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Effects in mixing are like the cherry on top of an ice cream. That little thing that makes everything so much better. We use effects to enhance our mixes and instruments, giving them more interest, depth and sparkle. Effects can make the most bland instrumental part sound vivid and cool. Whether it’s tremolo to add rhythm to stagnant chords, vibrato for movement of your electric piano or chorus for you backing vocals, the creative use of effects can really help make a mix better.

In the following tutorial I’m going to go into detail of what each effect does, illustrate it with some famous examples from music history and provide you with practical examples that you can use in your mixes.

Table of Contents

• 1. A Little About the LFO
• 2. Delay Time
• 3. Chorus for Depth
• 4. Chorus for Acoustic Guitar
• 5. A Wave of Flange
• 6. Flanger for Post Production and Sound Design
• 7. Phasers
• 8. Vibrato
• 9. The Tremolo Effect
• 10. A Sense of Excitement
• Conclusion

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Each Tuesday we open our mic to readers and lurkers alike to come out of the woodwork and tell us your thoughts and opinion, your experiences and mistakes, what you love and what you hate. We want to hear from you, and here’s your chance.

Do you use a hardware mixer in your studio, or is the software mixer in your DAW all that you need?

Which hardware mixer do you use? Why did you choose it? Are you happy with it? Do you have any hints about buying the right mixer?

How do you use your mixer? How does it integrate with your other audio hardware? Do you use it to record more than one instrument at a time? Can you get by without a mixer in your studio?

Do you use a mixer in a live setting? Do you look for something different in a live mixer?

Flickr Image by emdot

Song Idea Management

So you’re a composer, musician, or songwriter. You have a great idea for a new song in the middle of the night – what do you do!? For most of us, the flash of creative inspiration often comes at the most inopportune times. That’s why it is important to always have some means of capturing these ideas close at hand. For most of us that leaves a couple of options:

• Laptop or Desktop Recorder: If you’re fortunate enough to be quick on the draw, or close enough to your DAW, by all means – capture your song idea right into your full recording app. Remember to give the song a memorable name – something you’ll recognize so you can come back to it.
• Voice Recorder: A simple voice recorder – standalone or as a phone or PDA app – can be a great, handy tool for capturing your song ideas on the go. Some of these recorders have naming functionality so you can label your songs appropriately. If not, be sure to promptly download your ideas to your computer and label your songs as soon as possible so they don’t become lost or forgotten.
• Standalone Multitrack Recorder: Perhaps you already have a compact, standalone multitrack recorder, such as those made by Zoom, Tascam, Korg and Fostex. These are great ways to capture song ideas – provided you have a way to label and categorize the ideas once you’ve quickly recorded them.
• Manuscript: Some of you might be skilled enough to be able to write your music down on staff paper, without an instrument or recorder handy. If this is you, remember to jot down notes and labels so you can file or expand upon your ideas at a later time.

Flickr Image by oddsock

While it may seem simple and mundane, managing your song lyrics is an important step in librarianship. After all – not every song is written the same way, and what may begin as lyrics for one song may eventually morph into lyrics for a different song.

From this perspective, think of managing and organizing your song lyrics as a separate and distinct art – apart from managing your musical song ideas. Here are a few ideas on how you might organize song lyrics:

• Database: For those savvy enough to do so, a simple database system makes a great way to organize song lyrics. You can easily create several searchable fields including song text, song title, song themes, and ‘tags’. Then, when you decide you want to work on a song about topic X, you can search your database to see if you’ve got any lyric ideas that might be a good starting place.
• Word Processor: A simple word processor or text editor is a fine way to manage lyrics, provided you’ve created a folder/directory system that makes it easy to find what you’re looking for. Fortunately, todays operating systems make it relatively easy to search within a file – so even if you forget the title of a song, remembering one or two lines may make it possible to find the file through a system-wide-search.
• Paper + Pencil: Believe it or not, many songwriters still prefer to write lyrics the old fashioned way. I keep several notebooks handy to write down ideas for poems and lyrics. I come back to these books periodically and pick out the ideas that deserve further consideration and transcribe them into my computer.

Sample Management

Flickr Image by altemark

Perhaps the most in-depth and critical aspect of writing music in the digital age is that of managing samples and presets. Fortunately, the vast majority of major software music applications acknowledge this, and have implemented systems for creating, saving and finding your source material. That said, here are some applications and ideas you may consider to assist you in your quest for library domination:

