Lessons Learned

The tracks of the song from the last post were recorded around June of 2012. I picked the project back up this March, and the mix was completed in April. The learning curve of working in Logic Pro to produce this recording is only part of the story of why it took so long to finish. Another part is more about me and my journey to learn to make better quality recordings. It felt like a desperate struggle during much of the time working on this song. The sounds of the tracks were very much "off", and I didn't understand why at first. I have all this great equipment that can deliver music with the potential of rivaling commercially released music in terms of sound quality, yet I'm still producing stuff that sounds like I record in my bedroom (which I certainly do)! "Amateur", in other words. This is the year I decided to put some time in to figure out why that is, and do something about it...

Somewhere in the middle of the mix, I came across some home recording videos on YouTube. The channel is called "The Recording Revolution". The guy who produces the videos, Graham Cochrane, has a great series of audio mixing tips called "5 Minutes to a Better Mix". This series of videos (93 5-minute clips in all!) were all done using common sense, non-technical language. I couldn't have discovered them at a better time! Although it did sort of delay completion of the mix a bit, the knowledge gained was tremendously valuable. I've got to say that this is, hands down, the best collection of home recording video instruction available on the Internet, free of charge, that I have come across. Highly recommended to anyone trying to improve their recording and mixing skills. Graham also has a website, also called The Recording Revolution, where he posts blog articles on recording related topics and concepts. He also has paid videos and online classes for those who feel they need or want more detailed instruction.

Through Graham's site, I discovered a similar website, Home Studio Corner, run by Joe Gilder. Joe's site has very much the same goal as Graham's; home recording instruction, with tips and tricks, articles, videos, and paid online classes. I like the fact that these two guys promote each other's sites; in fact, they have a joint podcast that they produce called Simply Recording Podcast.

In fact, I just discovered a third home recording site through the previously mentioned two, called Mix Coach, run by Kevin Ward. I'm only just getting acquainted with Kevin's site, but it's set up very similar to Graham's and Joe's. The knowledge gained by all three sites simultaneously be redundant at points, but because these are three different people, they have three different personalities, and three different approaches to how they teach. Basically I take what info I like best from each one, and store it away in my brain for later application to my own recording projects. These are three guys that do this stuff for a living, and for whatever reason, have a calling to try to help people out there to improve their recordings. I for one am sure glad that they do.

The bottom line is that I've been doing this home recording thing now for many years. But after picking up some valuable knowledge and information from these sites recently, it has become embarrassingly obvious to me that I've been lacking a lot of basic fundamentals to facilitate good quality recordings. I must admit it was a hard pill to swallow after all the frustratingly amateur sounding recordings I've produced in the past, but I know that I simply have to move on, apply what I've learned to my future work, and hopefully I will see improvement.

I debated with myself long and hard whether or not to post the song at all, because after all my work, it still did not come out the way I wanted it to. I won't bore you with specific reasons why; you all can listen and judge for yourselves. I'll just say that there were things that I simply could not fix, without spending yet more time working on the track, and that was something I was not willing to do. But in the end, I decided to go ahead and post the song because hopefully it will serve as a document where I can hear the progress in my skills as a recording engineer, even if my only "client" is me!

When I listen to the song, I hear the result of hours of trial and error in the attempts of applying newly learned techniques. Some techniques helped the mix sound better than it would have otherwise, I think. Here's a list of some lessons learned after recording and mixing this song:

• The better your recordings sound going in, the easier it will be to mix them later. Hands down, the biggest lesson I learned this year. This song contains mainly acoustic instruments and vocals, so the majority of the parts were captured using microphones, as opposed to virtual MIDI-based instruments coming directly from inside the computer. I understand now that the tracks were not well recorded due to bad microphone placement, so it took long hours in trying to fix the sound in the mix. "Fixing in the mix" is NOT a job any mix engineer wants to do because it's hard work, and not enjoyable in the least. Taking more time for proper microphone placement during the recording phase is most important in getting the sounds right in the first place. Properly recorded tracks can help make mixing fun and easier, if not easy. This song was NOT fun to mix because of all the troubleshooting, cursing and wanting to cry, all due to mistakes I will hopefully not make again in the future.

