Sundown
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Posts posted by Sundown
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Here’s the Sweetwater overview. I didn’t see it posted elsewhere in the thread. Apologies if it’s a double-post. It’s a pretty thorough video.
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I keep my basement home studio about 45%. Below 40% my skin starts to get irritated and above 55% I get really uncomfortable. Realistically it fluctuates between 45 and 50. I don’t have any acoustic instruments down there, but my Kawai MP11 has wood keys and a grand-like action so I do my best to keep it flat.
My studio has it’s own HVAC zone off my main system with two cold-air returns and two supply ducts (servo-controlled baffles regulate airflow throughout the house), but I also have a high-capacity dehumidifier outside the door. With basements, humidity is always a challenge. It’s amazing how much water gets sucked out of the air in the summer.
Todd
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Attack transients and percussive sounds stand out a lot more, and panning becomes much more noticeable as well.
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9 hours ago, Anderton said:
I think you might really benefit from this technique as well. It sounds crazy, but anyone who's ever actually used it thinks it's very helpful.
Yep, that’s a gem Craig … I think I first learned that from your Cubase SX book in the early 2000’s.
Todd
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Hey all,
We’ve all probably heard of famous engineers who sat in front of Auratones at very, very low listening levels to mix a record.
I can’t vouch personally for the Auratones, but I can say that listening to music at very low levels provides a big picture to details and parts that might get missed otherwise. It takes some time for your ears to adjust (usually 15 to 20 minutes in my experience), but after that, you’ll generally hear some details you haven’t heard before.
Full transparency, you will lose the bottom end and reverb tails will be harder to hear, but you will hear a big picture of a mix that is hard to hear at “normal” levels.
Usually I’m listening to headphones for this experience, but in a very quiet room you could use studio monitors as well.
Give it a shot -
Todd
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I read a lot of non-fiction. Funny enough, I’m a Kennedy buff as well (I’ve read a lot of books and it intrigues me).
Todd
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Me too … I’ve owned Fabfilter Q2 and Q3 for several years, but I only learned of the Dynamic function this past year and it’s really helpful for dealing with pesky resonances on synths (and other instruments). It’s a real game changer when dealing with a tricky part.
Todd
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On 9/6/2023 at 12:12 PM, KuruPrionz said:
Phasers.
I have to agree, KP. Flangers are worse. The opening chords of The Cars “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight” were the first and last words on the Flanger for me. The only time I will use either effect is to create a tiny bit of animation on fast drum parts and it’s usually mixed quite dry (never fully wet).
Extreme Auto-Tune (for effect) is completely played-out, as are low-pass and high-pass filter sweeps on drum loops. The extreme side chain pumping of some dance/pop tracks has also reached an end for me.
I know it’s blasphemy being a keyboard player and all, but if I can identify a sound as a Minimoog, I’m probably not going to like it (unless it’s a classic 70’s track where that was the norm). I just think the whiny signature lead sound or the classic bass thump is likely to sound cliche versus alternatives.
Todd
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1 minute ago, techristian said:
It will never end...as long as you are plugged into the internet . Everything will work fine and ,one day, a Windows update will pull the rug out under you!!
Dan
Well, it’s increasingly hard not to be, with the way licensing is managed now. But I do have Windows updates set to Manual, and when I’m recording I tend to pull the plug and disable the LAN circuit.
Todd
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So here's where I'm at, and it's a pretty good spot.
I flashed my motherboard BIOS, I experimented and turned off a few more peripherals (a redundant onboard LAN device, some SATA channels I don't need, and a Firewire chip I don't need), and I tried my old/original Radeon video card. The BIOS flash definitely helped and addressed some basic compatibility/efficiency issues, but if there is a remaining culprit, it's likely my new(er) video card. My rig probably runs a bit better with the old/original Radeon card, but I love the passive, dead-quiet nature of my GT730 card. Right now I'm going to dive back into some projects and keep an eye on my system, and if I get some anomalies, I'll go back to my slightly louder card and eliminate the nVidia driver package.
There are still a few more optimizations I can do (and I have a few more plugins to install), but hopefully I'll be back to making music here in a day or two. Ultimately I would like my new software to perform better than my old (in terms of raw CPU efficiency), but that might not be in the cards. I'll settle for equal performance to get the latest features and sounds.
I have a lot to learn with the new software. There are a lot of new features, but the look and feel is quite a bit different than what I'm used to.
Todd
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At this point I’m 75-80% done with installs. Most of them have gone flawlessly. One free plugin that I’ve used for years installed some bloatware, but I think I caught it and got rid of it. One other plugin (FM8) installed the 32bit version by default so I have to dive a bit deeper and get the 64bit version (which I had before). One thing that has changed since the last time I did a major update, is that every plugin vendor seems to be using an install/license manager now. You’re not downloading a plugin anymore, but an authorization manager where you do the install, activation, etc. Generally it’s not a problem but it does bring with it a lot more applications.
