One of the music signal processing effects that many people struggle to understand is the compressor, the reason they fail to understand it is because firstly with a compressor it is harder to hear it’s effect but also because they haven’t learnt why and what’s it for, this quick tutorial will quickly explain what a compressor is and hopefully put some people on the right track.

What Does A Compressor Do?
Putting a sound through the compressor will make the loudest parts of a sound quieter, reducing the volume gap between the louder and quieter parts of a sound. If you could see the waveform it is basically flattening the peaks down closer to the troughs. It is basically an automatic volume fader.

When Should I Use It?

1. Because the peaks of a sound are clipping (sending the volume into red) - compressing it will bring down these peaks and so no more clipping occurs and you have a better behaved sound.
2. Because you want to raise the quieter parts of a sound (such as the tail/sustain section of a sound) - A compressed sounds peaks are reduced and so therefore the overall volume of the sound can be pushed up via the output gain (see below), in effect making the quieter parts of a sound louder and because a sounds tail section is louder, it makes our ears perceive the whole sound as louder. (This technique can be used on the final mix to make the track loud). Also Advertisers use this on TV adverts so the sound is much louder, so you can hear it when your in the kitchen making a brew.
3. Because you want to emphasise the first part of a sound - Using the attack (see below) we can let the first part of a sound through uncompressed and then compress the rest of the sound (Making the sound more “Punchy”)

How Do I Use It?
The best way I can explain this is to go through each part of a typical compressor and tell you what each one does. These should be on most Hardware and Software compressors.

Threshold
This sets the volume level at which the compressor starts to do its compressing. Whenever the sound volume goes above the level of the threshold the sound gets compressed. Anytime the sound is below the threshold the compressor is doing nothing and the sound will stay the same volume.

Ratio
When the volume goes above the threshold it gets compressed and the ratio is by how much should it get compressed. 1/2 ratio is going to compress any volume above the threshold to 1/2 the amount for example if the threshold is 50dB and the sound going through the compressor is 70 dB. The sound will come out at 60dB. At 1/4 ratio it will come out at 55dB. 1/10 ratio 52dB.

Attack
This sets in milliseconds how fast the compressors reacts once the sound level goes above the threshold. Most of the time you will want to set this to a very low setting. As you set it higher will let more of the sound through which first breaks the threshold allowing you to place emphasis on these parts (commonly used on kicks to make them more punchy).

Release
This sets the release time that the compressor tops doing it’s compressing after the sound has dropped below the threshold, setting this too low can make the sound sound like it is pumping. Commonly used on dance style recordings as a wanted effect.

Knee
Not seen on all compressors, sometimes might be seen as a soft knee on/off button and on other compressors you can control it with a proper dial. The Knee is the time it takes for the compressor to reach the maximum ratio of compression once compression has started to set it. A soft knee will take more time to reach maximum compression.

Output Gain
This is where you can increase the overall volume after it has been through the compressor.

Common Mistakes

1. Compressing a recorded sound can cause any noise or hum in the background of the recording to become louder reducing the quality of the recording.
2. Too much compression applied doesn’t sound good. Sometimes a pumping like effect can be heard which can sound dreadful on the wrong sort of music. There is also quite a backlash from some people saying that some modern music sounds dreadful and of less quality because it’s so loud.
3. Removing the ups and downs of music on recordings that don’t need it. You won’t hear very much if any at all on classical music because you want to keep the very quiet sounds quiet to give more feeling and flow to the music.

Hopefully this should help you to use compressors easily and effectively, one last thing is to think about when in the effects chain you apply the compression. After or before reverb and delay effects can sound very different as your also raising the levels on those effects.

If anyone has anything to add or other ideas on how to use it, please add it to the comments and we’ll bring it up to the post and credit you.

Tutorial Written by Edward Cufaude for Rhythm Creation.

Many musicians who make music with a computer make there drum tracks using software and recorded samples of drums, but all to often they find that their drums just don’t seem to sound like a real drummer could be playing them. These are my tips for getting a drum track to sound more realistic and hopefully they will help some of you to create some amazing drum tracks which will improve the whole feeling in your music.

