If only Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio had existed 10 years ago, my music would have been impeccable! (Well, I like to think so.) This book is a magical tome for anyone who records or produces music on a budget. It's packed with big reveals, and explains the science behind each mixing technique. Forget the accumulated hit-or-miss wisdom of the internet; after reading this book, I found that I could produce substantially better mixes immediately. That's amazing. (My mixes still aren't great, but I'm working on it!)

Here are my favorite takeaways from the 20 chapters. I'm writing this to lock these concepts in my head. I'm skimming lots of material, because there's so much valuable information packed into this book, I can't possibly recap all of it.

Part 1: Hearing and Listening

My Rokit KRK-8 studio monitors are distorting my mixes. They're "ported," meaning they have an open-air port cut into the body. The manufacturer claims that this helps the air move freely. As a consequence, this creates noisy air turbulence, and muddies the bass frequencies. That's bad. The book suggests plugging the ports with socks; the sound might become clearer! Try it, listen carefully, trust your ears...

The goal of soundproofing your studio is to tame reverberant frequencies. You don't want an echoless space. Also, stereo is overrated, try mixing in mono. If this advice sounds heretical, consider the typical consumer's listening environment: Computer speakers, stuffed in a bookcase, clear across the room. Car speakers, blaring inside a noisy, reflective space. Restaurant speakers, bolted to the ceiling in semi-random locations. Your mix should sound good in mono, because most people will never give it a proper stereo listening. And there will always be room reflections in any listening space, so don't completely Nerf your room. Allow your walls to sweeten the sound.

Headphones are a special exception. The book cautions that some headphones have inadequate bass response (as do some studio monitors, of course). Music may sound oddly "clean" without the natural reflections of a room. Personally, I love modern headphones. I bought a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 770 headphones this summer. It was the single best musical purchase I've ever made. They have clear, deep bass response, which rattles my skull a bit. The treble is impressive, and it reaches very high into the range of human hearing. I can finally hear the full audio spectrum (unlike running my Rokit KRK-8's through a Mackie mixer), so the headphones have been a godsend for me. I can't imagine returning to my KRK-8's in my oddly-shaped studio space.

The biggest takeaway from this section is learning how to use other songs as reference material. Create a workflow where you can rapidly switch between your mix, and several reference tracks, to keep your ears fresh. Listen to how your mix compares with the professional's. The author repeats this throughout the book: It is possible to create stunning mixes in a small studio environment. Checking your work with professional mixes is crucial.

Part 2: Mix Preparation

It's okay to use pitch correction, rhythm correction (such as Ableton Live's time markers), recreate the bassline on a synthesizer and mix it in, or rearrange the band's song. Oh, yes indeed. They're paying you to produce good music, and if that means fixing their mistakes, and using smoke and mirrors, then so be it!

Consider the overall flow of the song. Each instance of the chorus could have a different intensity. Perhaps they'll get (perceptably) louder, except for the "drop chorus" at the end: Play the chorus once, with some instruments cut out, then play another chorus with everything driving the song home.

You may need to "mult" recorded tracks, which means splitting them up into separate layers, with different processing for each layer. The rhythm guitar should subtly slip into the background when the vocalist is singing, for example. Now that I'm aware of multing, I can't help but hear it used everywhere!

Part 3: Balance

Every layer will need a high-pass filter, probably no steeper than 18db/octave. Raise the filter frequency until the track feels like something is missing, then lower the frequency a bit. This will liberate the precious low-frequency spaces, so the kick drum and bass won't have to fight the other instruments in a bath of bass mud.

Now it's time to balance the levels. Mute every track. Slowly unmute the trocks, one at a time. Start with the most important section; start with the most important instrument. Adjust the track's volume so it fits with the mix, then don't touch it afterwards. After you've leveled every track, your mix should now sound pretty good.

Compression is primarily used to stabilize the balance of individual layers. Some tracks will have a steady balance without compression, and that's okay! Leave them alone. Other tracks may need one compressor to reduce momentary spikes in amplitude; another compressor to help even out the amplitudes of individual notes; etc. Try using parallel compression (aka "New York compression"), sending a track through a heavy compressor on a second channel, which will help even out the sound yet preserve its original character.

Expanders (and gates) are typically not essential. If they're used, put them before compressors in your effects chain. If your drum beat needs more punch, try sending the track to a parallel channel, gating it (to isolate just the attacks), and applying EQ and a little distortion before mixing it back in.

