating around September). I've played guitar, bass and piano for pure fun (as opposed to tracking purposefully for a track). I've actually listened to music (other than reference tracks) -  a luxury usually reserved for placating the washing up. 

It's hard to tear yourself away from work that also happens to be your ideal form of play, but ultimately it's worthwhile and you'll find yourself able to return to music making with a renewed vigour. 

u-he - TyrellN6 V3 (VST 2&3, AU- 32 + 64 bit)

I know I've previously blogged about the N6 in a Free Plugin Friday, but I've found the latest version to be quite superb. The main updates are a new skin and the VST3 format, as well as some new presets from u-he's usual suspects, in conjuntion with a megaton of bug and niggle fixes.

This is my favourite freeware synth. It's diverse and profound, with a great modulation matrix. You can get so much mileage from just two oscillators, and though it's based loosely on a Juno 60 it really offers so much more. 

Things I've learnt since version 2:

You're rewarded with prisitine audio quality if you keep the oscillators' volumes low, or subtle analogue style drive if you run them hot. 

The 'stackvoice' setting is awesome (and in V3 it can now be used with glide, and the portamento now takes into account stacked voice detuning when calculating the pitch starting position). 

You can download it from Amazona.de here.

Variety of Sound - ThrillseekerVBL (VST - 32bit)

Another fantastic addition to the Thrillseeker series by VoS, whose raison d'etre is to inject as much analogue style mojo as possible into digital music production. ThrillseekerVBL does not disappoint. 

VBL stands for Vintage Broadcast Limiter and is modelled on those used in 1950s radio studios - essentially a limiter used to catch any sudden audio overshoots. Unlike the limiters of today, the VBL is very musical, and nowhere near as fast. The result is a beautiful and warm analogue distortion. (Just to clarity - this isn't your tear-out metal-guitar-pedal distortion, it's comparatively very subtle). 

VBL is essentially a very useful levelling tool as well as a very realistic transformer and valve amplifier, with low-end harmonic distortion. 

I'm taking a week off Tutorial Tuesday, as I found this video by Noisia to be really inspirational. I'll admit I've been neglecting things like drum transients and checking phase when layering up samples, so it's been a good refresher and banished a few bad habits! 

I had a pretty busy August (I just worked out I'd mixed down and mastered 40+ tracks in the past month, and that's not even counting personal projects). I've found when I have a heavy-ish workload, the best way to cope is to break everything down into bitesize chunks and set micro-deadlines, and stick to them as best I can.

One of the things I've learnt is that I'm more productive if I split studio time up into creative sessions and non-creative sessions, that way I'm not wasting time hunting for samples or crafting patches etc., which would interfere with the flow when I'm composing. Being creative under pressure, meeting deadlines and expectations etc., is demanding stuff, and I don't think it's something you can necessarily learn. Inspiration can strike at the oddest times, and despite attempting to divorce composing sessions from patch/sample making sessions, the two are creatively linked. You can riff off sound design, after all. 

The other thing I've learnt, a bit similar to the above, is to breakdown the whole music making process into phases - sound design, composition, mixing and mastering respectively (though technically the latter should probably be levelling, as you can't by definition master your own tunes...). Anyway, mixdowns have become a lot easier, probably because of having dedicated sessions to choose good source samples and building from the ground up. If things are cohesive, then often there's been no need for compression or EQ, only perhaps a simple high pass filter.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I've adopted the following two invaluable mantras into my studio dogma:

1. Occam's Razor - the simplest solution to a problem is often the most likely one. 

2. Parkinson's Law - the task at hand will expand to fill the time you allow it.

DiscoDSP - Nightshine (VST)

Nightshine is an emulation of the marmite-response-inducing Alesis 3630 peak compressor. The 3630 is reportedly THE best selling hardware compressor of all time, and came into being just over two decades ago. (For more info on the original check out the Alesis website here). 

The 3630 has a slightly AM radio vibe, is loud (read noisy) and absolutely pumping, for better or worse! DiscoDSP do a great job of emulating it here, for free (well, in exchange for a facebook like). Worth checking out if you're a fan of the original, which by the way usually goes for a steal on eBay! Daft Punk are long term fans and have apparently used it as a mixbus compressor in the past, if you need some celebrity producer credentials to sway you! 

Voxengo - Span  (VST + AU, 32 + 64 bit)

Whilst you can rely on your ears and monitors for many mixing tasks, to some extent there will always be certain sonic elements that remain hidden and masked, either by your room or playback system. Voxengo's super great freeware Span enables you to see if there's any hidden bass on your high hats, or excessive high mids in your bassline. 