Firstly we need to realise that a real drummer is not a computer, a real drummer doesn’t hit every drum with exactly the same force every time he hits it and neither does he hit it on the same millisecond of a bar of music every time. So the main aim is to basically make your drum track less perfect.

If you are using the mouse to input notes on the screen you may find that by switching to a MIDI input device you can use it to play each part of your drum track in and it will start to sound more human (Making sure you don’t set it to quantize your notes too harshly). You will find that you will hit each drum with a slightly different force and at a slightly different time, if you make any big mistakes or any notes that just sound off you can always retake or editing using the mouse. If you don’t want to use a MIDI input device you can use these two methods of editing individual drum hits to effectively do exactly the same thing.

• Change each drum hits volume slightly (Changing the force that the drum is hit)
• Change the time a drum hit is hit back or forward very slightly by small amounts

With both of these don’t do it too excessively, we are just looking for a very slight variation. These are the two basic differences between a human player and a computer drum track. This should improve the feel, try experimenting with it, sometimes just changing these two aspects can really change the feel and groove of a rhythm. (Very good experienced drummers will change these two aspects in their drumming on purpose)

There is another thing we can change which is the tone of the drum hit. As a drummer varies the force with which he hits a drum, the tone of the sound produced changes. On most drum machines such as the Redrum in Propellerheads Reason there is a tone feature, by varying this slightly with each drum hit (especially on the snare drum) we can give it more of a human feel. Try making the tone reduce when the volume reduces gives a nice effect.

We can take this further now by making our drums act like real drums. If you use snare rolls a lot, this is a nice way of making them sound much better. Drummers hit drums slightly differently with each hand. So set up two keys on your MIDI input device with the same snare sample on, but vary one ever so slightly in tone, pitch, volume or whatever other properties you want to experiment with and then play the snare hits one after the other creating a snare roll. This drastically improves the sound of snare rolls. You could even have three or four variations of the same hit and change between them.

With the Hi Hat,we often hear a drummer hit the Hi Hat with it open and then quickly close it. This cuts the sound off. So with your Hi Hat you will want to make it so when a Hi Hat closed sample plays it stops the open Hi Hat sample. Some drum machines have this feature built in, so use it effectively. If it isn’t built in yours try varying a Open Hi Hat sounds length according to your track so when the close plays the length cuts off the sound.

This next way is the Ultimate way of getting that real drummer sound, but it is not always practical with samples. If you are recording your own drum samples make sure that you record differing volumes of each drum. Some software allows us to change the sample used depending on the volume of the note. So for example when a MIDI volume message says a note is played at a loudness of 100 to 127 it will play sample 1 (A full whack drum hit), if the MIDI volume message is below say 100 it will play sample 2 (a softer recorded drum hit). We can line these up with as many samples as we wanted (if we have them) and that would create an extremely realistic sounding kit. Often though this is not practical for many people as many drum hits are electronically produce or the hit we want to use only has one recorded sample.

Hopefully this has taught you some of the ways in which you can make your sound less computer sounding and more realistic. These methods certainly improved the realism of my tracks and hopefully it will your too.

Tutorial Written by Edward Cufaude for Rhythm Creation.

One thing I try to do when creating drums for my tracks is to really try and get a BIG sound. I love big fat drum sounds :-). The drum tracks are the first part of a track that I lay down and I believe that if I can get the drums to sound great to me before putting any other sounds on, I know that my track will sound great to me also. One way I try to get a great drum track is by manipulating every single drum sound and layering it up so for example my main snare sound could have as many as five or six different snare samples in there. These are my tips and also my routine that I use for creating multi layered drum samples.

I use the Redrum in Reason for my drum layering because if you flip it over you can link the gate out on one sample to a gate in on another sample. This means that when sample one gets hit all the samples linked through these gate outs/ins will play together. This means that I can then manipulate each drum sound individually on the front of Redrum and play them together very easily. Whatever software or hardware you use, you need some way of editing each drum sound you are going to layer as well as some easy way to play all sounds together. This should make drum layering a much easier process.