• Native File Systems: Believe it or not, many creative types simply use their native OS filesystems to find and organize files. With a smart folder/directory structure, and appropriate management of metadata, most modern OS’s make it possible to find your content without too much additional work, and no extra cost.
• Asset Management Systems: For people with massive amounts of sample data, original field recordings, and so forth, a dedicated sample management application may be in order. There are numerous varieties, and they range from simple and inexpensive to massive and “cost a fortune”. In no particular order, here are a few standouts:
  • Iced Audio Audiofinder: A Mac-based asset management system that acts as a ‘hub’ for all your samples. Allows auditioning across pitches, beat detection and tools for editing. Only $70 – highly recommended for Mac users.
  • Audioease Snapper: Similar to Audiofinder, Snapper is a Mac-based app aimed at making your content easier to work with. While it isn’t really a ‘management’ system, Snapper is built as a kind of extension to the Finder allowing instant auditioning, editing, and manipulation of files.
  • Soundminer, NetMix, Sonomic, Basehead: These apps are all robust, database driven sound management apps, with a wide range of features and capabilities. They also vary widely in price, but for someone with a huge library of sounds, the amount of time they save in finding content can be a real lifesaver. I have personal experience with Basehead and Soundminer, and both are excellent applications.
• Proprietary Systems: Standalone systems such as Native Instruments Kore takes the whole library concept one further by encapsulating all of the Native Instruments content into one wrapper/controller system. Native Instruments claims the Kore+Komplete system offers over 7000 sounds to explore, and gives easy access to searching, browsing, auditioning and editing these sounds. There aren’t many variations of this type of system on the market, but if you love the NI stuff, this might be a good choice for you.

Project Management

Flickr Image by kevindooley

So now that we have some song ideas, some lyrics, and some source content – what’s next? Production! And once we enter into production mode, we must begin to consider how we’ll manage and organize our projects. As with sample management, the vast majority of DAWs already incorporate some form of basic project management, including automated backup of files, versioning of files, unique folders for source and final audio, as well as fade and waveform data files. Applications such as Logic Pro take it one step further, allowing you to copy FX presets, samples and certain software instrument presets to the Project Folder, allowing near-complete portability of your files from one system to another. Even so, it is still important to take the following into consideration:

• Production vs. Completed: Think about how you’ll organize and archive songs that are in progress vs. songs that are complete. If you’ve finished songs and don’t expect to come back to them anytime soon, incorporate a system for backing them up and removing them from your primary work drives.
• Portability: If your projects need to be portable – think about what type of compatibility you’ll have on the receiving end. If the applications are the same, make sure to bring all your source files, as well as any proprietary instrument presets or samples that you’ll need. If the applications are different, make sure to bounce all your tracks out individually, and possibly even consider exporting the files to a standardized format such as OMF.
• Future Proofing: Without a doubt, there will come a time when, in the future, you’ll want to go back to a song from an old version of some applciation that you can no longer run. The result is hours of work lost, or worse…If you truly love the work you do, and value your time, do yourself a favor and archive your songs in such a way as to allow yourself to come back to them. For most of us that means two things: bounce out all your audio tracks as individual track files and export all of your software instrument tracks as MIDI. While your FX and software instrument settings may not carry forward, at least you’ll have the most basic building blocks of audio and MIDI to work with.

Performance Management

A relatively new concept, performance management software continues to make waves both in the studio and on the stage. This type of software allows the performer to organize virtual ‘racks’ of software instruments for manipulation and playback during performance, on a song-by-song basis. Some standout applications in this space:

• Logic Audio’s MainStage: This application offers users the ability to configure sets of instruments, effects, loops, and prerecorded tracks into an intutive and easily controlled interface. The layout is completely customizable, and it is easy for users to map parameters and controls to external MIDI hardware.
• Rax: This app from Audiofile Engineering (which acquired the software from Plasq in 2007) is similar to Apple’s mainstage, but is application agnostic – you provide the plugins, instruments and effects. You organize racks into songs and songs into setlists. It can easily be controlled via Apple Remote and MIDI.
• Ableton Live: The entire basis of Ableton’s flagship software is to make it easy for musicians to perform and create on-the-fly. Live features a powerful two-way view – Session and Performance – that allows the musician to, in a way, change the way they visualize their music. Some prefer a more classic, linear approach, some prefer the realtime or modular approach, and Live accommodates this well.

Conclusion

There are a number of ways that musicians, composers, producers and engineers can improve their skills and workflows. Becoming a great librarian is an important step in the process, because capturing, managing, editing, and working with your ideas should be second nature. Rather than spending hours trying to find the right sample, or recall the right lyric, if these systems are in place, you will find it is easier to write and record your music.

I’d love to hear what tools, applications, and methods you use to organize your song ideas, lyrics, samples, presets, projects and performances. Please let us know in the comments!

The Pattern of The Overtone Series

Here is the overtone series based on a fundamental pitch of C:

For our current purposes the most important thing to notice is that the intervals are spaced widely at the bottom and close together at the top. This will be the fundamental principle we use in chord voicings. Keep the lower voices more than a 5th apart and try keep the upper voices a 5th are less together. More than an octave between upper voices should always be avoided unless for special effect.

