The sounds in my head.

Stompbox

Been playing music consistently for four years now and have developed a relatively strong musical awareness over that time. The main aspect of my musicality that I feel I'm lacking in however is my ability to communicate the musical ideas in my head into a tangible sound on my instruments. Can anyone direct me to some online resources perhaps that can lead me through both the basics and intricacies of sound production? If I hear a particular tone or sound effect in my head, what know-how could I avail of that would help me replicate it on an amp or software? Thanks!

madtheory

The book "Mixing with your mind" has some good exercises, especially the one on using a compressor.

This book seems pretty good too, I'm using it for course work:
http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Production-Critical-Listening-Technical/dp/0240812956

PaulBrewer

More experience is what you need really .... and that's a product of time.

Things like recognizing certain instruments, a Tele against a Les Paul for example or Phasing instead of Flanging come with using them.

It's the same in the synth world a 303 against a MiniMoog or whatever.

4 years isn't a long time in music !

Keep plugging away ...

krd

This is one of the problems I have at the minute.

I can get a strong idea in my head but once I try to get started on the DAW, I get distracted by trying to build the sounds and loose most of the crucial parts of the idea.

I'm trying to figure out a way around this. Experience is one thing - having a good method is another thing. Once you know how to do something it can take seconds to do it - where if you don't it can take weeks of fffing around.

Developing a good method can be difficult too. And


I'm considering trying different things.

Like writing the ideas down on paper. Playing them back as much as possible in my head and writing everything down - and not touching the DAW until the idea is so firm nothing will distract me or make me lose it. But I'm not sure how I would write these ideas down.

I've also considered writing a list of of everything I know or have learned - and practising them.

And writing a list of everything I don't know and just setting myself exercises to find out how to do these things. Without getting distracted.

PaulBrewer

krd wrote: »

having a good method is another thing.

...which comes with ??

old gregg

I spoke recently with one of the lads around here who said that he sometimes sings/hums/whistles musical ideas into a portable recorder/phone and then drops the .wav file into Melodyne which allows him to convert to midi. After that it's just endless fun with a DAW.

Android 666

PaulBrewer wrote: »

...which comes with ??

a side order of fries?

Seziertisch

Sweet wrote: »

Been playing music consistently for four years now and have developed a relatively strong musical awareness over that time. The main aspect of my musicality that I feel I'm lacking in however is my ability to communicate the musical ideas in my head into a tangible sound on my instruments. Can anyone direct me to some online resources perhaps that can lead me through both the basics and intricacies of sound production? If I hear a particular tone or sound effect in my head, what know-how could I avail of that would help me replicate it on an amp or software? Thanks!

That's one of the burning questions.

There was recently a thread discussing the posit that if a song can't be performed with one instrument and voice then it isn't a great song. I basically agree with this, insofar as even if something isn't a song per say it should still be based on a strong idea.

That said, the sound of the recording is almost as important (if not more important) in many cases. For example, in a house track the fact that there is kick drum that repeats itself every bar or whatever is almost secondary on some level to how that kick drum sounds. Though ultimately it is the sound of that kick and how it works within the arrangement as well as how it interacts sonically with the other elements in the track that is decisive.

For more traditional band style stuff, I think the same is true. Sure you can be a great player with great ideas with just a starter guitar and a practice amp, but a lot of the time that isn't enough. The sound (ideally the sound in your head) is really important. I have seen it myself, giving the right guitar/amp/effects combination to the right player will result in a performance/moment of inspiration that with another set up wouldn't have been forthcoming.

Slash, when talking about his guitar playing on the first Velvet Revolver album, lamented the set up in the studio. He said he usually liked to record with him in the control room, his amps in the live room and the monitors in the control room cranked. For some reason (I can't remember exactly) they weren't able to crank the monitors in the control room and he felt that this really affected his soloing/improvisation, resulting in what he felt to be some not terribly exciting playing by his standards. However, you go online and you will find numerous guys opining that it doesn't matter what gear you use; if you are a great player that will shine through regardless. Not so in my experience. If the monitoring level alone was enough to put Slash off his game, I wonder what giving him a starter guitar and amp lacking the response that he requires to be at the top of his game would do. Similarly, you get the right mic in front of the right singer with the right headphone mix and all of a sudden their performance steps up a gear (or two if you are lucky).

With a bunch of starter instruments, a budget interface and a few plugins you can definitely start playing/recording, after all there is still a learning curve to playing and making music separate from the gear, and you have only been making music for 4 years, which for most people really isn't long enough to have come into their own. I think it is good that you have a sound in your head, a lot of people don't. Speaking from my own experience taking the "sound in my head" approach to your music is something that you have to find out for yourself. The way is the goal, as much as anything else. Be it trying out different capacitors in your amp, or chaining a bunch of compressors together in the studio, trial and error is required, and in my experience money as well, unfortunately. When it comes to musical equipment in the broadest sense, you get what you pay for most of the time, and depending on how specific the sound you are after sometimes splashing for it is the only way.