Now you need some samples and there are loads to be had for free around the internet (Free Sound Samples). I doesn’t matter if some of these drum sounds you download sound weak or sound too much like a drum machine as when we layer them up they will sound stronger and very different. You need a good selection of different hits organised into categories (Kicks, Snare etc) so that you can choose a few that you like to layer up easily.

I start off by loading a single hit and manipulate it to how I want it to sound. Usually this is by pitching the drum sound up or down, changing the length, change the tone etc. Just do what sounds good to you for that particular drum sound. Don’t be afraid to change it drastically, or edit it in a audio editor either.

Now I find another drum sound that sounds nice with my first sound, I link the samples together (explained above) and listen to them together. You want to get a nice sounding mix between these two drum sounds so you can hear them both at the level you want to hear each of them. Now edit our new drum sample exactly like we did with the first by changing the pitch etc until we find something that sounds like what we want and mixes nicely with the other drum sound (re-adjust the levels if you have to). Now repeat this by layering up even more samples until you are happy with the overall sound of all samples together.

After this add any processing (for example a bit of compression or EQ). The example above shows a very basic drum layering technique and the more you do this yourself the more you will find different combinations of samples that will sound great with each other and find your own techniques that give you your own sound.

Here are some more of my tips that I use for multi-layering certain drums.

• Multi-layering kick drums can be trickiest as when we add more and more kicks our drum sound can actually sound weaker and more muffled as they are all fighting for space. You can stop this from happening by EQing each kick to have different dominant frequencies. For example if you are layering 3 kicks, on kick one increase the volume of 30Hz to 60Hz (or decrease the frequencies outside this band), on kick two increase the volume of 80Hz to 120Hz and on kick three increase say 150Hz to 180Hz. This will give each of our kicks a different space in the mix between them.
• Try layering bass sounds with your kicks. Create a very quick bass sound so it’s the length of your kick, filter out any high frequencies and then layering it together with your kick can give a nice low end sounding kick if done properly.
• For snares reduce one sample in length so it’s very short with hardly any tail (a snare that sounds poppy or cracky at the start) and layer this with another sound that has a nice sounding tail will create a very nice effect. This works great too with layering different crash and ride cymbals as well as other drums.
• Pitch up and down the same sample. For example take sample one and pitch it down, then take the same sample in another channel and pitch it up. Try this with already layered samples, by exporting your multi layered samples then reimporting.
• and finally experiment with different drum sounds as much as you can, drum layering seriously increases the number of samples and styles of drum hits available to us for music production and is well worth having a mess around with.

There is a lot to the art of drum layering, but I think once you know the basics you will develop your own techniques and way of doing it and in the process the sound of your music will benefit and you will create your own sounding style by creating different drum sounds that others don’t have.

Tutorial written by Edward Cufaude for Rhythm Creation.

Over the next few days Rhythm Creation is going to go way back down to basics by writing some beginners guides. There are loads of people out there that want to start creating and producing their own music and need a little help to get started. I was a music beginner once too and these beginners guides are hopefully going to grow into a huge guide that I would have loved to of had to hand when I first started.

I am an electronic musician and so you may find at times throughout this guide that it is more aimed at musicians who are looking to producing electronic based music, I shall cover all genres and styles of producing as best as I can. You may also find at times that you may disagree with me as some of the things that I will talk about will be my opinion only and there may well be other methods and different ways of doing things, if you do disagree with me write it in the comments of the post and I shall bring your ideas and thoughts up from the comments and into the main articles.

All beginners articles can be found in the Beginners Section under the heading “Beginners Guide To Music Production”.

Part 1 - Equipment.
To start producing your own tracks the first thing your going to need to think about is the equipment your going to need. Each musician is going to have a different set of equipment that they use, obviously a guitar player is going to have his guitar, amplifier and cables for example (which are not on this list). But this equipment list below is what I think is a minimum for anyone wanting to start to record and write music at home, no matter what instrument you play or genre of music you are going to be creating. You may find that you already own some of these items (for example the computer as you must be using one to read this) and you may be surprised at how small the list actually is to get started.