Towards the bottom of the series we only have octaves and fifths, it isn’t until the mid to top range that we have thirds and seconds.

Let’s put this knowledge into use.

Voicing A Chord For Strings

When you decide to write a chord for an ensemble of instruments it can feel like there are an unlimited number of possibilities for deciding which pitches to put where. If you want to voice an Em chord and all you know is that you need to have an E, G and B, you can be left guessing what to do with them.

Using the overtone series as a guide, you can instead have a reliable rule of thumb for a voicing that sounds clear, balanced and strong.

We don’t have to follow the series literally pitch by pitch, but we should remember to keep the bottom voices spaced widely apart and the top voices close together.

Here are a few ways to use the 5 instruments of a string section to voice an Em chord, based on the principles learned from the overtone series:

Download audio file (StringsEm.mp3)

Just to prove the point, let’s listen to a less effective voicing, with close intervals in the bottom and wide intervals at the top. I’ll play the more effective voicing immediately after so you can compare:

Download audio file (Ineffective.mp3)

The first voicing feels muddy in the bottom and thin near the top, whereas the second has a supportive bottom and full upper range.

Doubling of the 3rd

As you may have noticed, we were using 5 instruments to play a 3 note chord. This obviously means that some notes are going to have to be doubled.

As a general rule you should double the octave first, the fifth next, and the third last. Again this idea can relate to the overtone series: the third is a higher overtone and therefore a harmonically richer and more complex tone. If too many voicings are playing it, it sticks out to much and can destroy the balance of your chord.

If you’re voicing a first inversion chord (a chord that has the 3rd in the bass), you want to pay special attention to this rule and make sure that you don’t double the 3rd anywhere else in the voicing. Of course this will create a bit wider space in the top, but if we keep the voices within an octave (preferably within a 5th) we’ll be OK.

Download audio file (1stInversion.mp3)

Conclusion

This concept of voicings isn’t just for strings. The principles are true for any grouping of instruments, be they brass, woodwinds, synth pads or human voices. The key takeaway is this: Wide intervals in the bottom, close intervals in the top.

People have been notating music for four thousand years now, and it’s all we have of music that was written before recording was invented. Today it remains an essential tool for every musician, and the ability to read and write some sort of notation is a skill well worth learning.

Here are five ways you can notate your music:

1. Don’t Notate, Record

If you want to get a quick record of a new tune or song idea, the first step might be just to record it. The recording doesn’t have to be of good quality, just enough to help you remember your idea. Unless you are very used to writing notation, the extra time and effort it requires might be just long enough to forget.

Try to keep a small recording device with you at all times, especially when you’re being musical. You may already have one without realizing it. Many MP3 players include the ability to record, as do almost all mobile phones – though you’ll need to add an extra app for your iPhone (like this one). You could also look into purchasing a dedicated voice recording device – the Recording Device Information blog has some great advice on this.

If you were playing your keyboard when inspiration struck, you’ll find that most keyboards today are capable of some sort of music recording. They’ll normally only record what you’re playing, though, not what you’re singing. Or if you’re keyboard is plugged into your computer, you can use computer software to record your ideas. Recording as MIDI will give you more notation options down the track.

2. Chord Charts

A chord chart is simple and common way of notating a song. No special equipment is needed – just pen and paper. And little music expertise is necessary – you just have to know the chords you were playing.

A chord chart gives a general guideline about the song, but doesn’t give the full story. So a chord chart is useless if you want to remember a new melody or rhythmic idea. But it can be helpful to give to your band when you’re teaching them a new song – as long as you’re around to explain how you want the song to go.

There are different ways of writing chord charts. The most basic is to write out the lyrics of the song, and then write the chord names above the words where chord changes occur. This sort of chord chart contains very little musical information, and is popular with beginner musicians (especially guitarists) who are learning to play a song they are very familiar with.

Better still is to write the chords first, with bar lines (usually four bars per line) and time signature. You could also include lyrics, but they are much less necessary with this sort of chart. It is also helpful to include labels for the different parts of the song, including introduction, verse, chorus and bridge. I’m a fan of this sort of chord chart, and normally create mine in a table in a word processor, though it is possible to create one more simply by using the pipe character (“|”) for bars and the slash character (“/”) to mark time.

Finally, you could do the same on some manuscript (music notation) paper, then add some rhythm notation on the staff. If you don’t have any manuscript paper, you can create your own here and here.

3. Get Fake with a Lead Sheet

I learned to play my dad’s old organ by using fakebooks. “Fake” is a simplified form of notation that places chords above the staff, the song melody on the staff, and the lyrics under the staff. Bookshops and websites are full of fakebooks. The ones I learned on even wrote the name of each note on very large note heads, which probably slowed down my learning to read music.

Using this sort of notation for a lead sheet may also be useful to composers. It is simple like a chord chart (including harmony and timing information), and adds melody information. It allows you to capture the basic ingredients of your song quite rapidly. It also allows you to create your notation piece by piece. Start by writing the bars and chords, and add the lyrics and melody line later.

