audio is in this folder https://drive.google.com/open?id=1n1Qyecs6tCT5E76bMoFzEFTYE4ZUx_Rn
AND IS ALSO IN SOUNDCLOUD LINK https://soundcloud.com/user-765877448/podcast-wk-9-kabir-alum-zadah/s-UvAce
Music Production standards
- editing and mixing
– auto-tune, beat detective, sound replacing, mixing- effects.
first topic I will be discussing for music production will be auto tune.
What is it?
-Auto-tune is a device made for tuning pitch automatically and manually, especially a computer program which enables the correction of an out-of-tune vocal performance. (Oxford dictionary, n.d.)
Why do people use it, how does it work and apply to music production?
Auto-tune gets used as a creative tool which allows some artists to express emotions that wouldn’t be as effective if they didn’t have the really obvious Auto-tune sort of Alien robotic sound it can create. (Lee. J, 2015)
It can also be used as a tool to help performances by correcting the artist original pitch to be more in tune. This ends up helping capture a performance where the artist isn’t sounding tired and frustrated trying to get the absolute pitch perfect take.
Auto-Tune makes it impossible to sing wrong notes, so you can always use first takes, when the performance is freshest. You can also take tossed-off improvisation and make it sound natural and pitch perfect.
Auto-Tune inspires artists to sound more confident, which stimulates creativity, which naturally creates a good vibe for everyone in the room and allows you to capture it. (Lee. J,2015)
Because Auto tune makes the notes pitch perfect it allows for listeners to remember the lyrics better and easier for them replicate it by singing along. (Lee. J, 2015)
Auto-tune has been all over radio in recent years with stars like Lady Gaga, T-Pain and countless others, Auto-Tune is widely used in the studio and at concerts to make artists' sound pitch-perfect. . (Hadazy. A, 2010)
Auto-Tune works by setting users set a reference point defined by the songs key signature– a scale or specific notes, and a rate at which derivations from this point will be digitally corrected. . (Hadazy. A, 2010)
This rate will determine if the voice sound "natural," by tacking the voice smoothly back to the reference pitch. Or if the rate is set for the pitch correction to occur rapidly and exaggerated, which results in the warbling, digitized and synthesised voices which have been popular in hip-hop, reggae, pop and other types of music. (Hadazy. A, 2010)
Does every song need to be pitch perfect or is every song pitch perfect?
Various singers before the era of Auto-Tune: David Bowie, Edith Piaf, Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Otis Redding, didn’t have auto tune and were considered great musicians. (Rambo. R, 2018)
To find out how great they were at singing according to the pitch correct software Rimbaud Rambo used it to track their vocal pitch, and found something interesting: none of them were pitch perfect… most, half the time, were out of key (either bending a note out of key, or just unable to hit the “correct” note. (Rambo. R, 2018)
Portraying that when there wasn’t pitch correction that to be a really good singer isn’t always defined by hitting the exact perfect note on every word but expressing emotion through their instruments and voice.
My opinion is that auto-tune helps tighten up vocal takes and make the song more memorable. I experimented using it on a few recordings myself and compared them and it made them easier to try and sing along to and remember. So in that case it will help gain an audience and make the music catchier then it is definitely a useful tool.
beat detective –
It is quite normal to see recordings to see extensive use of multiple-take compiling, vocal tuning and drum editing, made viable even for low-budget productions by the speed of Pro Tools, Logic, and other DAWs
It’s very common to see the detailed chopping of drum tracks into multiple slices so that the timing can be adjusted or corrected. (Price. S, 2003)
Beat Detective is a tool designed to help speed up the editing and quantisation process of drums. It aligns recorded tracks towards the grid which is defined by the bpm. (Dark horse institute, 2013)
This process allows for drummers to be more tight with the help of a computer if they are missed a beat or went slightly out of time. Because not everyone is always perfect at drum editing became a thing to help musicians fix up mistakes. Beat detective allows musicians and bands to have a more complete sound, effectively allowing the audience to not get distracted by any mistakes. If these mistakes weren’t fixed but clearly heard by listeners’, they would get distracted and it might turn out to make the band have less followers altogether because of a timing error.
This editing gets done by sound engineers to allow for the music to effectively express its deep emotion.
Does all drumming get edited? In short no. only if it benefits the work.
Were John Bonham’s drum tracks beat detective work done on them? No. He just had lots of practice
It is definitely a super beneficial and positive tool for many applications though. Especially In music that requires computer “perfect timing” like hip-hop, Heavy metal and pop music, it is almost necessary to keep up with the industry’s standards.
It is actually a very powerful tool. (Snier. G, 2016)
Sound Replacement.
another common production technique used by many engineers is sound replacing or adding.