If you missed last week's part one, you can catch up on it here. 

I finished up the build a few days ago, so here are the last few steps :)

3.  Upholstery Part 2

The next step is to cut your front panel fabric and staple it to the frame, so you have something to lay the rockwool on to. I attached it on the inner part of the frame, leaving room for stapling along the back edge for the back cover. It's essential that you get this front fabric as tight as possible (for aesthetics, acoustics and to ensure that the rockwool won't/can't sag over time) and it's a lot easier if you have a friend to help you.

Next trim off any excess! 

4. Cut the fabric for the back cover. 

I suggest doing this now so you don't have to be exposed to the rockwool for longer than necessary! You can trim off any excess at the end. Again, I'm using a layer of gauze first to ensure no nasty rockwool fibres will escape. (That said, after some research I've found rockwool's not a carcinogen - it's still a respiratory irritant however, so best get the cover nice and tight!)

5. Lay the rockwool

Firstly, make sure you have a mask (Bane impressions recommended throughout the next few steps, though by no means obligatory), wear long sleeves and gloves. I'd suggest airing the rockwool if at all possible, as it's got a pungent stink, though if this isn't an option available to you (and your fabric's taught) you'll find no nasty odours escape when the frames are finished.   

If you've measured and cut everything correctly you'll hopefully find that everything fits very snug. I had to chop one rockwool panel in half for my design, but it's easy enough to cut with a stanley knife or similar. I used a saw because it was close to hand. 

Mmm snug. 

6. Upholstery part 3

The next step you'll want to do quite quickly to minimise rockwool exposure. Simply staple down the fabric you precut earlier. All excess can be trimmed off at the end, just ensure you get it as tight as possible.

I recommend starting with a corner of the one of the longer sides and working your way along, stretching as you go. I did the longer sides first and then the shorter sides at the end. Here's a pic of my staple spacing...I used rather a lot.

7. Finishing Up

Trim off any excess and install the new absorbers!

They've improved the sound of this room exponentially, so very much worth the time effort and money! If you've got any DIY sensibilities I'd thoroughly recommend building your own too. A lot cheaper than buying the pre-fab stuff, and they can be utterly personalised to your own requirements of space, budget etc. etc.

Tone2 - FireBird (VST 32+64bit)

A previously commercial product, with an RRP of $79, Firebird has now been uncaged and released as freeware. It's been around for 7 years, so it's kind of a vintage bit of kit in its own right, but it still holds up as a very good synth, and has received acclaim from many respectful music publications. 

It's a very versatile synth, and features all of the bells and whistles you'd associate with a modern VA instrument. 

Most impressive perhaps is its Harmonic Content Morphing synthesis, which is more easily explained by reading the website than here!

A solid addition to anyone's synth article. Pick it up!

TSE Audio - TSE R47 (VST + AU, 32+64bit)

I'm only focussing on TSE's RAT Pedal emulation here, but the whole host of plugins offered are well worth downloading. Recently the score's I'm working on have called for lots of synths/drums to be ran through distortion pedals, so I'm always on the lookout for new sound manglers.

I owned a RAT a few years ago, and sadly a friend fried it and I (read they) never got around to replacing the loveable rodent. 

TSE's replacement is the next best thing, and whilst I enjoy running my synths through hardware distortion units it's nice to have non-destructive editing options!

Intro:

When it comes to mixing the sad reality is that  you're not only as good as your ears. 

It's common to invest so much money into monitoring systems, plugins, instruments, DAWs, yet rarely do project studios spend anything on acoustic treatment (a rule of thumb I've heard repeated as mantra is 'spend as much money on treatment as you do on your monitors'). 

Your mix can only be as good as your room - that is to say that if your room is impeding you and your ear's ability to accurately interpret what's coming out of your monitors, you'll never have a truly good mix that will translate well over any playback system. 

Obviously each room will be different - perhaps you suffer from lots of reflections, or maybe you'd benefit from some bass traps?

In the following few posts we'll be building some broadband absorbers which, as the name suggests, will help absorb some errant frequencies. 

There's a lot of science behind acoustic treatment (which I might go into in another post, as there's a heck of a lot to consider!) that we don't really have space for in this tutorial, but if you'd like to learn more I've attached a further reading section at the bottom of the post. 