Good luck.

madtheory

That Slash story seems odd.

It's not hard to get your equipment to a level where you're not hindered by it. While it can cost money, it's not as much as some gearslutz would lead you to believe.

There's no substitute for "knowing how". If you can play proficiently, are good on music theory and you have science based training, there's nothing to stop you. You can easily learn about analogue electronics and gain a working knowledge of digital audio.

dasdog

Isn't the ability of being able to translate music in the mind to instruments the art of really being able to play? I hear orchestral music or jazz combo tunes which I can switch on/off...kind of like an imaginary mp3 player but there's not a hope I'll ever be able to repro them. Simple melodies, yes if I can get to a guitar or whatever and hit record in time. But spiraling solo's, I'm the only one that's ever going to hear them because I'm a very limited player. Things do however happen by accident through routine or otherwise and DAW's etc do lend themselves to the mind to actual audio translation process.

krd

dasdog wrote: »

Isn't the ability of being able to translate music in the mind to instruments the art of really being able to play? I hear orchestral music or jazz combo tunes which I can switch on/off...kind of like an imaginary mp3 player but there's not a hope I'll ever be able to repro them. Simple melodies, yes if I can get to a guitar or whatever and hit record in time. But spiraling solo's, I'm the only one that's ever going to hear them because I'm a very limited player. Things do however happen by accident through routine or otherwise and DAW's etc do lend themselves to the mind to actual audio translation process.

This is a reason people learn to write music. Get the training and develop the discipline where they can score the music they dream up. People who compose for orchestras can not play all the instruments they write for. This is the case and always has been the case. Composers have tended not to be virtuoso musicians. Classical composers tended only to play one or two instruments. By the time they got their score to an orchestra everything had to be worked out already - with zero creative input from the musicians.

Some universities study composition. Where the composers/musicians would be able to accurately score on paper snippets of melodies, tempo and mood - just as if they were writing English.

Faffing around with the DAW is not really the way to go - as it's the DAW leading the composition. It's fine to a point

I used to be able to read music but I'm out of practice. If I was well practised in it and practised transposition from ear - than I'm sure I could jot down ideas accurately and then pop them in the DAW without getting distracted and losing the idea.

krd

PaulBrewer wrote: »

...which comes with ??

My brother knew a guy, who played guitar upside down. He wasn't left handed or anything like it. He had wanted to learn guitar, so he bought one and a book and taught himself how to play. Only by the time he had learned to play (my brother said he was really good) did he realise he was holding the thing upside down and it was too late for him to bother learning how to play it the right way up.

This experience thing has taken me to a lot upside guitars.

dasdog

krd wrote: »

This is a reason people learn to write music. Get the training and develop the discipline where they can score the music they dream up. People who compose for orchestras can not play all the instruments they write for. This is the case and always has been the case. Composers have tended not to be virtuoso musicians. Classical composers tended only to play one or two instruments. By the time they got their score to an orchestra everything had to be worked out already - with zero creative input from the musicians.

Some universities study composition. Where the composers/musicians would be able to accurately score on paper snippets of melodies, tempo and mood - just as if they were writing English.

Faffing around with the DAW is not really the way to go - as it's the DAW leading the composition. It's fine to a point

I used to be able to read music but I'm out of practice. If I was well practised in it and practised transposition from ear - than I'm sure I could jot down ideas accurately and then pop them in the DAW without getting distracted and losing the idea.

Yep, agree with what you say but with DAW's but I suppose it depends on what the way to go is? To get to a high standard of "mind to music" I'd need to go back twenty years and start getting music grades for starters. The scribing talent and work ethic of Frank Zappa and the playing ability of John Coltrane wouldn't go astray either i.e., it's a rare skill achieved through having lots of natural talent and committing to many years of hard work.

krd

dasdog wrote: »

Yep, agree with what you say but with DAW's but I suppose it depends on what the way to go is? To get to a high standard of "mind to music" I'd need to go back twenty years and start getting music grades for starters. The scribing talent and work ethic of Frank Zappa and the playing ability of John Coltrane wouldn't go astray either i.e., it's a rare skill achieved through having lots of natural talent and committing to many years of hard work.

It mightn't be as hard as you think - you may not need to go back a learn to read and write music. I intend to get up to scratch on it again. But not this very moment. Learning these things may not be as difficult as it looks - just finding some exercises or etudes to - there are only 12 notes - might be only as hard as learning to program a drum grid (that's another thing)

In music production these days it's not all about the notes. There's lots of things that have nothing to do with notes. Or not that much.