Sound replacing is commonly applied to drum kits and using it can massively effect the tone of the drums in a positive way.
Using sound replacing tools to match up with the original drums it allows you to have no bleed from other sound sources come through. And apply processing to only things you want and not effect the overall sound. But why resort to such a radical approach? After all, in these pages we regularly preach the benefits of getting everything right at the recording stage.
Sometimes, of course, it's because you don't have control over the recording, and simply have to make the best of what you're given.. The performance might be great, but for the drummer having a rather limp kick-foot, for example, or it may contain inconsistent-sounding snare hits where the drummer's strokes are straying away from the centre of the drum.
It also is common in a live recording situation, where you're at the mercy of the sound leaking in mics.
The use varies from genre to genre. Typically, in genres such as indie or soul, much of the feel of the performance is likely to come from nuances in the way the drums have been hit — so you can use drum replacement in those genres, but your result will usually need to be more natural and less obtrusive, and to take much more account of the dynamics of the performance, than in 'harder' styles.
Sound replacing is crucially important in rock and metal production, where the drums will inevitably suffer from a dulled attack, but with total sample replacement each bass drum strike can be as solid as the last.
(Dunkley. J and Houghton. M, 2011)
Reference tracks – what makes them good- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmJSpMEJT2g&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=RatbagRecords
The band ‘Flora Link’ gave use these 2 songs to reference from and the commented about the
distortion and tone of guitars/ bass, the effects on vocals and their tone- especially on ‘Slow Turismo’ which has a telephone sort of sound on the vocals every now and then.
In these reference tracks dirty drums are quite common in there and essential to the sound so we will experiment in achieving this by using automation etc.
Our production aesthetic was to record in pretty clean signals and that has definitely been achieved. Now we just need to use tools that will allow us to make the sounds recorded dirtied up. We decided to go this route as it allows for us to experiment and get better creating distorted tones which will definitely benefit us in real mixing applications.
These articles are something I came across about mixing music and how it can be used create certain moods and emotions which will come across to audiences very well.
How do engineers mix to evoke emotion?
- Harmonic Distortion/Saturation
Common tools to use when mixing are distortion, saturation, reverb, delay, and harmonizers.
Not always the kind of distortion and saturation that you would connect your electric guitar and bass amp (though it may be useful). This saturation/distortion is slight anomalies in a signal path that add character and dimension to a sound. (Modern Mixing, n.d.)
Harmonisation, Space and performance enhancements
Reverb: is going to help define some space in your record as well as create a vibe
Delay: to create movement in a track or do something really radical to keep the listener intrigued.
Harmonizers: This is a great tool to use for mixing vocals, guitars and even pianos to give them a nice stereo fill. Use sparingly and you can create something very special.
(Modern Mixing n.d.)
Some reverbs are more suited than others to create different moods and some characters of reverb work better with various types of arrangements. The main concern is choosing the right emotional quality for the songs. E.g. does the song call for something warm and natural or something metallic and dark or something distorted? (Ledger Note: Mixing and mastering, 2018)
Referencing
Dark horse Institute. 2013 By Dark Horse Institute - Recording, Producing & Music Business School. Retrieved August 11, 2018 from http://darkhorseinstitute.com/how-to-use-beat-detective/
Dunkley, J & Houghton, M. (2011) Replacing reinforcing recorded drums. Retrieved August 10, 2018 from https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/replacing-reinforcing-recorded-drums
Hadhazy. A, (2010). Live science- auto tune. Retrieved august 10, 2018 from
https://www.livescience.com/11046-auto-tune-work.html
Lee. J, 2015. Why is auto tune used so much in popular music. Retrieved August 10, 2018 from https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Auto-Tune-used-so-much-in-popular-music
Ledger Note (2018). Mixing and Mastering, retrieved august 10, 2018 from https://ledgernote.com/columns/mixing-mastering/mixing-with-reverb/
Modern Mixing. (n.d.) How to mix music. Retrieved August 10, 2018 from
https://modernmixing.com/how-to-mix-music/
Oxford dictionary, (n.d). Auto-tune. Retrieved August 10, 2018 from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/autotune
Price. S, (2013) Pro tools using beat detective. Retrieved August 10, 2018 fromBottom of Form
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/pro-tools-using-beat-detective
Rambo. R, 2018. Why do singers use auto tune, can they not sing with out it. Retrieved August 10, 2018 from https://www.quora.com/Why-do-singers-use-Auto-Tune-Can-they-not-sing-without-it
Snier, G. (2018). Taking the human out of recording. Retrieved August 10, 2018 from
https://gregsnier.wordpress.com/2016/02/02/taking-the-human-out-of-recording-elastic-audio-beat-detective/
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