Clavinet Blog

Bent 6 is rising from the ashes

2010-09-17T10:33:00.001-05:00

Or at least full of drywall dust. Finishing off the drywall in the next couple of days. Hoping to be operational within a week to a week and a half!

Embarking on new projects

2010-05-28T17:25:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to be working on another production for American Blackguard. I'm currently composing the score to a short ("Bringing Daddy Home: The Call"). I'm thankful for laptops considering the current state of the studio!

Studio Update

2010-05-27T00:45:00.002-05:00

Most of the drywall below 4 feet from the floor is gone. Found mold. I think I got it cleaned out, but you never know...

Uggh...

Projects waiting, working to get up and running asap.

Bent 6 setbacks

2010-05-05T23:28:00.001-05:00

Bummer! You may have heard about the flooding in the Nashville Tennessee area. It shouldn't have been such a big deal for us personally as Bent 6 is in a basement of a building on a hill. However an estimated 18" of rain in a weekend caused saturation of the ground to such an extent that the effective water table rose into the studio.

We had to tear out all of the laminate flooring (currently warped and laying in the driveway) and are trying to dry out the rooms as quickly as possible. Thanks to all the great folks who are lending us extra dehumidifiers!

Choosing a DAW system, part I

2010-03-13T01:19:00.001-06:00

Choosing a DAW is a tricky situation these days. To be honest, most everything on the market does 90% of the functions you need in an everyday situation. What it comes down to is particular features you need, look & feel, and computer system you want to use.

Obviously most of the DAWs available are for Mac and PC systems. I personally have spent the last 20 years working on Mac-based DAWs, so that's where my expertise really lies. However, I'm not a snob about it. A computer is a tool. If I were to find I needed to use a DAW that was PC only, I wouldn't hesitate. Besides, I've been hearing good things regarding Windows 7.

Let's start with the Mac.

Pro Tools On the Mac, the biggest player is Avid/Digidesign's Pro Tools. It is available in three variants, the fully professional TDM systems known as Pro Tools HD, the mid-level systems (which are more than capable for 90% of users) referred to as the LE rigs, and the M-powered systems which run on select M-Audio hardware.

Pro Tools (which is up to version 8.x as of this writing) first hit the scene in late 1991 and was a Macintosh only system consisting of software and matched hardware. The hardware consisted of at least one I/O breakout box and a card (or two, or three...) installed inside the computer. Digidesign developed this method to provide the computer horsepower needed to process the audio and do the internal mixing on computers which, by all rights, shouldn't have been able to do so at that point in time. (My first PT rig, from 1995, ran on an 80MHz computer with 24MB of RAM... Really.)

This methodology came from Digidesign's background. They first provided replacement sample chips for the Linn Drum and other drum machines. Later, they created software called Sound Designer, which allowed you to off-load samples from your Emulator II (or others available at the time) to a Mac where you could do visual editing, looping, and all of those other things that were nigh impossible on the samplers of the day. (For an exercise in masochism, try multi-sampling on an Ensoniq Mirage without a computer.)

In the tradition of cutting out the middleman, Digi realized that what they had could be even more powerful if they removed the sampler from the equation and allowed recording and playback directly from the computer. This required some hardware acceleration and specialized I/O, but was the germ of a successful product they called Sound Tools. Quite simply, it was a rather nifty stereo editor that allowed playlist editing and application of DSP effects. It even allowed for SMPTE/MTC sync so engineers could off-load tracks from tape, edit, and place them back onto the tape for mixing.

Now, what Digi was doing wasn't anything new. Sonic Solutions (as I understand it, a spin off of Lucasfilm's SoundDroid project) was doing the same thing with a Mac at a higher price point. Studer, Waveframe, Fairlight, NED, Otari, and many others were providing proprietary systems that did similar work at substantially higher price points.

What Digi did with Pro Tools was to bring an advanced multitrack editing and mixing platform to the Mac for a comparably lower price point. It took until version 3 to truly be successful (or indeed, really usable) but they solidified their market position by adding 3rd party developed plug-in effects. This allowed developers to create plug-ins for the Pro Tools system that users could use to create a customized system just how they needed it to be! Once the Antares Auto-Tune plug-in hit the market, Digidesign had established their dominance in the market, which they have managed to maintain to this day.