John Coltrane used to say, learn all the notes then forget them.

Seziertisch

madtheory wrote: »

That Slash story seems odd.

It's not hard to get your equipment to a level where you're not hindered by it. While it can cost money, it's not as much as some gearslutz would lead you to believe.

There's no substitute for "knowing how". If you can play proficiently, are good on music theory and you have science based training, there's nothing to stop you. You can easily learn about analogue electronics and gain a working knowledge of digital audio.

How does the Slash story seem odd? The guy admits that part of him feeling that he can really let loose is having it loud. It is no more odd than a singer reacting to and performing according to what they are hearing in their cans.

Also, the title of this thread is "The sounds in my head", not "what do I need to make adequate recordings". If the sound you are hearing in your head for example involves a lot of transformer saturation, an MBox isn't going to get you there. And the reason I picked transformer saturation is that a lot of what people like about classic recordings is the sound of transformers (in both mics as well as pres/eqs/comps etc.) at varying levels of saturation. Transformer equipment tends to be expensive. In my experience no amount of skillful engineering can magically create this sound out of thin air. No more than if you are hearing a Moog bass line in your head, a plug-in is going to be able to give you the exact same thing. Sure that plug-in has advantages (programmability, multiple instances etc.) and probably sounds good in its own right, but again don't be surprised if it is not the sound in your head.

I'm not saying that good recordings can't be done inexpensively, but in my experience in terms of achieving the sounds in my head, I have more often than not found inexpensive equipment to not give me said sounds, whereas with a lot of expensive equipment the first time I heard it my reaction was yeah, that's it.

You could also say the same thing about room acoustics; sure you can treat a small room to make it sound usable, but it will never sound like a room on par with the likes of Abbey Road or somewhere. If a Abbey Road or similar sound is what you hear in your head, then the first step towards getting this is leaving your small (but not necessarily bad sounding) room and finding a space to record in which corresponds to what you want to hear. Invariably this is also going to cost money.

As for the sounds in your head, i find, either a dynamic mic right up to your ear, or a LDC about a foot back, pointing at your hairline..

If you're still not having any joy, have you got a template set up?..with close enough sounds to what you might be going for..for instance a drum machine ready to go, a bass, and maybe a couple of synths just set up so you dont have to worry about sounds yet, you can just start banging on things and making noise..

Actually, on re-reading the OP, it sounds like you could do with learning how a synth works..its not that hard when you know how filters/envelopes/different kinds of synths (FM/subtractive etc..) work..

But fúck it, as i said..try a dynamic an inch from your ear then hum it..

madtheory

Learning synthesis is an excellent idea! I never thought of it relation to "isomorphic listening", but you're dead right. It teaches you how sound is actually made. Seems so obvious!

Seziertisch wrote: »

How does the Slash story seem odd?

Because he's Slash, for one if he's not happy with the setup he can have it changed, and two, why did he change from his established working method? And where's the interview where he said all this?

Seziertisch wrote: »

Also, the title of this thread is "The sounds in my head", not "what do I need to make adequate recordings".

Agreed, but it was you who raised equipment as an issue? And you're still talking about it, so what's the problem?

krd

Seziertisch wrote: »

Slash, when talking about his guitar playing on the first Velvet Revolver album, lamented the set up in the studio. He said he usually liked to record with him in the control room, his amps in the live room and the monitors in the control room cranked. For some reason (I can't remember exactly) they weren't able to crank the monitors in the control room and he felt that this really affected his soloing/improvisation, resulting in what he felt to be some not terribly exciting playing by his standards.

However, you go online and you will find numerous guys opining that it doesn't matter what gear you use; if you are a great player that will shine through regardless. Not so in my experience. If the monitoring level alone was enough to put Slash off his game, I wonder what giving him a starter guitar and amp lacking the response that he requires to be at the top of his game would do.

A scenario. Sound Engineer: "Right Mr Slash, I don't know who you think you are but you're not going to crank up these monitors. You're going to record all your guitar dry into this DI box and I'm going to apply the effects later. My way or the highway."

Knowing the way Slash plays - he has this great sustain sound. Which I don't believe is pedals or effects - but is actually sustain caused by a little feed back. to get that you'd need to have the speakers cranked up - also just the physical feeling of the sound coming back at him could really influence the feel of his playing.

Something really similar applies to dance music. There are a few sounds that don't sound like much over monitors (they actually can sound awful) like a sharp distort kick - but on a dance floor the can really feel (you actually feel them vibrating your diaphragm) really great.