The biggest thing I’m fighting right now is this bubbling, peaking ASIO behavior at low buffer settings. If this was a totally new machine I’d be more in the dark, but since I had a perfectly stable machine before, I’m confident it has a specific cause and a fix. The Peak ASIO meter in Cubase will spike for apparently no reason at random intervals. And with even old plugins, I get some dropouts or erratic behavior that I didn’t have before.
From a hardware standpoint, I moved to a motherboard-mounted mSATA SSD for my boot drive. That’s the only change. Beyond that, everything else is software oriented (meaning new OS, new drivers, etc). Today I’m going to go deep and flash my motherboard BIOS, I’m going to try a different video card, and I’m going to try turning off Hyperthreading (though it wasn’t an issue before on Cubase 6.5). If all else fails I’ll try LatencyMon to see what is happening in the background. I started using a DAW back in 2000 so some of this troubleshooting is just part of the territory. Back then getting low-latency, real-time multi-track audio to work was a balancing act and you had to know a lot of tribal knowledge. It’s easier now, but these glitches can still happen.
I did notice that my Marvell SATA controllers are on a different MSI-based IRQ than before (identifiable with a negative IRQ number in Device Manager), but I’ll have to do some digging to understand if that’s playing a role at all. I’m going to temporarily disable my Audio and Sample drives (my spinning drives) just to see if it makes a difference.
Intuitively I’m leaning toward a background service or driver being the cause. I’ve already tried a lot of different things to fix this, but we’ll see what today produces.
Todd
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16 hours ago, Bill Heins said:
Another tip...now that Steinberg have changed their licensing if you ever want to crossgrade to Nuendo you'll wind up with both Cubase and Nuendo with the caveat that you can't transfer Cubase but you can continue upgrading both for as long as you like
Hi Bill. Thanks for the tip. Cubase does it for me. I’ve looked at the comparisons and there’s really nothing I would benefit from with Nuendo. My hardware can’t support more than 96 KHz and I only record at 44.1 KHz. There are a few plugins that are unique to Nuendo, but nothing I would really use. For film and surround I’m sure it’s the superior tool, but I’m just a hobbyist writing 2-track stereo compositions.
But it’s good to know regardless.
Todd
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For the most part, things are going well. About two-thirds of my software is installed now. I still need to do Trillian, Ivory II, etc., but those should just be plugin installs that I can point to the original libraries. I might have a few effects to as well, along with quite a few keyboard shortcuts to set.
The one nagging issue I have is ASIO peaks in Cubase. The performance monitor is quite a bit different from 6.5 (even setting ASIO Guard aside), and it would seem that instruments are pulling more CPU cycles than my old setup. Initially I thought, “OK, newer plugins like FM Lab in HAL 7, Retrologue II, etc. could just be more demanding”. But I opened up HAL 7.x as a standalone and didn’t get the same CPU draw. Even with a totally blank Project (no effects, no instruments, no tracks), the ASIO meter is bubbling around. I attached a video to show it. Again, this bubbling meter is happening with a completely empty project. Not a single channel, track, or instrument…
I’ve ruled out a lot of things through trial and error, but I haven’t found the culprit yet. I’m running a tight 128 sample buffer with my RME HDSPe card (Multiface II front-end), but larger buffer sizes don’t seem to cure it. Again, when I run HAL 7.x standalone, I get really good CPU performance for an 11-year-old machine (Intel Core i7-3770K). When I run anything in Cubase, instruments seem to draw more than they should when played live.
Todd
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5 hours ago, Bill Heins said:
Sundown, sorry I didn't get back to you last weekend...I forgot until last night doh! I've run Halion from 5-7 and only 7 shows now but all content is there...only change was anything older that had an update
No worries at all Bill. We’re all busy. I can confirm now as well that the 4.0 content is present with a fresh install of HAL 7.x.
Awesome tips on plugin and library management … Very much appreciated. 👍
Todd
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Making progress… Drivers and core applications are in. I still have a lot of plugins to install, settings to tweak, and new features to learn.
Todd
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Hey all,
I change DAW versions as often as I change political parties (which is almost never), as I hate downtime and I’m a sucker for a clean install. I’m going through a BIG one right now, which consists of finally getting to Windows 10 and the latest Steinberg/Waves/UA suite. I’ve bought incremental plugins over the last decade, but I’ve still been running Cubase 6.5, Wavelab 7, etc. at the core. Needless to say, *a lot* has changed in ten years in terms of capability.
This week I installed Windows 10 on a fresh SSD, along with Cubase Pro 12, Wavelab 11, HALion 7, Groove Agent 5, the latest Waves release, and any other updates to things I own.
I’m not done yet, but I’ll post some learnings, headaches to avoid, etc. from the process. Needless to say, it wouldn’t be a Windows install if it didn’t require a Command Prompt window and some new learning. The best advice I can give anyone trying to do a truly clean install is *unplug any drives other than the target*. If the Windows installer even catches a whiff of an existing OS, it’s going to try and drop the OS there without your input (and do an update versus full install).