• High and low pass filters are your friends. These are EQ tools which help get rid of frequencies you don't want on a particular track. Particularly useful is the high pass filter, which filters out the "mud-inducing" low frequencies I don't need, thus helping achieve clarity in the mix.

• Route similar tracks together to a group channel. When there are multiple vocals, guitar parts, percussion, etc. like I had for this song, I learned that grouping similar parts together to a single group channel in the mixing stage can be more efficient and really comes in handy when balancing levels or applying effects to the group, opposed to making those adjustments to each individual track.

• I've been recording my tracks way too hot! Modern digital systems don't require recording audio at such a high level like I was used to doing in the analog (tape) and earlier digital (16-bit) worlds. Today's systems, with high sample rates and bit depths, have a much lower noise floor so you don't have to turn up the gain so high when recording. The record levels on this song were pretty high, which required me to either bring the track faders way down when mixing, or use a "Gain" plugin to lower the gain on the track, allowing me to bring the track faders up higher. The same goes for the mix buss, or master buss, which I was taught back in the day, that you should get the level as high as possible without "getting into the red". This is going past 0dB on the level meter, usually inducing distortion, which, to briefly say, you don't want when recording digitally. Now I find that about 50% to 60% of the way up the level meter is all you need, because you can always bring up the overall level later in mastering (a whole other subject).

• Mix at lower volumes. A mixing technique I've heard about years ago, but the concept never truly clicked for me until working on this most recent song. You can get the tracks effectively balanced at an overall volume comparable to, or even lower than, a conversation between two people. I found myself many times bringing the mix down to a whisper-like volume on my speakers to adjust track levels... If you can hear all the important parts of your track well-balanced at that low a volume, chances are it's going to be well-balanced even when you crank it up. Mixing at lower volumes also allows you to work on your mix for longer periods of time before your ears get tired. Ear fatigue is a real phenomenon, and once it kicks in hard, you might as well just stop mixing and give your ears a "break", because you are most likely going to be making bad decisions that will only require you to make corrections the next day!

• Mix in mono. Yet another technique that I picked up recently. With our recording equipment, we have the ability to pan tracks to the left, center, right, or anywhere in-between in the stereo spectrum (between the left and right speakers, or headphones). I learned if you do the majority of the mixing (adjusting levels and EQ) with all tracks straight up the middle, the audio tracks will tend to sound much more balanced when you pan everything out the way you want them later. It also helps with mono compatibility, if by chance someone hears your track in mono. Not the most common situation with today's ubiquitous stereo systems, but hey, it could happen! I found that this technique worked out pretty well for me.

• It's not the gear, it's the user. This final lesson remains as the hardest to learn, me being a guy that loves playing with new gear! But what I've come to understand is if I keep on buying and experimenting with new gear, it won't necessarily help me get any better at recording. Chances are that it will only make me a gear collector, and that's not what I want to be. There's plenty of those kind of guys out there, spouting all kinds of half-assed, ill-informed opinions on Internet forums, and again, I don't want to be that guy. I know now that I've got to be much more resolute in learning all the ins and outs of the equipment I already own before throwing my credit card number out there to buy more. That's not to say that I will never buy any new equipment ever again, but any new gear I buy now has got to serve a very specific purpose. I have all that I need to produce quality recordings; it's now time to get to work and do it!

The process of recording this song was quite a journey, a long and hard one! I must honestly say that it wasn't particularly enjoyable, yet it was also one of the most rewarding, because of these lessons learned. Right now I'm pretty confident in saying that my recordings can only get better moving forward. It's a simple adage, but to adapt something I read in one of Graham Cochrane's articles, ultimately the only thing that will improve my recording and mixing... is more recording and mixing! We're just about halfway through 2013 now, but there's much more recording that can be done before year's end, and I hope to do just that! Until next time...

