Posted: April 10, 2010

#1 Slicing a beat

Say you got an eight bar beat that you want to use. You might not want to loop that entire passage every time. Perhaps there are a couple of chords that you would like to save for a chorus or something?

Cut, copy and paste! I’m sure you know you can do that if you’ve been playing around with music apps, but how do you do it correctly?

The first thing you’ll want to do is zoom into the waveform rather close and try to make the cut where the waveform neither is on it’s way up or down. Why? Because if it is, you’ll hear a click or pop when you play it back. It’s important that the waveform ends at the same place as the copied part after it begins, and the easy way is to have it “in the middle”, where it doesn’t go up nor down.

Sometimes it seems close to impossible to do this, but don’t worry, there’s a solution for that as well. Many audio applications have something called “fades” (look it up in the manual, they’re done differently depending on the app). Make a very short fade where you have made the cut and the click or pop will disappear.

That’s all there is to it, now go and be creative.

#2 Breathless

When you have recorded your raps you might have a lot of noise that shouldn’t be there. Everything from the click of your lighter firing one up to a deep breath that shouldn’t be there. Well, removing the noise from a lighter, paper, whatever, is of course just a matter of cutting and deleting. For breaths, inhales and the likes it’s a slightly more delicate process though.

I’d say there are essentially three schools for this. And as always when it comes to production and mixing, there are no rules. The only thing that matters is that if it sounds good, then it is good. OK? But for reference, here they are:

Leave everything in there. I call this the “Bob Dylan way”. Not that he has anything to do with rap, but I’ve heard from people who worked with Bob Dylan who said that he pretty much forbid them to remove anything. If he takes a breath when the tape is rolling you will hear it.

Take everything out. I’m not sure I know of anyone using this approach. If you cut every little breath out it will sound very mechanic. You could of course do it for effect.

Cut some, leave some. This is probably what most people do. I’m sure you understand what it means, so instead I’d like to give you a little tip. If there is a particular long breath (or whatever), instead of removing it, try cutting it a little and give it a fade in and a fade out as well if necessary (depending on if it’s followed by rap or not). This will make the breath less apparent but still not making it unnatural.

#3 Overdubs


In a lot of professionally recorded and arranged music there are a lot more vocal tracks playing than you might think. Many of them can be harmonies backing up a singer in the chorus, other can be just overdubs of a few words. Rappers are in my opinion some of the foremost arrangers in this regard.

If you’re into hiphop and rap then you probably know about these kind of overdubs already. But I simply couldn’t write tips for this kind of music without mentioning it. I’ve actually seen sessions where there is just one stereo track for the beat and close to 20 tracks of different vocals! That’s something very different than seeing a big rock production where instruments can take up 60 tracks by themselves.

Rappers tend to overdub to emphasize words. In my ears it’s equivalent of careful arranging. Overdubbing every other word will take away the power of it, so knowing when and what to overdub is essential. In todays computer-based environments it’s so easy trying out various vocal arrangements, so there really is no excuse not to practice this a lot. When doing overdubs like this, try making as many as three or four and panning them differently in the stereo field. This will help create a very big image.

#4 Adding interest


The single most common mistake people do when working with loop-based music has got to be that they simply just loop! There’s nothing wrong with using loops, like having an eight bar beat that goes pretty much over an entire song, but you will be able to add a lot to the song just by changing the beat just a little bit every now and then. This is what I call “adding interest”.

A very simple, yet effective way to do this is by simply just removing or adding a hit from the beat at some point. For instance, say that you have a kick that hits five times in one beat. Remove one of them, say the fourth time you loop it. The psychology behind this is that the listener’s mind will expect the kick to happen but it won’t. This in turn will keep the listener not falling asleep as there suddenly is a element of surprise added. You could also do the opposite and add a kick. Just copy and paste one of the existing ones.

So keep looping. Just don’t only loop, add a little interest to it as well.

#5 Layering hits


In the past I’ve talked about layering several vocal takes to either emphasize words or to create a bigger stereo image. In rap music it’s common to do this with the drums as well.

For hiphop or similar, I almost always layer claps and/or snares. Call me a child of the 80’s, but I just like the sounds of big claps. I often load up several different samples, align them and listen to how they sound together. I takes a little time to find the ones that really fit together for the music, but in the end it’s worth it. I often pan two claps hard right and left in the stereo field to create a big effect, but there are no rules.

I often layer cymbals and crashes as well. While I like to keep one sample of the clap in the middle (but not always), I’m often a little more liberal about where I keep the crashes. They can fly all over the place! This works good in rock and pop music as well. Layer a couple of crashes for the big boom going into the chorus. Great effect.

#6 Adding interest part 2


The last time I talked about adding interest I proposed that you could either add or remove hits in the beat for a little additional flavor. Today I’m going to talk about a similar thing that I did in the monthly beat for January.

In this beat there are a couple of claps layered to create a bigger effect as discussed in the previous tip. There’s one specific clap that only comes in every now and then. This clap have a big roomy sound to make it sound much bigger than the others. If you listen carefully you can hear it between the talking synth riffs. It’s just one of those things that can help to spice things up a little.