Hardware and Software
Music can be produced using both hardware and software. At one time music was produced solely using hardware but due to advancements in computer speeds, all music production tasks can now be achieved using software. Hardware is still used a lot in music production (Music producers love their mixing desks, hardware effects units and especially their hardware synthesizers) but as computer software can now compete extremely well with hardware and because you are new to music production I would suggest you stick mainly with software for the moment. You will find that at a later stage you can advance to using both software and hardware together and because most software is actually based on their hardware counterparts there will be no need to relearn anything you have learnt, should you want to go the hardware route at a later date.

Even though we are going to go the software route you are still going to need some hardware equipment to run the software as well as be able to record both instrument and note information (MIDI Data - We will go into this later) into the software enviroment.

Computer
This is obvious, but yes your going to need a computer and obviously you are using one to read this, but is your computer going to be fast enough to run any music software your going to be using.

Basically the faster the computer you have the better experience you are going to have producing your music. Music software can take up a lot of system resources due to it’s complexity and whilst it may be written on the software box or web site that the recommended requirements are low, you may find that once you start using the software and have lots of different channels all playing together that the computer just isn’t going to cope with it. A fast processor and lots of RAM are needed to allow your computer to cope better.

You are also going to need lots of hard drive space as music files and recordings can take up lots of gigabytes. Hard drives are cheap these days so this shouldn’t be the problem it once was. You will also want a DVD/CD writer so you can hand out CDs of you produced tracks and also back up your work.

If you need to buy a new computer you may want to build the computer yourself (It’s not as hard as you think). I did this myself for mine and you will find there are some benefits to doing this as you can choose the components yourself to create a better computer that’s specifically designed with music in mind. For example you can find cooling systems without fans, quieter cases, quieter hard drives and graphics cards without cooling fans on. All aimed at reducing the sound that the computer makes in your audio enviroment.

Soundcard
The most important component of your computer if you’re a musician. The main thing to watch out for is going to be latency which needs to be as low as possible. A high latency will make your computer unusable for recording music, as everything you record or play in will be behind everything else in your track. ASIO Support (Audio Stream Input/Output) is a must if you are going to be using Windows and a nice amount of audio inputs (with low noise). Read reviews of soundcards in magazines and on other review type web sites to make sure the soundcard you choose to buy is going to be the right one for you.

You may find you can use your current soundcard and if you do have latency issues you may find you can solve your latency issues by searching the web for better drivers. The KX Project drivers for example works with EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based sound cards such as the Soundblaster Live and virtually eliminates latency issues.

Monitors/Speakers
If you are serious about music production you should spend a good amount of money on some near-field studio monitors as your tracks will benefit a great deal in sound quality and should sound great no matter where they are played. Near-field monitors are different to normal speakers/stereo systems as they are designed to show you exactly what your music really sounds like without affecting the sound in anyway. They are also designed to be listened to with you closer to them than conventional listening speakers. Active monitors will already have a power amplifier, passive monitors need an external power amp.

If you can’t afford a decent set of monitors or don’t want to invest just yet, you can still use a decent normal speaker and amp or stereo system setup. But make sure you turn off any enhancements that the stereo or amplifier creates usually called something like Bass Enhancement or Rock/Jazz/Dance settings and turn any EQ (possibly called Bass and Treble) to their central positions. With a standard pair of speakers you are going to need to do a lot of listening on different systems such as car stereos, headphones, friend’s systems etc to get better mixes that sound good where ever they are played.

Never use those small computer speakers, it won’t be worth the time trying to get your tracks sounding right and use a good cable to connect the soundcard to the system/amplifier.

MIDI Controller
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a data system that is used between different instruments (and your computer) to send note and time information. No audio recording (sound) is contained within MIDI, it is only computer bits and bytes (digital data). A MIDI controller is typically a musical keyboard with other various controls such as faders and pads that are used to play notes into your tracks. If you are only going to be recording traditional instruments with microphones such as guitars and drums then you may not need one, but they aren’t expensive and owning one will open many new avenues for your music. If you are going to be producing electronic based music then a MIDI controller is an essential piece of kit.