3 Songs, 3 DAW's, Part 1 - Logic Pro 9

I've finally completed the first entry of my "3 Songs, 3 DAW's" experiment. For those who don't care to read my ramblings below and simply want to hear the track, here it is...

Avid's Pro Tools was my introduction to computer-based recording, and has since been my recording platform of choice. It wasn't my introduction to digital recording in general, because I'd been using (and still own) an 8-track digital recorder called the Roland VS-880EX since 1999, then got my first Macintosh G4 in 2003 to run Pro Tools LE. As time went on, I would read about the intriguingly cool features of other DAW's on the market, and figured this project would be a good way to explore what other DAW's have to offer, and satisfy my curiosity.

I recorded and mixed the song above in Apple's Logic Pro. Much like Apple's computer hardware lines, many of their software titles are divided into "professional" and "consumer" categories. In the case of their audio software, Logic Pro is their "professional" DAW, the "consumer" level  program being their also-excellent Garageband, which comes installed with a new Mac computer purchase.

Logic's history actually goes back to the early 90's, originally developed by a company called Emagic, and then was purchased by Apple in 2002. Logic has been a Mac-only program for a while now, but before Apple bought Logic, it was available for both the Mac and Windows. Once Logic became an Apple product, they initially had two versions, Logic Pro and Logic Express, which is my first experience with the software, and I later upgraded to the Pro version. Apple have since discontinued Logic Express, and now carry on with Logic Pro and Garageband.

Overview of Logic Pro's Main Window.

Below are some observations on Logic Pro, describing some feature and workflow comparisons to Pro Tools, in no particular order:

Audio Region Editing - The most major learning curve for me was in this area. From a Pro Tools user's perspective, Logic Pro's editing tools seemed a bit foreign at first. However, with some of time and practice, it got easier. On the plus side for Logic, they have what's called a "Smart" time grid setting, allowing the user to easily and quickly select exactly what section of audio they want to edit with the mouse, depending on the zoom level they're using in the Edit window. It accurately "snaps" your highlighted selection to the grid for whole bars of audio, or way down to the super-detailed waveform transient level. Pro Tools' Edit window gives the user many of the same edit options, but the grid "snap level" has to be selected manually.

Composite (Comp) Track Editing - Here's an area where I feel that Logic Pro has the advantage. Their "Quick Swipe Comping" feature is well implemented, and probably my favorite feature. Very easy to audition sections of multiple takes by simply swiping the area of the region you want to hear, and clicking that area in a different take lane to hear an alternate version of that particular section - very intuitive. Pro Tools' version of that feature is not bad, but you have to click a "solo" button for each take lane you want to audition, then click another button to commit to the comp selections that you chose. These extra steps makes the process a bit "clunky" in comparison to Logic Pro. A minor gripe perhaps, but I see all those extra mouse clicks adding to the total time spent editing your tracks. Logic Pro also inserts crossfades automatically between your edit points to ensure a smooth transition between takes. Pro Tools requires you to insert the crossfades manually, though you can set it up to perform a "batch fade", which places fades between multiple audio regions.

Quick Swipe Comping makes editing multiple takes a breeze.

Plugins - I've got to say that while I find Logic Pro's audio plugins to be high quality sound-wise, the user interface for many of the plugins controls is the thing I like least about the program. The interface designs on the virtual instruments in particular, range from slightly confusing to downright horrible! The UI's for the effects aren't much better. For that reason, it took me longer than expected to figure out how to get what I needed out of the plugins. Pro Tools plugin UI's are much more user friendly in my opinion, because they tend to resemble a piece of audio hardware, with familiar knobs and buttons on the screen. To its credit, Logic Pro does have some stock plugins that are very useful in mixing and mastering such as multi-band compression and stereo imaging, where in Pro Tools you may have to look to 3rd party plugins for certain things, which will probably require you to spend some extra money. Free plugins that are both compatible with Pro Tools as well as worth the trouble of searching out online are few and far between in my experience.