Equalization ("EQ") is a broad topic. Before delving into it, I'll disagree with one point up front: The book claims that any EQ plugin is about as good as any other. Most modern DAWs are equipped with plugins that provide low-pass, high-pass, shelving, peaking, and notch filters. My opinion is that some EQ plugins sound substantially better than others. I have never enjoyed the sound of Ableton Live's EQ 8, I feel that it sucks precious high-end frequencies and detail out of anything it touches. EQ 3 is better, although it's less flexible, and the filter curves are steeper, which is not always what you want. Shameless product placement: My new favorite is Tone2's FilterBank3.

To EQ the mix, mute every track, then unmute and EQ them in order of importance. You're trying to avoid frequency masking, a phenomenon where layers obscure each other. Avoid graphic EQ, and try shelving filters before using peaks. Use low "Q" values, so your filters will have wide, smooth curves.

Bass instruments: Try adding high-end brightness to the bass guitar. Try reducing the kick drum around 400hz, creating a hole for the bass guitar to punch through.

If a track's dynamics aren't doing a good job, apply EQ before the dynamics. (It's not uncommon to use both pre- and post-dynamics EQ, although this is more difficult to wrap one's head around.)

Linear EQ should generally be avoided, since it smears the clarity & definition of transients (momentary bursts of sound, such as drum attacks).

And, this chapter answered an old riddle for me: Why are we told to use EQ cuts, and avoid EQ boosts? Because when you apply EQ to a range of frequencies, that frequency range suffers phase alterations. This can rob sounds of their clarity. As you boost phase-altered frequencies, you're emphasizing muddier, out-of-phase frequencies. So a high-shelf cut (with a gain after it) really is preferable to the "equivalent" low-shelf boost. In a multi-mic environment, EQ boosts can be catastrophic, since instruments will leak into neighboring microphones with slight delays (i.e. different phases!), and may induce bad comb filter effects. Thank you, Mike Senior. I salute you for your clear explanation.

This surprised me: distortion is often used as a mixing tool! EQ can only modify frequencies that already exist, whereas distortion filters can add brightness and sparkle to the high-end. If your distortion plugin lacks a wet-dry control, the book suggests using parallel processing, by sending the track to an effects channel, and mixing it back in.

Multiband dynamics plugins have their uses, but are "mostly just an extension of what we've already covered in previous chapters." If you're clever, there are ways to achieve multiband dynamic effects without a dedicated plugin. For instance, if your bass guitar notes have uneven sustains, try extracting the lowest frequencies using a low-pass filter, and then compressing those, and mixing them back in. Watch out for a "hollow" quality, which indicates that phase artifacts are entering the mix.

Side-chained dynamics can be useful. The book explains "ducking," which is akin to extreme side-chained compression: When the vocalist is singing louder than a certain threshold, the guitar "ducks" a fixed amount. The brilliant thing is, if you don't have a ducking filter, you can create one using a side-chained gate: Send the guitar through a gate (side-chained to the vocals), and then invert the output. When gate opens, the inverted signal mixes with the original guitar channel and reduces the overall amplitude. Amazing. You can get creative, too: Try adding a linear-phase high-pass filter to the gate's output, so only the high frequencies duck out when the vocals are active. You get the idea.

Part 4: Sweetening to taste

Reverb, chorus, and delays cannot salvage a bad mix. However, they can sweeten a good mix, and make it great.

My big takeaway from the chapter on reverbs is that you can move instruments away from the foreground, into the background by sending them through a common "blend reverb." The reverb should have about 10-20ms of predelay. Reverbs should be CPU-intensive, as the better ones use lots of simulated reflections, and this requires more CPU power.

My big takeaway from the chapter on delays is that reverbs are overrated! Delays offer the same benefits as reverbs, but occupy less "space" in the mix.

The chapter on stereo enhancement is extensive, but the main point is that stereo width is more important than stereo panning. There are a number of ways to achieve stereo width effects using plugins (even rotary speaker plugins are discussed!). If the guitarist plays the same riff repeatedly, try hard-panning two instances of the riff, left and right. Try an M&S plugin, which splits a layer into the sum and stereo difference; pan the sum to the center, and apply all the crazy effects you want to the difference. Try adding some stereo "room tone," which can be a recording of tape hiss, background noise in a room, or the crackling of a vinyl record. Try duplicating the vocals, pitch shifting them a few cents apart, and panning them hard left & right.

Finally, there's a chapter on the "endgame," which is final compression, equalization, and automating individual notes & transients by hand. The big shocker for me was that a little hard clipping is acceptable. This is used in commercial music, and it can add a little sparkle to the sound. That's wild.