Today's Pro Tools systems range from the high end HD (TDM) rigs which still feature DSP-accelerated effects as well as cpu-based computer hosted effects processing to small one or two input systems utilizing only cpu-based effects. As you can guess, the price points vary dramatically from $200ish on the low end, to systems running above $50,000 for a full-blown professional rig.

Pro Tools, being the industry juggernaut, has taken a lot of flak, regarding their usage of proprietary hardware and interfacing. Some of this is deserved, but in their defense, this has reduced the variables in setting up a system and typically leads to stable Pro Tools systems. As of late, a number of companies have been offering Pro Tools interfacing directly on their converters (Apogee, Lynx, Digital Audio Denmark, and others - although it is typically a pricy option) and SSL has even created a Pro Tools to MADI box for studios with large digital consoles.

At the last minute, it occurs to me that Pro Tools is available for the PC as well. I don't believe I've ever actually put my hands on a PC-based Pro Tools system. I'd be interested to know the differences.

We'll continue with the Mac DAWs in a future post.

Another film project nearing completion

2010-03-12T23:21:00.001-06:00

Can't say too much at this time, other than I've been finishing a film score on a short for American Blackguard. Great folks to work with!

How Times Have Changed

2010-03-10T23:00:00.000-06:00

When I first started working in studios, digital was a bit of a pipe dream. Most professional rooms were based around a console, a 2" 24 track, and a selection of outboard gear. Shortly thereafter, the ADAT burst onto the scene and began the whirlwind transition to digital. And why not? The ADAT sounded pretty good, the tape was cheap, and the price was amazing, especially after the price dropped after the initial run.

Of course, they weren't without drawbacks. I need not go into those here.

ADAT (and the other small digital tape multitracks) were a transitory technology. Random access systems quickly felled the beast and took over, causing a whole generation of studio rats and performers to have to become simultaneous left & right brain types as IT issues became constants in this new method of music making. Whether using dedicated hardware (i.e. RADAR) or off-the-shelf computer-based systems, dealing with the foibles of computer tech just became part of the equation.

I've been seeing some transitions of my own in recent days. Being from the days of tape, I'm also used to real instruments. Plug-in virtual instruments seem, well, disposable when compared to a physical keyboard. Yet I find myself using them more and more. I guess I've really had to sell myself on this because I've come up with a bit of a philosophy regarding real vs. plug-in instruments.

Plug-in instruments are time savers. They are great for quick sketches while composing. Plug-in samplers really cannot be beat in the real world. Yes, I have a bit of a soft spot for my Emu E5000 (upgraded and modded out the wazoo), but ESX24 in Logic, MOTU's Mach5, and NI's Kontakt are superior tools. Visual editing of samples, easy looping, access to huge libraries of sounds without paging through small windows, use of 24-bit samples... I could go on and on. For that matter, all of the digital synthesizers are really better in the software realm.

What physical keyboards am I finding myself using? The electro-mechanical ones, the Rhodes, Hammond organ and Clavinet. I have great software emulations of all of these. Why do I still use the real ones? They all have that near-imperceptible "something", perhaps it's the inherent flaws, the feel of the keyboard... I can't completely place it, other than they are comfortable for me to play, and I play differently on each of these keyboards than I would on my MIDI controller.

Analog synths, or digital ones with a lot of hardware control (sliders, knobs) are also seeing a lot of use. I have yet to match the "bigness" of a Moog sawtooth bass in software. I still hold onto keyboards with nostalgic value as well (my DX7) even though software emulations are definitely superior.

So I'm seeing a hybrid system evolving. Yes, life would be easier if I'd let myself go entirely into the computer, but I feel I'd be missing something. Maybe I'm a somewhat of a keyboard luddite, but it still feels right.