The other minor annoyance is that some of the Steinberg installers put the sample content on the C-drive, versus a drive of my choice. With modern RAM and SSDs, etc. I’m not so concerned about throughput, but it would be ideal to be given the option to place content folders on my Sample drive.
I’ll post more as the process finishes, but I’m excited to experience the results. The bundled content and plugins have come a long way, and even basic capabilities (like Freezing inserts) will be new to me.
Todd
Note: I would have bought Windows 11 but my PC doesn’t qualify. I plan to buy a new RokBox within ~2 years.
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“They Live” is a favorite (John Carpenter) …
I actually wrote a humorous tribute song for it (“They Live We Groove”) and maybe one day I’ll post it to YouTube and share it here.
It’s very B-movie, but it has a cult following.
Todd
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Sad, at 56. I remember hearing “Walking on the Sun” for the first time and I thought, boy, these guys are going for a ride …
Todd
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You went to school at a much cooler time, Bill. 🙂
I don’t really have any affinity for what was popular when I went to college (93 to 98), but college was the time period when I was introduced to Pink Floyd on a grander scale. My Yes catalog grew substantially too and my Yes favorites changed (more Relayer, Drama, and even Tormato, and less GFTO and Close to the Edge).
I guess when I hear Dark Side of the Moon I often think of college, but I’m Pearl Jammed, Nirvana’d, and Beck’d out. I’ve just heard it too much.
Todd
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On 8/18/2023 at 12:10 PM, Anderton said:
That's something I try to explain at seminars...the "average listener" hears music in a different way. It's like a wash of sound punctuated by specific sounds of interest, rather than the pointillistic tapestry musicians hear.
Very true … I try to spend a decent amount of time just listening … Sitting in front of my monitors in a well-treated, well-constructed room and really listening for details, depth, and insights. What I hear now (versus what I heard 20 or 30 years ago) is night and day. Stereo imaging is something that really gets lost in that wash … But once your ears are awakened to stereo, it really brings a new level of enjoyment to music.
Todd
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I’ll share one other humorous one … My wife and I entered our reception hall to this at our wedding in 2012. It’s the backdrop to the Karate Kid tournament scene, from 1984. Note: The music doesn’t start in this clip until 40 seconds in.
I was ~9 when Karate Kid dropped, and being a kid who was bullied, I could relate. This track was later used in King of Kong (2007). I bought the track from the King of Kong soundtrack and I still listen to it before a big presentation, etc.
Todd
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There are a lot I could think of, but I’ll include one that I rediscovered recently while watching the latest season of Black Mirror on Netflix.
I’m generally not a fan of KC and the Sunshine Band, but this track KC did in 1982 is fun. I love the energetic panning and of course the overall melody, etc.
Todd
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Hey all,
This is really just a curiosity question and a learning question…
Take a listen to this verse vocal in a decent room or with a good pair of headphones. The verse vocal comes in at about 36 seconds from the start.
Do you hear a real acoustic space, or do you think this is digital/software reverb (or perhaps a mechanical, vintage plate)?
I don’t hear any perceptible pre-delay and the first time I heard this song through TIDAL the reverb really knocked me back (in addition to the great songwriting and arrangement). It’s a big reverb but it doesn’t sound like an 80’s hair band. It’s very fitting for the track.
Anyways, I’d be curious if you think the vocal reverb is the result of a real, recorded space or if it’s processing applied after the fact.
Todd
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I should also add that I always consider EQ the last resort … First I try to optimize or fix the arrangement, then I look at sound choices, then I tweak the sound programming, and then finally I’ll move to EQ. I’m also 95% cut, 5% boost. Usually I will only use boost on a vocal, a piano, or perhaps a hi-hat or cymbal.
I’m almost always recording synths or using virtual instruments, so mic placement isn’t really a factor for me. My channel EQ weapon of choice is FabFilter Q3. I love the interface and the way it helps me visualize what’s happening. I do have several others from Waves, PSP, UAD, etc. On a finished mix I’ll typically reach for the UAD Precision EQ (four bands + LPF).
Todd
Dumb Gain Staging Question - Soft Tracks/Channels
in Craig Anderton's Sound, Studio, and Stage
Posted
Hey all,
I understand a decent amount about gain staging within a DAW (or in a setup), but there are still things I have to learn or improve upon.
If I have an individual channel/track that I *know* is going to be low in the mix, it still makes sense to me to record it as close to the optimum input level as I can (which I typically treat as peaks between -18dBFS to -12dBFS, and an average of -18dBFS or 0VU).
Mind you, when I go to mix, I’m going to pull the gain down (or the fader), but with this approach, I’m still limiting the amount of noise floor in the signal. It doesn’t make sense that I would capture the signal low on the meter, or it doesn’t make sense to me at least.
Keep in mind I’m a studio keyboard player so typically tracks will get recorded as MIDI first, and then I’ll record them as audio after the fact. I also record at 44.1KHz/32-bit float with RME 24-bit converters.
Does this make sense? Or would you record softer sounds closer to their true level in the final mix?
Todd