What you'll need:

A plan! Obviously the size of your absorbers will be dependent on the size of your studio (or perhaps more accurately, how much free space you have to accommodate some potentially large wooden frames!), and your budget. You may choose to wall mount the frames, but do bear in mind that they might be quite heavy (and that opens up a whole can of 'will I find the wall strut hidden beneath the plaster and will it all stay up and not topple onto several grand's worth of studio kit). I've gone down the freestanding route (to maximise portability to a new studio in the not too distant future, and to bypass any DIY mishaps) and have chosen to build two 1800 x 600 x 100mm absorbers and have bought the following supplies accordingly:

Timber - six lengths of 1800 x 100 x 22mm bits of wood. Four lengths make up the long side of the frame, and the remaining two are cut into equal thirds, giving six 600mm widths - two for the end of the frame and one for a reinforcing crossbar. 

Rockwool - is a dense insulation material used in lofts (or attics...). It's also very good at acoustic insulation. Ideally, for it to do anything beneficial it needs to be 100mm thick. It's available in a variety of sizes, and can be bought from most DIY stores, online or even ebay.  N.B. It's nasty stuff to handle, smells horrible and can be an irritant, so wear gloves, long sleeves and a mask when you get to the rockwool stage! You can cut it with a stanley knife or similar quite easily, but it will dull lesser blades. 

Fabric - which must be acoustically transparent! The acid test is can you blow air through it easily. If the answer is yes, then you're good to go. Common choices are burlap, or hessian weaves, both of which come in a variety of colours, so you can match your studio's decor. I'm using two layers of fabric for my absorbers - one is a very loose gauze which is attached first. This is to ensure no rockwool fibres escape, and also will help prevent things from sagging over time. 

Tools and Fixings - Nails, a hammer (or screwdriver and drill, if that's how you live your life), probably a saw if your timber vender of choice (like mine) can't cut it to length, a glue gun (if you're going down the nail route) and a staple gun to attach the fabric. 

I think that's about it! On with the build!

Build the frames.

Saw your timber to length if necessary and start assembling your frames. It's easier if you have a studio pal or someone well versed in the dark art of DIY to give you a hand. I used a glue gun to make the initial bonds between the wood, waited for it to dry (which doesn't take too long with hot glue), and then drove in some heavy duty nails. I don't have a drill, but I imagine the screw route would be an equally good (if not better) way to fix everything together.

Upholstery Part 1. When the frames are nice and stable, and resemble some sort of rudimentary door or window stand back and admire your work (I know I did in a state of sheer disbelief!). The next step is to attach the gauze or fabric (as mentioned I'm fixing the gauze first).

Start with the front of your panel so you have something to lay the rockwool on later. Using the staple gun pull everything nice and tight to make sure you don't have any aesthetically and acoustically displeasing fabric ripples. 

And that's about enough for this post! Next time I'll be laying the rockwool and finishing up the upholstery. 

Further reading. If you want to know more about acoustic treatment I recommend browsing the following links:

There's a wealth of good information, often with examples, over on the gearslutz forum - http://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/

A good introduction to acoustics - http://gikacoustics.com/acoustic-primer/

A great guide to broadband absorbers - http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html#mhf%20absorbers

It's been a while! I thought it's about time I started Free Plugin roundups again. 

This week is musical sounding signal processing, a filter and an EQ filter unit. Both are modelled on vintage sounding gear, and use softer db/octave roll offs, for a more musical sounding result when mixing. If you're used to more digital equalization, these can often breathe a bit of life back into the mix. 

Brainworx - Cleansweep (VST, AU, RTAS - 32 + 64bit)

Cleansweep is a very useful and musical high/low pass filter. It uses first order filters (only a 6db per octave roll off), which means you're less likely to encounter any Nyquist problems associated with steep filter processing. There's also a handy joystick that functions like an x-y pad. 

If you already have a go-to filter for lopping off high and lo end (and you really should, if you don't - filtering should really be the first part of your signal chain during mixing! Get rid of those errant freqs!) then this is well worth a look regardless. Low cpu footprint and, as already mentioned, a very analog and musical sounding filter! 

Sonimus - SonEQ (VST, AU - 32bit)

If you're familiar with Sonimus' stellar Satson plugin, you'll know they have a penchant for emulating the features found on vintage desks. The SonEQ is a 3 band EQ with a pre-amp function, for compensating any gain lost by cutting frequencies and signal colouration. 

Like Brainworx's filter above, it also has a musical sounding filter section. 

So I currently have four 120x60cm slabs of Rockwool Sat in my hall, and no wood to make frames. No wood. I literally can't get it up.  Talk about acoustic impotence. 

I'll blog the broadband absorber build over the next few days/weeks/month (I'm not the greatest practitioner of the DIY ethos when it comes to actual DIY), so hopefully it'll be useful to anyone looking to treat their room!  

I've got all my other materials sussed, so it looks like a trip to B&Q to get some timber to build the frames. So if you see a bloke struggling with six 2.4m planks of wood in Exeter city centre...