Using Logic Pro for Theatrical Sound Design

2010-02-25T11:51:00.000-06:00

I was recently hired to do sound work for a play and, of course, they asked if I could provide some sound effects and music playback. Of course, I agreed to do it, as I have built up a considerable sound effects library over the years. Not to mention that sound design is one of those things that I do.

I took a look at my available tools. In the past, I've brought in hardware samplers for playback of music & effects, but setup on my old E5000 is a bit cumbersome. I started thinking that a software sampler would do better. This, of course, led me to look at Logic's ESX24.

Laying out samples on the ESX24 is simple. I really just needed one-shot sample playback for the most part. It was just a matter of dragging the samples into Logic, opening the samples in the sample editor, and cleaning up the beginnings and ends.

Simple right?

It turned out that the spooky wind sample I used was shorter than what was needed for the particular scene. I had never actually done any looping in ESX (I had yet to build any sampled instruments) so I was less than thrilled with what I initially saw as the method for setting loops. In the edit window, it looked like the method was to set sample numbers for the start and end of the loop and gave rudimentary tools for editing crossfades. I started doing trial and error. Painful to say the least.

Now Logic has a fine sample editor window. I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could open the samples in the sample editor. Lo and behold, a method was in there and it worked great!

Turns out there's a little drop-down menu for each sample. It is accessed by the drop-down arrow just to the right of the sample name. All I had to do was select the Open in Sample Editor menu item and Voila! There it was, ready for graphic editing!

Tools were in place for setting loops easily. I easily selected the area I wanted looped, made certain that search zero crossings was ticked in the edit menu to help avoid pops, and selected selection -> sample loop. After that I selected Write sample loop to audio file.

So I went back to the ESX editor and it didn't work. Once again a bit of user error. You have to turn the loop on in the ESX editor to have your new loop take effect.

It worked beautifully.

By the way, I decided to just place the music for playback in the arrange window sequentially. This way, I could set markers and skip between markers with a self set key command.

Works great!

I'm almost looking forward to trying to loop something musical!

The Return of Bent 6!

2010-01-30T14:46:00.000-06:00

I'm happy to report that Bent 6 Audio is returning to service, better than ever! Bent 6 is my own studio where I have been set up to do mixing and editing. Bent 6 also houses my keyboards and guitars and is set up as happening little control room.

Now, Bent 6 has two decent sized recording booths coming up, a tech shop, and a comfortably-sized control room configured for 5.1 and stereo mixing. Audio for picture work is one of Bent 6's new focuses and the rooms are being configured for ADR and foley work as well as traditional recording.

Pics coming soon!

Drum mic technique update: check your distances

2008-03-07T08:27:00.003-06:00

Just wanted to give a few more thoughts on the previously mentioned drum micing technique. When doing this, it is very important to check the measurements from the snare drum to the omni mics. These need to be the same distances from the center of the snare. If not, the snare will be skewed to the closer mic - thanks of course, to Haas' Precedence Effect! (Drum roll for application of physics, please!)

If I were doing a two mic kit (just the omnis) I'd try to make certain the mics were equal distances from the center of the bass drum as well. This, needless to say, will result in some rather strange mic placements and could be difficult to place in a way conducive to playing a drum kit! In practice, I have found that using the 3rd mic (the kick mic) allows us to not be so fussy regarding mic placement. As long as the distances are reasonably close. The kick mic will serve to solidify the image and (once again, thanks to Haas) will sound before the kick sounds (at a much lower volume) in the omnis. The low frequency wavelengths from the kick mean that the sound arriving at the omnis will be more or less in phase assuming we haven't done some incredibly crazy wide placement.

I'll continue to explore this. It has worked out to be too good to leave alone.

Great Drum Micing Technique

2008-02-26T12:30:00.009-06:00

Now this might not work for everyone, and certainly won't work in every situation; but I have begun using a 3 mic technique for a drum kit that I find absolutely stunning. It won't give you the "Toms of Doom" or anything unusual. It will give you a great natural sounding drum kit. This technique was first described to me by Gary Baldassari (who works for or quite closely with DPA Microphones) a number of years ago. You can find his description at http://www.dpamicrophones.com. Click the Applications Guide and select Drums-Jazz for his description.