Definitely, definitely reference your mix with other people's tracks. Try sitting in silence for a minute, and hearing the song in your mind. Now play your mix; does it sound like what's in your head?

The book recommends a myriad of useful plugins, including shareware and freeware! The pages are also sprinkled with creative advice from professional producers.

Really, if you produce music at home, you're insane if you skip this book. It really is that enlightening. Get it! Use it! Everyone deserves to make high-quality music, and it can be done on the cheap with today's technology.

More »

I paid $99 for a Midines in the year 2008, and... I have still not received it. I have sent Chris Kann at least a dozen emails, and never received a single reply. In 2008, I did track him down on IRC -- he mentioned that he was going through some hard times, but now it is 3 years later, and he has been completely silent.

I wondered if I offended him personally, but it turns out that many, many, many, many (etc) people have sent money, and received nothing. A critical mass of people complained to PayPal, who finally shut down his account, so he switched to using Google Cart Service this year.

If I receive a Midines, then I'll be happy to give it a proper review! In the meantime, I urge everyone to use their own research & judgment before sending money to strangers.

Meanwhile, whether you own a Midines or not, you can make NES-style chiptunes for free. I created an Ableton Live Pack with all 5 NES waveforms: Download it here. You can also download the raw AIFFs. Here's a silly track that demonstrates how it sounds:

NES Instruments by Too Many Moths

The 5 waveforms are: 1-bit noise (the drum beat), a 4-bit triangle wave (the bass), and pulse waves at three different widths: 50%, 25%, and 12.5%. Here's how the pulses look, next to the noise:

The triangle wave is a bit tricky. The NES provides 4-bit volume control for the other channels, but the triangle wave always plays at maximum volume. In my Live Pack, I generated a triangle wave using Operator, downsampled it using Redux, and then filtered the high frequencies to curb the Redux artifacts. This was a subjective process, I tweaked the filter until it sounded correct.

I recommend altering the instrument envelopes, to create smooth attacks and gradual delays. Also, try using vibrato and tremelo (changing the pitch or amplitude with an LFO). This will improve the character of the instruments immensely.

If you want a more authentic sound, try limiting yourself to 2 pulse channels at a time, since that's all the NES can support. You can also send the instruments through convolution reverb, using a small speaker impulse. This may sound more like an 1980's television speaker. Enjoy!

More »

Watch: regular, or HD version. (Vimeo, 4:00)

The clips have a bias towards art and animation, because: 1). It shows well in a video, 2). This reel was created for an application to an artist's colony. (More on that later.)

The intro & outro animations (the flying moths) were created specifically for the reel. They're my favorite clips, yet they took less than a day to assemble. The moths were left-over from an old project (you'll see an experimental Too Many Moths interface within the video), and I felt the convergence motion was a strong opener.

The moths were composited in Flash. They were arranged semi-randomly, then the image was "baked" onto their wings & body. I flew them backwards, and recorded their positions on each frame. Then I reset the moths and flew them forward, again tracking their flight paths.

Actually, this was done in memory, so it was very quick. My laptop needed 3 seconds to arrange, bake, & move 120 moths. Then the harness presented me with the frozen frame, so I could evaluate how well the moths covered the images. If the coverage was bad, I hit a key to build new moths from scratch.

When I found a nice arrangement, I hit another key which stepped through the animation, and rendered each frame at a ridiculously high resolution (2160x1440, to cope with scaling problems in Adobe Premiere, unfortunately). The frames were encoded as .PNG's and uploaded to a PHP script running on localhost, which saved the 200+ images to disk. The intro took about 20 minutes to render & export. The outro, being more complicated, took over an hour.

Looking at the reel, I'm happy to present so many types of work — animation, audio programming, visual design, interactives, games, kiosks, websites. These four years have been amazing.

More »

Filtered Noise Sequencer

Drag and resize the blue blocks to change the filter frequency and width.

This sequencer is not using expensive bandpass filters. The oscillators are sine waves, which are frequency modulated with white noise. It may not sound inherently musical, but you can produce great hihats, bass thuds, and airy pitched noises.

Here's the source code. (Requires Flash CS5 to compile.) Have fun!

More »

A Curious Lack of Light by tooManyMoths

More »

(click to launch)

The next version of Twang will record & save songs (this is done), and share them in some capacity (a bit more complicated). So that's where the Twang Player comes in. The Flash version looks like it wants to be touched & strummed. I need to revisit the design and convey that Twang Player is just a music box, you can't compose anything in the browser! ...Yet.

There are performance issues on some of my machines, too. This version uses Vector.<Number> objects to handle data, but it looks like ByteArray or even BitmapData structures are the way to go.