4. Guitar Tablature

Guitar tab is a very popular way for guitarists to write and share exactly what they play. It consists of six lines, representing the six strings of the guitar, with numbers written over the top of the line, indicating which fret to pluck that string on. Time goes from left to right. Rhythm information is not accurately notated.

There are thousands of sites sharing guitar tabs for popular songs, and many software tools for creating guitar tablature. But it’s probably quicker and easier just to print out some blank guitar tab sheets from Blank Sheet Music.net and write out your notation with a pen.

Composers who are guitarists, or writing guitar parts, should seriously consider using guitar tablature. Blank Sheet Music.net also allows you to print your guitar tabs under traditional notation, allowing your to combine fake and tabs on the one sheet.

5. Full Musical Score

This is the traditional way of notating full compositions, and the reason that we can play complex symphonies that were written hundreds of years ago. Few composers today would bother printing an entire score, unless the music was to be played by an orchestra or had a focus on live performance.

Yet it has never been easier to create a musical score than it is today. Many MIDI sequencing programs can print music notation, and there are also a large number of programs dedicated to music notation. Activemusician have a great list of options.

Conclusion

Unless you work alone and have a perfect memory, music notation will play an important part in the composing process. Today we have a wider set of options than ever before, both in terms of method of notation, and tools for creating it.

How do you notate your songs, and what are your favourite tools?

Step 1

Fire up Reason and create a new project. I’m going to open a Thor and a Redrum and throw a reverb unit on the mixer. It’s not necessary to do this to learn the technique, but it’s better to hear the changes as they’re occurring so you get a grip on the tools you’re learning about.

If you want to follow along, right click the empty rack and create a Thor Polysonic Synthesizer. Right click the empty rack again and create a Redrum Drum Computer. Finally, I’m going to right-click the Mixer, head down to the Create submenu, and load an RV7000 Advanced Reverb unit — this has nothing to do with the tutorial but I can’t stand the sound of dry programmed drums.

Step 2

Switch into Edit Mode, or turn on your MIDI controller, and record a few clips that you can line up in the sequencer repeatedly as you audition tempo changes. There doesn’t need to be much; a section as long as one bar is fine.

Try and make it somewhat pleasant to listen to because you’ll be hearing this for a while as you explore tempo and time signature automation.

Step 3

The first thing to do is set your baseline tempo. Baseline tempo is the tempo that will Reason will apply where no modifying automation data has been set. To save yourself a lot of work and clip drawing, this should be the tempo that the majority of the song takes place in.

To do this, locate the tempo setting on the Transport bar, in between the click track settings and the transport locators. You can use the arrows next to the number to change the value, or you can click the tempo number and type a new one in.

For my purposes, 120 BPM is as good a tempo as any, so I’ll leave this as is.

Step 4

In the list of tracks in your sequencer window, the top should always be the Transport track. Locate this and use the arrow on the right of it to expand it. There’s not really anything to be revealed by expanding it yet, but we’re about to change that.

Right click on the Transport track and click on the menu option Parameter Automation. When the dialogue box opens up, check both Time Signature and Tempo, and press OK.

Now, when expanded, the Transport track has to lanes available for editing:

Step 5

Draw a clip with the Pencil tool in the part of the song where you want to modify the tempo. I recommend having to Snap to Grid enabled with the snap setting on Bar, to ensure your clips begin and end on the bar.

You can select the clip and press Enter or Return to edit the tempo with the Pencil tool in Arrange mode, but you’ll find this method fairly inaccurate to work with. I recommend flipping over to Edit mode and double-clicking on the clip there to edit it.

Step 6

Once in Edit mode you can still draw crazy tempo patterns with the pencil tool like so:

Of course these are rarely practical. In most instances, you’ll want to set the tempo for the duration of the clip. Matching clips to sections of the song is also handy later if you chose to move that entire section — all you’ll need to do is move the tempo clip rather than program a new one in the section’s new location.

The quickest way to set the tempo of the clip is to use the Pencil to place a single dot in the clip. It doesn’t matter where you place the dot because Reason changes the tempo at the start of the clip based on the value of the first dot, even if the first dot doesn’t appear until later in the clip.

Click on the dot (you can tell which dot is selected as it is totally black, rather than white with a black outline) in order to change its value. On the toolbar above the edit window, there’s a setting labeled Value. This is the value of the automation point you have selected, and this allows you to set your tempo precisely — of course, tempo needs to be precise, so drawing and dragging is rarely suitable.

Step 7

Now let’s automate the time signature. As with the tempo, the first thing you’ll want to do is set the baseline time signature. The project time signature is located underneath the tempo setting on the Transport bar and works in much the same way:

The default time signature is 4/4, and the vast majority of modern songs are in this time signature. I’m going to leave the project setting as is and move on to automation.