#7 Layering hits part 2


In the previous tip on layering hits I talked about layering things like claps, snares and crashes. This are things that I (sometimes) can throw out in the sides of the stereo field to create a big image. Another common thing to layer in hiphop is the kick, which normally I don’t pan at all but keep it centered. Personally I don’t always layer the kick as much as many others, instead I like to make it big with other means. However, if I do, here’s a trick that I use that you might like.

Take one sample that sounds really, really deep. I mean the bassiest thing you can find. Then take a kick that sounds thin but punchy, perhaps even something clicky. Some of the best samples for this in my opinion can be found in fast metal music. Combine the two and mix for to personal flavor. Use separate EQs on the two to emphasize the characteristics instead of making them sound similar (I.E. make the boomy deep kick sound even more boomy and deep). You can then mix them together to a common channel and compress them both together to have them ‘glued’ together.

#8 Making the rap stand out


The EQ – or the equalizer – is probably the most common tool in music production. Understanding the EQ usually isn’t very hard even if there are tons of variations of it. Most of us have dealt with EQs even before we start mixing music on our home stereos. Basically what it does is lower or raise the volume at a specific frequency. In mixing the purpose of this is to not have instruments or voices interfering with each other so that the entire song becomes a big blur.

Generally it’s my opinion that you shouldn’t use presets for the EQ as every song and vocal is different, but for the human voice I usually end up doing something like this:

1. Cutting (totally removing or lowering a lot) everything below 100-200 Hz. There is normally little of value there, so I let the bass and the kick drum take care of that space.

2. Boosting a little in the higher frequencies. Exactly where is totally dependent of the singer and the song. But try somewhere around 4kHz and upwards. I don’t do any drastic boosting here, just a few dB. It helps to give the vocal a little ‘air’. Beware of S-sounds though.

A more detailed description of the EQ can be found here: http://www.audival.net/2007/audio-lingo-equalizer/.

#9 “ET phone home…”


Since I talked about EQing the vocal in the previous tip I thought I share a little trick to turn the EQ into something like an effect for the voice (or any sound for that matter).

For something older sounding, try cutting out some of the higher frequencies (just roll’em all of until your happy). Much old gear sound dark in this way, and vinyl records will eventually lose some of the higher frequencies.

For something that really cuts through, do the opposite, cut out the lows and lower mids. Cut a lot, somewhere up to 800Hz and then boost the highs. Beware of s-sounds and clashes with the cymbal or hihat when doing this.

And the inevitable classic, roll off the highs and the lows (a lot of it) then boost somewhere around 1kHz-2kHz. Pretty cool classic effect.

#10 Fitting the bass and the kick with EQ


One of the more common mixing problems that people are having is making both the kick drum and the bass sound. They often occupy the same frequencies so the whole thing can sometimes turn into a big blur.

One way to fit them together is to decide which should deal with the lowest frequencies and just EQ after that. For instance, say we got a really boomy kick, then you could accentuate that and boost the really low frequencies (40Hz or wherever the character of the kick is) but cut a little in the not so low bass frequencies (say 80-100 Hz). Then do the exact opposite for the bass, cut it around 40 Hz and boost it around 80-100 Hz. This will give them both a little space.

You could also be really surgical about and perhaps boost the kick again around 150 Hz or something because it might have some frequencies that you like there. Then try cutting the bass there as well.

So in other words, find the “sweet spots”, the frequencies that sound really good for one and then invert them for the other. This is one way to have them both sound, I’ll discuss another way in a future post.

#11 Recording spot on a budget


If you’re doing rap and/or vocal in general at home, then your room might not be optimal for this. Here’s a couple words of advice for home recording spots:

– The higher the roof the better. Try to record in the room with the highest roof. If it’s really low, try sitting down. Some have big problems sitting down and doing vocals, others don’t.

– Check your back. Most microphones are directional, that’s why it’s important what’s behind you. Two thick mattresses can do wonders. Their are also various kind of cloth available for room treatment.

– Face the largest open space. So theoretically you’re now standing with your back to the corner, thick absorbers behind you facing a big room.

#12 Recording spot with a small budget


Continuing on the previous topic, here are a couple of tips for dealing with room ambience when recording.

– Depending on your sound and your preferred recording technique, you could choose a mic that picks up very little room at all. Dynamic microphones are often very directional and picks up way less room than condenser microphones.

– Condenser microphones can have different types of characteristics, I.E., patterns that they pick up in. Some are also controllable on the mic. Ribbon microphones usually pick up everything around them, that is, in all directions. This is certainly preferable at some times, but if your room is crappy sounding, then you won’t want that.

– Something that’s been coming later years are things like the sE Reflexion Filter and SM Pro Audio Mic Thing. These are pretty much ’shields’ that you attach to the mic stand that covers the back of the mic. The point being? Killing reflections and room ambience. Some claims this is a bad way to go, and that proper room treatment is better. Others like them. Try them out for yourself and see what you think.

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