More »

First, do you know Lev Grossman? He's an incredibly talented author who recently toured Portland. If you haven't read his book The Magicians, then stop whatever you're doing and procure a copy immediately. Without trying to spoil anything, the major college in the book is named the Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy. Lev saw the Brakebills T-shirt that I designed for my sweetheart's birthday present:

Long story short, my Brakebills shirts are now officially endorsed by the author! Please buy twenty of them, or thirty if the spirit moves you. Zazzle's print quality is great. The colors are vivid, and the ink has survived many washings. Rabid fans are buying and even customizing them! I love the internet.

Lev blogged some of my other work, too ("the guy who does this has the enviably fake-sounding name of Zach Archer"). It's true, I have an awesome pro wrestler name.

Second, my new iPhone app has landed in the App Store:

Twang is a handheld guitar. It's easier to play than a real guitar, and is very expressive. Instead of using audio samples, Twang uses physical modelling techniques to create a more natural, dynamic sound. No two plucks are identical. Watch my grainy first video if you disbelieve.

In the next version of Twang, left-handed people will be able to switch Twang's orientation, and serious musicians can dampen or mute strings with their fingers. And probably more! This version is already in development, and may be submitted in a week or two? Follow Control Z, Inc on Twitter if you have a ravenous thirst for updates!

More »

Here's something from the vaults. Aquasound was built with these requirements in mind:

• Generate sounds that aquatic animals might make
• Sounds can be "combined" somehow
• Sounds can emote

This was never used in production. I wonder if I could turn this into something? Like a paid iPhone app? ;)

Double-click the envelopes to add/remove control points. Drag lines up & down to change their curviture. The best feature is the "Combine With" dropdown, which splices the current sound with your selection. Also the "Emote" menu will play sounds with different expression.

The audio algorithm is reverse-engineered from my beloved FS1R. I generated formants in two ways (toggle the "Tonal" checkbox to hear both), the "atonal" version is closer to ring modulation than actual formants. It's more fun if you don't understand what the controls are doing, but if you insist: Pitch controls the overall pitch of the sound. Freq controls the center frequency of the formant (like a bandpass filter). LFOFreq and LFOWeight control a low-frequency sine wave, which can be applied to other controls via their "___LFOAmt" curves. Amp is amplitude, Width is formant width (think: width of the bandpass filter), Skirt adds distortion. Each voice has two formant generators, check "Formant Active" to enable them.

May all your bloops and crackles be happy ones!

More »

Like the era-defining DX7, the FS1R is an FM Synthesizer, but it boasts a massive 8 operators per voice, compared to 6 in the DX. And the FS1R sports a new toy, Formant Synthesis, capable of mimicking voices, human and otherwise! Waves and formants can modulate each other in 88 different configurations. Top that off with LFOs, filters, on-board effects... It's so flexible, and so complicated. So much power.

The FS1R was the last of Yamaha's FM synthesizers, and that's no accident. Even by 1998 standards, this thing dwells in a deep abyss of user-unfriendliness. Without a GUI, you must program 1,000+ parameters using 15 tiny buttons on the front panel. Fortunately, K_Take has developed FS1R Editor Software which lets you load/save patches, and twiddle the internals in real time (thanks K_Take!)

The unit sold poorly and was discontinued after 2 short years (long before a proper GUI emerged). I didn't know the FS1R existed, until Tavvv of the Braindead Monkeys mentioned it might be something my brain would enjoy -- Weird vocal effects! Technical crazy-sauce! Aural blasphemy!

Thus, the hunt was on. After two months, I had a single nibble -- a unit appeared on eBay, and I became its adoptive parent. (These units are scarce; only two units are listed on eBay at the time of this writing, and they're not getting any cheaper.) Was it worth it? Good question. If I had to describe this thing in one word, it would be: "Uhnnnhhhhh ... !!!"

After three months of use, I'm starting to comprehend this beast. With 8 operators (waves/formants) per voice, you must choose one of 88 algorithms. Here's a screenshot of a few (in K_Take's application):

Each operator has a zillion parameters: pitch and amplitude envelopes, a "skirt" (which makes the sound fuzzier), and wave shapes (sine, sawtooth-esque, square-ish, formants) which have another zillion parameters of their own. Also each voice has 8 "unvoiced" operators, which generate pitched noise. These imbue its "speech" with sibilance, and thus, consonants; A zillion more parameters.

Everything I just listed is actually quadrupled, as you control 4 voices per program. And you can use "formant sequences" to make the operators fly around and "talk", morphing into vowels and phonemes.