Similarly, you get the right mic in front of the right singer with the right headphone mix and all of a sudden their performance steps up a gear (or two if you are lucky).

The right monitoring is very important. It's like trying to paint a picture with with big thick prescription glasses (some else's, not yours) on.

A lot of what a musician does is purely by feel. If there's something hampering their playing - it's going to be like trying to play with woolly gloves on.

I don't think contemporary production techniques suit guitar playing. I don't think there's been a decent guitar recording since the end of the 80s - when SSL machines started coming in. Listen to something like an 80s Dire Straits album or Bruce Springsteen or Prince even - of course Appetite for destruction. The guitar playing has so much more to it than anything you'd hear today. It's not just musicianship. The production techniques may be squeezing the character out of the playing.

Seziertisch

madtheory wrote: »

Because he's Slash, for one if he's not happy with the setup he can have it changed, and two, why did he change from his established working method? And where's the interview where he said all this?

I can't remember exactly, there was some issue with the studio or the monitoring which meant that this wasn't possible. Rather than say "let's do my overdubs at a different studio" he just worked with what he had and regrets it in hindsight. He could have had it changed, but wasn't really aware until afterwards that loud monitoring was a condition for him doing his thing because this had never been an issue before.

madtheory wrote: »

Agreed, but it was you who raised equipment as an issue? And you're still talking about it, so what's the problem?

Exactly, I did. You said

madtheory wrote: »

It's not hard to get your equipment to a level where you're not hindered by it

There is a big difference between not being hindered by your equipment and your equipment giving you the "sounds in your head". That is my point.

madtheory

Right, got it now . I don't think it's a big difference though. Given the examples you mentioned, take transformer saturation. For one thing, it's subtle, and for another thing, you can hear the effect quite cheaply with something like an ART DTI. That's 2 decent audio transformers working at line level. Overdriving that will soon school you in what transformers do. And blow away a lot of the gearslutty hype about transformers and "analogue".

Seziertisch

madtheory wrote: »

Right, got it now . I don't think it's a big difference though. Given the examples you mentioned, take transformer saturation. For one thing, it's subtle, and for another thing, you can hear the effect quite cheaply with something like an ART DTI. That's 2 decent audio transformers working at line level. Overdriving that will soon school you in what transformers do. And blow away a lot of the gearslutty hype about transformers and "analogue".

It can be subtle depending on the transformer. A friend of mine has a Bruce Swedien bass DI made using an old UTC transformer. The effect it has on any audio passed through it is not exactly subtle and more importantly I have yet to encounter any piece of software that can give the same result. There is an instant softening of the highs and the lows/mids gain what can best be described a weight. It makes things sound "vintage" for lack of a better description

Transformer saturation is also cumulative. During tracking on a "traditional" recording you had a transformer in the mic (possibly), an input and output transformer on your mic pre/channel strip, possibly some other bits of outboard with input and output transformers also in the signal chain (outboard compressor or whatever) and transformers in the tape machine. And when it came to mixing you had pretty much the same again. We are talking about any given track passing through some 8 or more transformers on the way to final mixdown.

krd

Seziertisch, transformer as a component in comparison to what?

Guitar picks ups are essentially transformers too.

Seziertisch

krd wrote: »

Seziertisch, transformer as a component in comparison to what?

Guitar picks ups are essentially transformers too.

Well that Bruce Swedien bass di is just a wire coming into the transformer and a wire coming out of it. Running line level through it, it has such a dramatic (and to our ears positive) effect on the sound.

Otherwise, I'm not fully sure what you're asking. I was just taking transfomers as an example.

madtheory

Well subtle is such a subjective term, isn't it? But on the scale of the things the OP is talking about, I reckon it is subtle. At the very least it's quite far down the list of priorities for someone who's been playing for only four years.

Another fun thing to do is to use an attenuator in front of a mic pre so it will take line level. So you can stick a Neve on the main outs.

Seziertisch

madtheory wrote: »

Well subtle is such a subjective term, isn't it? But on the scale of the things the OP is talking about, I reckon it is subtle. At the very least it's quite far down the list of priorities for someone who's been playing for only four years.

Another fun thing to do is to use an attenuator in front of a mic pre so it will take line level. So you can stick a Neve on the main outs.

I have heard gear with Jensen transformers which has brought a subtle change to the sound, the UTC transformer was very different and not at all subtle i.e. instantly very different sounding.

Otherwise, in terms of priorities this thread is called "the sounds in my head" not "things you don't need to worry about because you are a relative beginner".

For me personally, tasty gear has been pivotal in terms of my (coming close to) achieving those sounds. I'm not saying that it has to be the same for everyone but that has been my experience.