Step 8

Time signature automation also works on clips, but differs slightly in that there’s no drawing done within the clip. Each clip represents one time signature change. Drop a clip in the location you’d like to see a change:

Step 9

You’ll find that you can’t double click on this clip to edit it. Whether you’re in Edit mode or Arrange mode, you’ll see a dropdown menu instead. It has several preset common time signatures in it, and an “Other” option. The signature I want is not in the common list, so I’m going to click on Other and set my own.

Click OK when finished, and it’s set — wherever I place that clip, the song will change to 7/8 time.

This track has been submitted for your friendly, constructive criticism. They have put their track (and their heart and soul) in your hands to learn and get useful feedback.

• Do you enjoy the song or track itself? Does it have potential?
• Can the arrangement be improved?
• How did you find the mix? What would you do differently?
• What do you enjoy about the rhythm track? What can be done to improve it?
• Is the choice of instruments relevant and effective for the style/song?
• Are the lyrics (if any) effective? Does the style, arrangement and genre of the song suit them?
• Can you suggest any specific techniques that might improve the track?
• Do you have any other constructive feedback?

Dance Wit Me by Rae Valentine

Artist’s website: www.raemix.com/

Description of the track:

Music produced, written and performed by Rae Valentine.

Download audio file (DanceWitMe.mp3)

Terms of Use: Users can stream the track for the purposes of giving feedback but cannot download or redistribute it.

Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.

Submit Your Tracks for Workshopping

Need constructive criticism on your own tracks? Submit them using this form.

This leads most producers working with audio designers to chop down the audio assets to as small a size as possible. The result: themes songs only 4 measures long, level music that is one annoying loop over and over, or only three UI sounds used ad nausem for everything. By using concatenation, you can avoid these pitfalls, creating longer, richer, and more responsive audio experiences from a small, unique pool of audio files, cleverly circumventing your memory limitations.

Example 1: Timer

Step 1

Let’s take a simple example first. Here is a 30 second timer I created for a trivia game, entitled “Climb”. It is in 4/4, at 85bpm, and is 30 seconds long. At 16-bit/44.1k stereo, this linear AIFF file is 5.2MB. A producer may tell you: this is too big, write something shorter. A shorter piece may save memory space, but might not sound as rich, and the gameplay / app experience may feel repetitive with a shorter piece as well.

The Full Timer

Download audio file (1_ClimbFull.mp3)

Step 2

Here’s where concatenation comes in. Concatenation is a computer programming term which simply means stringing unique elements into an order to make one linear expression. Let’s do this with “Climb”.

As you can hear by listening to it, and see by examing the wave file in Logic, the timer consists of essentially four sections:

1. the sparse introduction,
2. the middle section with a key change, bell, and bass line
3. the pulsing section in yet another key change
4. the stinger ending

Let’s break those up in Logic by using the Scissor Tool. Set your Snap setting to “Smart” or “Bar”, choose the Scissor Tool, and make a snip at measures 5, 9, and 11.

Step 3

Most commercial music uses popular forms, and pop music – be it rock, rap, hip-hop country, jazz – has so much repetition. Our goal in concatenation is to find what measures / beats / units repeat, and break those down to be our Unique Cell Pool. Let’s do that for each of our four sections.

Set your loop cycle between measure 1 and 5, to study the First Section. Listening to it and watching the waveform, it is essentially just one measure, repeated 4 times. Take your Scissor Tool, and make a snip at Measure 2. Bounce this measure down as its own file, and label it Cell 1.

Cell 1 – bounced

Download audio file (2_Cell1.mp3)

Set your loop cycle between measure 5 and 9, to study the Second Section. It is similar in structure to Section 1: essentially just one measure, repeated 4 times. Take your Scissor Tool, and make a snip at measure 5 and 6. Bounce this measure down as it’s own file, and label it Cell 2.

Cell 2 – bounced

Download audio file (3_Cell2.mp3)

Set your loop cycle between measure 9 and 11, to study the Third Section. This is a bit different: it is really just one quarter note section, repeated eight times. Take your Scissor Tool, and make a snip right at the beginning of measure 9 and on the second quarter note beat of Measure 9. Bounce this down as it’s own file, and label it Cell 3.

Cell 3 – bounced

Download audio file (4_Cell3.mp3)

Set your loop cycle between measure 11 and 12, to study the Fourth Section. This is a unique, one-time event, a descending end stinger. Take your Scissor Tool, and make a snip at measure 11. Bounce this measure down as it’s own file, and label it Cell 4.

Cell 4 – bounced

Download audio file (5_Cell4.mp3)

Step 4

Now – let’s reassemble this timer. Keep the original timer up in your Logic file, on the Audio 1 track. Create a second audio track, underneath Audio 1. Import Cells 1, 2, 3 and 4 into your Bin.