There are tons of different MIDI controllers available on the market today, some with musical keyboard layouts, some with pads and faders, there are even guitars and drum kits which act as MIDI controllers. But I’m specifically talking about a keyboard layout one with at least 2 octaves of keys and one that also has some faders on to control certain sound aspects as you play. Always make sure the keys have touch sensitivity and aftertouch, these features change the sound played depending on how hard the note is being pressed (These are typically a standard feature, but check to make sure if your buying a cheaper or older second hand one).

You are also going to need a MIDI cable if one doesn’t come with your MIDI controller to connect your MIDI controller to your soundcard (The input may be called a joystick input on your soundcard).

Microphone(s)
If you plan on recording full drum kits then you are going to need quite a few microphones to get a studio produced sound. If you are going to be using drum samples then you shouldn’t need to have as many, in fact you may get by with only having one. Even if you are producing synthesizer and sample based only music, I can’t stress enough how you should still have a good basic microphone to hand for recording your own samples.

There are many good microphones on the market, but for the beginner music producer I would advise getting a Shure SM57 (A bright sounding vocal and instrument microphone) or a Shure SM58 (Go for this one if you are doing lots of vocals). You can’t go wrong with these microphones, they are classics, built to last, can take very loud sounds and don’t need an external power source. They are also very well priced and will give you very good quality sound for your money.

Part 1 Conclusion
This list is to help people get started, obviously there is loads more kit a musician could own, but hopefully this has given you an insight into the basic equipment needed for you to start producing your own tracks. This list will change slightly for each person, but once you have all the equipment above you shouldn’t need much more apart from the software and any instruments you might play to get started.

Beginners Guide To Music Production - Part 2 - Choosing Your Software

Written by Edward Cufaude for Rhythm Creation.

In part 1 I talked about the basic equipment you will need to get started producing your own music and in part 2 I am going to talk about the next important decision your going to need to make which is choosing your software. This is a very important decision and one that as a beginner you should spend a good amount of time thinking about before rushing into any purchases.

I shall mention some software packages in this section but I must point out that every musician is different and whilst some musicians will swear by a piece of software as an essential piece of kit, others will find it to be completely wrong in every way for what they require out of their software. The trick here is to try out demos for each piece of software you come across before buying and research well to make sure it is the right piece of software for the music you want to create. Ask other musicians who create a similar style of music what they use, read the many reviews on the net and try not to be sucked in by any adverts from the software companies (that piece of software might not be the perfect solution that they want you to believe). Also check to make sure that there are not any free alternatives that may be sufficient for what you require.

So what I’m going to do in this section of our beginners guide is to point out the different types of software available, talk about some of the features and give a few examples of software packages for each type. I am not going to choose the software for you or suggest a piece of software as required for your music, that is your job. The best piece of advise I can give you when choosing your software is to choose a package which you think you will enjoy using. If you find that making music becomes a bit of a chore and not fun you will end up either giving up completely or your music and inspiration for the creative process of writing music will suffer.

The Different Types of Software
These following categories are how I would categorize the different types of recording software available today. Some software could be classed in two of these categories, have features like that of other categories or be classed into a subcategory of that category, but these are the top level categories.

Pre-Recorded Loop Based Mixing Software
This sort of software is the most basic type of music software available and so are great for beginners and those not looking for anything too difficult to start with. They are very cheap to buy but are also very limited. They basically work by using pre-created loops and samples usually supplied by the same company in the software or as add-on packs. You can then use mix together these samples and loops to create a track. They are great for young people or those who have no experience with music but if you want to create your own sounds or plan on recording instruments and vocals, this category of software is not for you. This is what I would call music gaming software (yes, some of them are available for Playstation).

Examples of this type of software: eJay

Sample/Synth/Loop Based Sequencers
Software in this category is the real fun stuff, these have nice easy to use sequencers and are more geared towards creating your own sounds using the software synthesizers included in the software (These synthesizers can make a wide variety of good quality sounds and most can easily compete with the hardware synths in sound quality). They also are very sound sample based with extremely good sample manipulation abilities and loads of great effects that can be placed on your sounds. You will need to collect or make your own samples, import them into the software where you’ll be able to use a MIDI controller to play, edit and create some great sounding pieces of music within them.

