My Road to Editing.

FINALLY

I've finally finished all my recording. Well... most of it. You see, as a musician who's recording, I tend to hold high standards for my work. Which is why during my editing sessions I seemed to enjoy cutting out snippets from my tracks and re-recording.

Before I could do any of that, however, I had to first learn what I needed to change and which preset/tool would change what.

When a track is recorded it may not sound the way that the artists want. Some artists like to add the notorious auto-tune. Other artists like to add the "basic" effects. When coming into this project I had absolutely no knowledge of these effects what-so-ever. Which is why I did some research. I soon discovered that there were three main effects that all artists used:



1. Compression: When audio is recorded, the raw format is comprised of different volume levels. This may be a result from different stresses on different notes/words, the clarity of the diction, or even the distance of the vocalist from the microphone. According to this site the compression unit (either as a machine or as a preset in the Digital Audio Workstation) equalizes the volume. This helps keep the volume be more consistent and neutralizes most of the annoying thuds from over-exaggerated "b"s or "p"s (trust me this problem is a pain in the neck). I also had to learn about what to adjust when working with compression. There are five main parts to compressing audio: Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release, and Gain. All compression units will have these as knobs in that exact order. Threshold basically allows the user to set a level at which the compression starts: any decibel under that level will not be changed and everything above that level will be equalized. The ratio sets the degree at which the compression takes place: certain levels of ratio can make the volume higher or lower. The attack and release control the beginning and end volume of each sound. The gain just controls the overall volume. Here is a site which explains the whole process in a little more detail.

This was mostly "Lemme crank this up/down to see what happens"

2. Equalizer: The equalizer, oddly enough is somewhat similar to the compression.  When recording there may be sudden bursts of sound (i.e. when a person yelps on purpose [I don't know why someone would do that, ask Marcus Mumford] or some random note that's just so happens to be clearer). A person would use an equalizer to bring down all those random noises and create a over all even volume level. The difference between this and a compression is that the compression controls the whole sound itself from the beginning to the end and helps to control the overall volume of the track. Equalizers, however, keep the whole track smooth, so there aren't sudden bursts of random noises. It also more specific than a compression: as shown in the graphic, the user can control the levels of certain decibels (read that a couple times it makes sense). Here and here are two sites that I used to understand equalizing (I didn't really understand the concept until I came upon these two sites). As shown in both sites, there are many types of equalizing tools. I so happened to use a graphic equalizer, which I found easier to use. I used to have Ableton Live, which used the freeform equalizer, and trust me, playing around with what seems like a basic line mountain is terribly frustrating...

WOO! Pretty colors!

3. Reverb: Sometimes, tracks can sound boring and bland. Trust me, my original indie song (there is another story I'll explain later) was terribly bland until I got frustrated and opened my iTunes to listen to music (bear with me). I clicked on a Mumford and Sons song and started to listen. Yet, this time was different, since I started to note what made their songs so great. I noted a certain amount of compression but... there was something else I could quite put a finger on. But it kept coming back... and I realized that there was the tiniest hint of an echo to Marcus' words. So I went on trusty ole' Google and typed in "echo in music". Nothing. I kept searching. There had to be something out there that made this magical echo come to life. Quickly, I was exposed to the word "reverb". This was a new concept to me. I pulled up my trusty friend, Musicianself, and started to read this article.  I learned that reverb was just a series of delays where the end of the track itself as repeated in a quick consection. The echo was repeated with a less volume and a little bit of distortion. I happily obliged and added it to my track.

This made me sound cool

After cramming all that information into my tiny noggin I felt like this:

About the Indie Song:
Unfortunately I will not be including my indie song. For a few reasons, some personal (mostly) and some technical.
I actually had to find out the hard way that my voice isn't cut out for indie rock. Which is fine, because if you have ever heard Pavoratti sing rock, with all due respect, it sound's terrible. Yet, I came into this assignment with excitement that I might finally be able to sing a little like Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons. Nope. Guess not.
I mean it was a little disappointing but afterwards I was kind of glad I didn't do it... I don't want to end up embarrassing myself. The technical aspect was that the microphone didn't pick up the low-ends of the instruments used well. Even with all the compression, the bass ended up just sounding like a low buzz. Not good.

So I replaced it with a generic classic.
Good bye indie, hello musical theatre.
Yes I've replaced it with Stars from Les Miserables, a song that I am extremely familiar with, and something I could whip up in a couple minutes since I've already committed the song to memory (no it's not because I'm obsessed with Les Miserables but it's because of the endless amount of recitals I've used this with.). It's a song that utilizes my bass range which has really developed in the recent years.

With that in mind, I shall also be changing the album name. IF THERE IS ONE MUSICIANSHIP LESSON YOU WANT TO LEARN FROM ME, it's don't name your album before it's done. As I mentioned in the vlog, I wanted to do an EP on the idea of being relaxed. Yet, as time passed, my songs became deeper and a little more emotionally charged.

So another here's another good-bye to Calmbone, and hello to Flying.

Eat Sleep Chill.