We need to eventually communicate the math to a programmer. So to keep your mindset in this mode, we will be placing individual cells on the timeline, as opposed to using Logic’s loop mode.

Use the Cells like Legos, and assemble them on Track 2 to match the original timer:

1. Place 4 instances of Cell 1 between Measure 1 and Measure 5
2. Place 4 instances of Cell 2 between Measure 5 and Measure 9
3. Place 8 instances of Cell 3 between Measure 9 and Measure 11
4. Place 1 instance of Cell 4 right at Measure 11

Step 5 – Deliverables

If you had the memory of a desktop / laptop app running on a robust operating system, you would just hand off the linear timer as one file. The programmer would write a code that states: "When the Start button is released for a game, play ‘ClimbTimer.mp3′".

But for concatenation, here’s what you hand off to your programmer:

1. The 4 Cells
2. This equation for the timer:

   Cell1 + Cell1 + Cell1 + Cell1 + Cell2 + Cell2 + Cell2 + Cell2 + Cell3 + Cell3 + Cell3 + Cell3 + Cell3 + Cell3 + Cell3 + Cell3 + Cell 4

Step 6 – Savings

How much memory did we save for our mobile app? Remember: the original linear timer was 5.2MB, at 16-bit/44.1k stereo AIFF. Here’s the breakdown of our individual concatenation cells, also at 16-bit/44.1k stereo AIFF:

1. Cell 1 = 488KB
2. Cell 2 = 488KB
3. Cell 3 = 124KB
4. Cell 4 = 488KB

TOTAL = 1.58MB

We just saved ourselves and our team 3.6MB. And yet, we have the same linear audio experience – the timer’s integrity and content was not sacrificed in any way. Now we have room for more art assets – or even more audio.

Example 2: Creating More Detail and Fluidity

Our first example was great for demonstration purposes, as it was a very symmetrical, square composition, with everything ending on the bar or on the beat. However, our compositions are not always that neat and tidy. And we might want elements to change over time. Yet – memory, as always, remains an issue.

Let’s do another example where we create more detail, and concatenate in more asymmetrical fashions.

Step 1

Below is a timer based on the one in Example 1. It is also in 4/4, and at 85bpm. However – something is different.

The Full Timer

Download audio file (6_Climb_53sec.mp3)

First of all, it is closer to 60 seconds long. And there are some additional musical elements that gradually reveal themselves, giving a richer, more progressive experience. At 16-bit/44.1k stereo, this linear AIFF file weighs in at 9MB.

Let’s take a closer look and analyze this timer, comparing it to our original timer. Again, with concatenation, you are always searching to see what elements repeat, and can be made individual cells to be strung together later.

Step 2

The first half of this timer, between Measure 1 and 9, is exactly the same as our original 30 second timer. Measure one repeats 4 times, and measure five repeats 4 times. Go ahead and take your scissor tool and make a cut right on the bar at Measure 2, and right on the bar at Mesaure 5 and Measure 6.

Starting at 9, something new happens. The base of Measure 9 through 12 is the same as Measure 1, however, at the end of each measure, starting at the end of Beat 3, a synth figure comprised of six 16th notes occurs.

Further listening reveals: the synth lick occurs at a low octave first, panned Left; the second lick occurs in an upper octave, panned Right; and the last note of the last synth lick occurance end on a totally new note, on top of the next section, starting on measure 13.

Here’s how we will slice this up:

A. To make way for the eventual synth lick, go back to Measure 1. Place your loop tool to contain the first 16th note in Measure 1. Bounce this down as "Cell 1".

Cell 1

B. Place your loop tool to start at the beginning of the second 16th note in Measure 1 and end of the third 16th note on Beat 3 of Measure 1. Bounce this down as "Cell 2".

Cell 2

C. Place your loop tool to start on the fourth 16th note of Beat 3 in Measure 1 and end right on the bar of Measure 2. Bounce this down as "Cell 3".

Cell 3

D. Now go to Measure 9. The synth lick in the low octave on the Left occurs twice in this section, in the same manner. Put your loop tool at the start of the synth lick – on the fourth 16th note of Beat 3 – and end right on the second 16th note on the first beat of Measure 10. Bounce this down as "Cell 4".

Cell 4

E. The next synth lick in this section – the high octave one on the Right – is a little different, in that it’s second appearance in Measure 12 ends with a different note. So put your loop tool to start on the fourth 16th note of Beat 3 in Measure 10, and end right on the bar of Measure 11. Bounce this down as "Cell 5". Then put your loop tool around just that first 16th note on the first beat of Measure 11, and bounce that down as "Cell 6". Then put your loop tool around just the first 16th note on the first beat of Measure 13, and bounce that down as "Cell 7".