My take on this utilized 2 AKG C451s with omni capsules and -10dB pads inline. On the kick I was checking it with both an AKG D112 in the kick and an ElectroVoice RE20 outside and on axis a couple of inchs from the front head. Placement of the 451s was a bit tricky. On the hat side of the kit, the mic is placed in the middle of the snare, rack tom, and hat "triangle". I found myself pulling it more towards the rack tom (away from the hat) and away from the snare a bit as well. The second mic comes in under the ride cymbal, between mid and floor toms.

In usage, the omni condenser tracks should be panned hard right and left (which one is which depends on going for player or audience perspective. The kick is panned straight up the center. You will need to adjust positioning to get good blends of toms and cymbals and I highly recommend using a tape measure to make certain the condenser are equal distances from the snare.

Reactions? I was floored as was everyone else on the session. We had a great sounding drum kit with three mics! Less phase issues (and NO bleed issues!) to deal with than with multi-micing and smooth, even toms and cymbals! The snare had plenty of snap and body, with natural ring. The omni patterned mics gave a wonderfully realistic panorama as well!

Of course, there are drawbacks. You have to decide how you want the drums to sound while recording. Any processing you do to the hat side mic needs to be done to the ride side mic as well to maintain a good stereo perspective. And (of course) you need a good, consistant drummer. And, of course, a good room is really going to help the sound as well!

Give it a try and check Gary's DPA post as well for more info.

Thanks, Gary! I will use this!

The Hohner Clavinet

2008-01-03T22:34:00.000-06:00

Figuring that this blog is named Clavinet, I felt I ought to give a bit of background and info about it. The clavinet (often shortened to clav) is based on the clavichord, an instrument that began to show up around the late 14th and early 15th centuries. The clavichord is often described as an unfretted keyboard instrument, as there is a separate string for each key. The keys are on one end of an arm; at the other end is a small brass pyramid called a tangent. The tangent strikes the string giving a very sharp attack to the sound.

I should point out that the following describes a Hohner Clavinet D6 model - other models should be similar, although they are outside my personal experience.

The clavinet is similar as it also has a string per key. The clavinet's keys have a hard rubber hammer underneath (which serves as it's tangent). Past it's similarities with the clavichord, it really starts resembling an electric guitar with active electronics. There are two pickups - the originals are single coils, replacement humbuckers are available from www.clavinet.com among others- and there are two pickup switches (controlling on/off for both pickups as well as in-phase & out-of-phase settings when both pickups are engaged) and 4 switches which control level and (to a certain extent) EQ. There is also a string mute attached to a slider which allows varying levels of string damping.

The clavinet's electronics can be powered by a 9 Volt DC supply or via battery.

Stevie Wonder is probably the best known clavinet player, thanks to his ultra-groovy mega-hit "Superstition" among others. I was lucky enough to see him on tour a month or so ago, and there were two (count 'em) clavinets on stage! Stevie often ran his through what I believe was a Boss Auto-Wah pedal.

The clavinet is best known as a funk instrument but was ubiquitous throughout pop and rock hits of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Electromechanical keyboards vs synths

2008-01-02T21:36:00.000-06:00

There's something about electromechanical keyboards. By these I mean such legendary favorites as the Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, the Hammond organs, and of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Hohner Clavinet. When they are in good condition, they are a joy to play. They seem to have a life of their own.

I have a love for these keyboards, mainly because they seem to maintain a sense of space in a mix. By comparison, when mixing synth or sampled emulations of the same instruments, I always have to work much harder to make the synths sit into a mix. Generally short (sub-50 ms) delays are needed to create some sense of ambience. Not so with the Rhodes or Wurly.

The Rhodes, taken direct has more "space around it" and "depth" than an arguably good (I'd say very good, in fact) sampled Rhodes. I've tried this with multiple DIs and preamps with built-in DIs, always with the same subjective results.

Why? I have some theories but I'd love to hear others. Any ideas? I'll post some of mine in a future update.