Logic Pro's Ultrabeat plugin UI - my pick for the worst ever.

Mix Automation - Much like the tools for audio editing, the mix automation tools took some time to get up to speed in Logic Pro. However, it has a very quick way to globally raise or lower all the automation points on a track at once, where it's a bit more involved to do in Pro Tools.

Track Bouncing - Logic Pro has the capability of "bouncing", or rendering, a mix of your project to an audio file "offline", which is faster than real-time. That means that a 4 minute piece of multi-track music would take less than a minute to bounce. Pro Tools versions 10 and prior can only bounce a mix in real time. Meaning whether it's a 30 second piece of music, or an hour long recording, whatever length of time your audio is, that's how long you must wait for it to render a stereo audio file you can burn to CD, import to your iPod, or post online. Offline bouncing is a great time-saver, and is why I give Logic Pro another advantage over Pro Tools. With as many mix versions as I tend to do, it was a nice consolation that I was able to render the mixes and have them ready to play in seconds. I've recently learned that Avid has finally incorporated an offline bounce feature in Pro Tools version 11, due out later this year. Logic Pro can also send the bounce of your mix to your iTunes library as well. Pro Tools didn't have this feature until their version 10 released last year, which I finally upgraded to (more on that in a future post).

CPU Usage - Logic Pro again has an advantage here (for now). You can pile on the virtual instruments and effect plugins and your computer will (usually) not break a sweat. My understanding is that Logic intelligently applies CPU power to your tracks only when audio is actually playing through it, and doesn't when it's not. This is not the case with Pro Tools. The faster your computer is, the better off you will be, but you sometimes have to be careful with your plugin usage with Pro Tools, or you start getting CPU error messages. My understanding, again, is that the upcoming Pro Tools 11 has an all-new audio engine that intelligently distributes CPU power similar to how Logic does.

Media Browser - Integrated into Logic Pro's main window where you can easily navigate through your computer's hard drive to locate files to bring into your currently running project. A nice touch that makes it feel like Logic is tightly integrated with your Mac's entire system. On the other hand, Pro Tools' "Workspace" browser window does the job I suppose, but it's another feature I'd describe as "clunky", and I've never been a big fan of it. Again, advantage, Logic Pro. 

All said and done, once I got over the learning curves, I found Logic Pro to be a versatile, very powerful and capable DAW. My minor gripes aside, you get many awesome features all in one program, features I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of. And with its price of $199 in the Mac App Store, it's the best DAW deal on the market for Mac users that I'm aware of. Many DAW's with comparable features are easily twice the price. In comparison between Logic Pro and Pro Tools, each program has its strengths and weaknesses, which is the real the point of this post. It's about one's own personal preferences. My preference? As much as I've learned using Logic Pro for the past several months and appreciate its strengths, I've got to say that I miss working in Pro Tools. It's the platform I've used most consistently over the past 10 years, and it's the workflow that I know best. However it doesn't mean that I couldn't or wouldn't go back and re-visit Logic from time to time, take advantage of its unique features, and bring my work back into Pro Tools. When necessary, moving project data (the audio track files) from one program to another is actually pretty easy to do.

Logic Pro is currently on version 9 and has been since 2009, an eternity in the computer and software business. Many among the community of Logic users feel "neglected", and say that Apple is long overdue for a new version. I must say that I agree. Far too busy manufacturing iPhones and iPads these days, perhaps? That said, a rumor of a new version has been in the air for a while now. Although I still consider myself a Pro Tools guy first and foremost, I will be looking with interest to see what Apple comes up with for Logic Pro version 10.

One down, two to go for this series. I haven't started recording anything yet, so I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me. I've also got some additional things to talk about, regarding the whole process of recording and mixing this song that I felt should be its own separate post, coming very soon.