Cell 5

Cell 6

Cell 7

Moving to the next section: we have the base music the same as the 5th measure cell in our original timer, but now we have a bell lick that occurs, four times, panned right in the center. The last time the lick occurs, the final note is different, for the key change section starting at Measure 17. So let’s slice this up:

A. Got to Measure 5. Place the loop tool around the first 16th note, and bounce it down as "Cell 8"

Cell 8

B. Place the loop tool to start right on the second 16th note of Beat 1 in Measure 5, and end on the start of the second beat. Bounce this down as "Cell 9".

Cell 9

C. Place the loop tool to start right on the second beat, and end at the beginning of the fourth 16th note of the third beat, and bounce this down as "Cell 10".

Cell 10

D. Place the loop tool to start on the fourth 16th note of the third beat and end on the bar of Measure 6, and bounce this down as "Cell 11".

Cell 11

E. Go to Measure 13. Let’s bounce down this bell lick. Place the loop tool on the fourth 16th note of the third beat, and end right on the bar of Measure 14. Bounce this down as "Cell 12".

Cell 12

F. Place the loop tool arond the first entire beat of Measure 14 – the sustained final note of the bell lick – and bounce that beat down as "Cell 13".

Cell 13

G. Go to Measure 17. The sustained note of the final bell lick is different here, it needs to be it’s own cell. Place the loop tool around the first bear of Measure 17, and bounce down as "Cell 14".

Cell 14

Now let’s analyze the final section. Measure 17 to Measure 19 is similiar to the end section of the original timer, with the only exception being the last note of the bell lick that occurs right on Measure 17. So let’s do this:

A. Place the loop tool to bounce down the entire second beat of Measure 17 – the quarter note. Label this "Cell 15".

Cell 15

B. Bounce down all of Measure 19 – the end stinger – as one file, labeling it "Cell 16".

Cell 16

Step 3

Whew! That was a fair amount of surgery. But now let’s reassemble, and see the magic happen.

Import your new Cells 1 through 16 into your audio bin. Create a audio new track in the Logic file, and begin to assemble your new track using the pool of audio cells, using the following equation:

[Cell1 + Cell2 + Cell3] X 4

+ [Cell8 + Cell9 + Cell10+Cell11] X 4

+ Cell1 + Cell 2 + Cell4 + Cell2 + Cell5 + Cell6 + Cell 2 + Cell4 + Cell2 + Cell5

+ Cell7 + Cell9

+ [Cell10 + Cell12 + Cell13] X 3

+ Cell10 + Cell12 + Cell14

+ [Cell 15] X7

+ Cell16

You have now created the original 60-second timer, but using concatenation instead of a linear file.

Step 4

And now for the pay off. Remember: our linear file of this timer came in at 9MB. So how much did we save via concatenation?

1. Cell 1 = 32KB
2. Cell 2 = 308KB
3. Cell 3 = 156KB
4. Cell 4 = 184KB
5. Cell 5 = 156KB
6. Cell 6 = 32KB
7. Cell 7 = 32KB
8. Cell 8 = 32KB
9. Cell 9 = 92KB
10. Cell 10 = 216KB
11. Cell 11 = 156KB
12. Cell 12 = 156KB
13. Cell 13 = 124KB
14. Cell 14 = 124KB
15. Cell 15 = 124KB
16. Cell 16 = 488KB

TOTAL = 2.41MB

We just saved ourselves and our team 6.59MB.

Additional Tips

• With the same pool of unique cells in Example 2, you can make both the 60 second timer in Example 2 and the 30 second timer in Example 1.
• Using Timer 1: for games, you could have Cell 1 loop until the player gets to a new level, then have the music loop Cell 2, etc.
• For concatenated audio, it’s best to avoid excessive reverb that bleeds over the bar or beyond logical cuts, requiring additional cells. If real estate is limited, use dry sounds as much as possible, and keep reverbs / delays into strategically located places.

What is an Overtone

In order to understand the overtone series (also referred to as the Harmonic Series) you must first understand what an overtone is. I’ll try to explain it without getting too deep into the science of acoustics.

As you probably know, when you play a pitch you are hearing a specific frequency. For example, most musicians tune to an A that vibrates at 440 Hz.

What you may not realize is that on top of that fundamental pitch of A 440 you are also hearing a series of overtones, other pitches that are mathematically related to your fundamental pitch. So when you hear A 440, you are also hearing the overtone at a ratio of 1:2, or 880 Hz. And you’re hearing 1:4, 1760 Hz, etc.

Because the fundamental pitch is so prominent, these overtones are usually felt more than they are heard.

The Overtone Series

Here is the overtone series based on the fundamental pitch of C. Each successive pitch is weaker in strength and importance than the one before it.

The series begins with an octave, followed by a fifth and then back to the next octave.

Next we have the major third, the next fifth, and then the b7.

Finally we have the next octave up (notice how after a pitch class has been introduced once, it becomes used every octave), the 9th, major 3rd, #11, fifth, 13, b7, major 7, and finally another octave.