Yeah, it's pretty hectic. This is a saturation point of some sort. This must be what happens when synths fly too close to the sun. Here are some sound samples that demonstrate the madness. If you're brave, here's a medley of my FS1R creations spanning 3 months, oldest to newest.

What the hell can you do with this device, then? I tried using the FS1R in a "lead" role for months; carrying the melody, or standing in front of the other instruments, snarling aggressively at the listener. That's not what the FS1R excels at. It sports an impressive collection of waveforms, but compared to other synths I've used, the waves sound soft, and clean. Even with the "skirt" maxed out, the FS1R can't produce a sawtooth wave, or a square wave, or anything big and phat that resonates your rib cage. FM synthesis can sound harsh on other platforms (the Yamaha TX81Z; the Sega Genesis) but the fidelity of the FS1R is apparently too good. You can't make this thing scrape, or scream.

This leaves you with a few options -- you can use it as a "background" instrument, or as a smooth pad. This is where the FS1R shines. It produces excellent textures that liven up a mix if they're used ornamentally. The FS1R could become my "secret weapon", adding that undefinable something to my sound universe. At least, I hope so. FM synthesis is hard to program because you don't really know what will happen when you twist that knob; little tweaks can send a patch spinning. The FS1R constantly surprises me, and that makes it cool. My best sounds come from building a patch using one algorithm (out of 88), and then clicking the other algorithms, arranging the operators into something that I couldn't have premeditated.

It has filters and on-board effects, too. Honestly, I've barely touched these, I'm still internalizing the other stuff. The filter seems unexciting; it's transparent and color-less, although it does offer three lowpass slopes (12, 18 and 24 db/octave), which is nice. The effects include several flavors of chorus & reverb, delays, dynamics processors, and two distortions (although they're soft too, and neuter the sound more than give it teeth).

My wish list for a sequel (the "FS2R"?):

• New modulation types between operators -- ring modulation and hard sync. That way, "the kids" can play it in "the clubs".
• More LFOs. You get 2 per voice, and 1 is reserved for the filter. More are needed!
• Formant sequences should be editable, or better yet, recordable. The manual states that sequences cannot be edited, but of course they can if you're willing to hack it a bit.

Meanwhile, the FS1R will keep me busy with its steep learning curve. At this point, I have rare moments of clarity where I can plan, and (mostly) construct the sound I want. What will I produce after 3 more months? I have no idea, none at all. We shall see.

P.S. Thomas Gruber explains how the FS1R's DSP works, and it's spiffy.

More »

The Braindead Monkeys: Space Donut

After a 4-year hiatus, Space Donut arrives! It's their strongest album to date. Lots of head-nodding jams, and lots of smiles.

Recommended tracks:

• #3: Parody of a popular 80's cartoon
• #4: TERRORISM! "The United States is currently at war with everything..."
• #7: Nintendo (NES) + marching band
• #5, #13, #18: Delicious electro jamstep

Grab a banana and an electric drill, and enjoy!

More »

To celebrate, I've distilled the music into a 70-minute soundtrack album (entitled Afterpulse). You can download it for free:

• Download Afterpulse .zip (83.8M, 160kbps MP3 files)

The name of this movie cannot be stated, since this is an "unofficial" soundtrack. But I will drop some hints, so clever readers can figure it out:

• The initials of the film are F.W.A.
• If you view my IMDB profile, you'll see a link to the film.
• The director's first film was called Shiner.

Enjoy!

FAQ.

Q. Is this legal?

A. Probably. This is not an "official" soundtrack. The film company owns the versions used in the movie. So I remixed /rearranged each track (also to make the tracks more listenable, and "flow" better.)

Q. Why are you releasing this for free?

A. Because I like sharing my work. And I want exposure, because I'm a badass.

Q. What kind of music is it?

A. Techno vs. industrial vs. horror vs. ambient. Since I was on a 3-week timeline, the results are quite different from what I produce "normally."

Q. What equipment did you use?

A.

• Kurzweil 2500S
• Dual 1.8ghz G5
• Home-brewed software (C++, Perl) for generating melodies / textures / harmonies / creepy sounds / FFT weirdness
• Pro Tools 6.7 & an MBox
• 100+ gigabytes of samples, amassed over 15 years of my life
• Circuit bending, with a drum machine, NES "Miracle" keyboard, and many other unfortunate devices
• A lot of tea

Q. Can I download the tracks one at a time?

A. Sure, go here: http://freedeath.org/audio/Afterpulse/.

To come: some bonus tracks! Woo hoo. I'm really tired.

More »