Some have the facilities to use VST plugins and instruments (Extra effects and virtual instruments) and can also be hooked up to other sequencer software (See below) using a technology called ReWire to create a full blown recording studio environment. This is the category you should look at very closely if it is dance/electronica or sample based music that you will be creating. If your looking to recording instruments only, you may want to skip this category completely. They have a wide range of users as they can be very good for beginners to music production as well as more than capable for producing professional tracks.

Check each piece of software in this category as they can vary a lot. Reason for example emulates a hardware environment extremely well with some amazing instruments, FruityLoops is more loop/sample based but with VSTi support can be expanded in many different ways, where as Ableton Live has been designed with Live Performance in mind and includes multi-track recording.

Choose carefully from this category and try before you buy to make sure that it is right for you. Check to make sure that any included synths can make the sounds you want to produce by listening to examples, synth presets on any demos or other peoples music you know has been created with that software. I must point out that you will find that if you are going to choose to buy software from this category that you may also need to use a piece of Audio File Recording and Editing Software (See below). This is so you can record your own samples as well as clean up or edit any samples you may get from other place such as from sample web sites.

Examples of this type of software: Reason, FruityLoops, Ableton Live

Recording/Instrument Sequencers with Plugin/Extendable Features
This is the category you should be looking at if your music is going to be more recording based. They have great recording facilities and emulate a professional recording studio in a software environment. They can also be extended to allow plugins such as VST plugins and intruments, these are effects and instruments (synthesizers, drum machines etc) that can be added on. There are loads of these available from a wide range of different companies.

These sequencers can usually allow the software from the previous category (Sample/Synth/Loop Based Sequencers) to be integrated into them via the use of a Technology called ReWire (A kind of virtual cable between the different software packages) allowing you to get the best of both worlds. They all offer MIDI support too and with the VST Instruments can achieve the same as the sample/synth/loop based sequencers can, but the enviroments could be considered to be less fun and user friendly. Plus you may have to fork out extra money for the plug ins to get the sound you want.

These pieces of software can range drastically in price and features, so make sure you get the right version as you will sometimes find there are cheaper “Lite Versions” and more expensive “Ultimate Versions”. Think about whether you really need the extra features of the more advanced versions, you may not need them now but in the future may require them so investigate all versions of any piece of software fully.

Examples of this type of software: Cubase, Sonar, Logic

Recording Sequencers with Hardware Interface Options Software in this category is very similar to the category above in that they emulate a professional recording studio but they also have the options to have specially designed hardware interfaces very similar to a classic mixing desk. These link into the software directly creating a very hands on approach. If you go into professional recording studios today this is the system that you will see set up.

The hardware options can be very expensive in this category and so if you are a beginner I would not advise that you go for this type of software/hardware.

Examples of this type of software: Pro Tools

Audio Recording Software
Software in this category is usually seen as an addition to the above categories, as they are used to record and edit samples or individual channels of sound by editing the waveform. They come with effects and processing that can be applied to the sound (although usually not in real-time like the software sequencers above). They can also be used to apply effects and processing to your tracks as a whole when you have completed the track and exported it from other software. (Mastering)

Some software in this category can be used similar to a multi-track recorder, but cannot do nearly as much as a proper sequencer. If you are just looking for something to record a couple of tracks for example just some vocals and a guitar, you may find that a piece of software from this category is all your looking for. I’ve not advised a specific piece of software in this guide but I have to here. Please give Audacity a go as it is Free and is a very capable piece of software and may be perfect for your needs if your exploring this type of software.

Examples of this type of software: Audacity, Audition, Wavelab

Part 2 Conclusion
Hopefully this part of the guide has given you a insight into the different types of music production software available. As I said before make sure you explore all the different alternatives in each category and pick the software that matches what you require. Software is an important choice and a choice you will have to live with, so give it the time it deserves.

Beginners Guide To Music Production - Part 3 - Setting Up Your Studio

Written by Edward Cufaude for Rhythm Creation.