What To Notice

There are a few things that are significant about this series of notes. The first is that as we go higher up the series, the notes get closer together. This makes sense if you think about it. If you have a 12 inch ruler and you cut it in half, the ends are closer together. Cut it in half and they’re closer together again. Nothing too astonishing.

Next thing to notice is that the octave and fifth appear earliest and most regularly, followed by the 3rd and 7th, then followed by tensions 9, #11 and 13. The higher up the series we go, the more harmonically dense it is and more complex it sounds.

The Overtone Series Throughout History

The overtone series can actually be used to trace the progression of harmonic development through Western music. As George Frederick McKay points out in The Technique of Modern Harmony, different eras throughout musical history became more accepting of higher reaching chord tones in conjunction with the overtone series.

Octaves and 5ths are primal intervals, natural to ancient music. The use of the third became prominent in the Renaissance and with composers such as Palestrina in the 1500s. Bach and his contemporaries began to exploit the 7th in the 16th and 17th centuries. The 9th didn’t become an important chord tone until the time of Wagner in the mid 19th Century, and the extended tones of #11 and 13th weren’t commonly accepted until the music of early 20th century composers like Debussy and Stravinsky.

Where To Go From Here

This tutorial is just a quick tip to make you familiar with the overtone series and get you to begin thinking about its implications. In future tutorials we’ll discuss how you can use this knowledge to your advantage when voicing chords and adding extra color to your harmony with tensions.

1. Singing Lessons: Part 1- Vocal Warm Up Exercises

“This 4 part Singing Lesson video series is a gift from me to all the other singers out there who have shown me such great luv and support. It contains a full vocal warmup with voice exercises that will improve tone, expand your range, and increasing diaphragm control.”

2. Singing Lessons: Part 2 – Freeing Your Voice Range

“This second singing lesson video, we talk about expanding the voice range. These voice exercises will help you sing high notes & have more power and clarity in your singing.”

3. Vocal Training- Warm up Part 3 – Improving Tone Exercises

“By relaxing the throat open, we can improve the resonance and freedom of the voice. These vocal training exercises exercises will bring richness to your tone, and can help to free your vibrato.”

4. Vocal Training: Warm up Part 4 – Throat Exercises

“The combination of an effortless low breath and a fully relaxed throat allows the vocal folds to vibrate freely. The exercises mentioned on this part of the vocal training video aid in training the tongue to remain gently arched upward and forward, while relaxing the back of the throat.”

5. Top 3 Tips To Help You Sing Better

“In this video, I share 3 tips to help you sing better. This is a response to the large number of vocal coach questions I get about the voice. I hope it helps. “

6. Learn to Sing like a Pro! Haley Mcguire

“Hi there, would you like to learn to sing like Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus or me. Fulfil your dreams.”

7. How to Sing Better like Paramore!

“Do YOU want to Learn How To Sing Better instantly, like Hayley Williams or Sing High Notes, Vibrato, Sing Better Instantly?”

8. Vocal Technique: Lecture 1 – Respiration

“This is a series of Lectures designed to give the viewer an insight into the technical side of vocal training. Don’t hesitate to ask any questions here in the comments section or visit my website at www.nicholastamagna.com.”

9. Vocal Technique: Lecture 2a – Phonation

“This is a series of Lectures designed to give the viewer an insight into the technical side of vocal training. Don’t hesitate to ask any questions here in the comments section or visit my website at www.nicholastamagna.com.”

10. Lesley Findlay Intro 1

“Singing Teacher from Montreal, Canada describes some basic points about Vocal Pedagogy or Singing. Vocal Support, Phonation, Vocal Attack, Resonance and Anchoring.”

11. Lesley Findlay Intro 2

“Singing Teacher from Montreal, Canada describes some basic points about Vocal Pedagogy or Singing. Vocal Support, Phonation, Vocal Attack, Resonance and Anchoring.”

12. Lesley Findlay Intro 3

“Singing Teacher from Montreal, Canada describes some basic points about Vocal Pedagogy or Singing. Vocal Support, Phonation, Vocal Attack, Resonance and Anchoring.”

13. Lesson #1 Overview of Pitch Speaking

“Pitch speaking is a very effective way of improving your singing voice. This is an introduction to this method.”

14. Lesson #4 Resonance

“What is resonance and how pitch speaking will help you attain it. Humming is a great exercise.”

15. Vocal Techniques, Exercises, and Tips

“My video that teaches a few things I know, hopefully it’ll help others as well. Teaches scale exercises, proper diaphragm use and how to strengthen it, and also a vocal relaxation exercise.”

Conclusion

So, there you are – 15 different videos all aiming to improve your vocals. Which did you find more helpful? What did you learn? Do you have any vocal tips you would like to add? Let us know in the comments.