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Landscapes

I am pleased to announce that I have been awarded a faculty professional development grant from the office of provost at Stonehill College.  The funds are going towards a composition project called Landscapes.  This project is a series of 13 pieces totaling an hour of music, each depicting or representing a different landscape.  The individual movements travel through the circle of fifths, beginning and ending on C Major.

The core ensemble for the project consists of piano, electric guitar, electric bass, and drumset.  Each movement will alternate using theremin and pedal steel guitar as soloists.  Cello and synthesizer are used as occasional color instruments.  Ultimately, I may be using other color instruments as well such as bass harmonica, melodica, and electric sitar.

Those particular solo instruments, theremin and pedal steel, were chosen to highlight myself as a performer.  I’ve been playing theremin for the past several years, and I recently started playing pedal steel guitar.  While I have a long way to go with pedal steel, having pieces to practice and work on will help me develop skills on the instrument.  Having a series of pieces that utilize these instruments as soloists will give me pieces that I may be able to take to music festivals.

Part of the funds will be used to contract orchestral recordings from Musiversal. This organization offers a seven minute orchestral recording session with a 30 piece orchestra for 99 Euros.  In seven minutes it is really only practical to record one minute of music, provided the music is sight readable by professional musicians.  Thus, while it may not be possible to use orchestral backing through the entire piece, there can be individual sections that use orchestral scoring.  Part of the funds may also be used to pay local musicians to record instrumental parts for individual movements.  The goal of this grant is to compose the music, but I will be using some of the grant money to get some of the individual tracks recorded as well.

Like most of the pieces I have written over the past decade, this piece is based off of Sudoku.  That is I use a Sudoku matrix to indicate how many notes are used by a given instrument in a phrase, as well what those individual notes are.   I also use a Sudoku matrix to determine the tempo of individual movements and the dynamics of a given phrase.  All this precomposition material has already been written out, along with phrase length and meter information.

I have already begun working on the project.  I have completed the first movement, Landscape 1:  Forest.  I also have had a recording session with Musiversal to record two phrases of orchestral backing for this movement, although I haven’t edited those recordings yet.  This past week I wrote the first two phrases (each movement is nine phrases long) of the second movement, which will be depicting a snowy landscape.

I will be giving updates about this project through this blog.  I hope to give at least one update a month, in a large part to encourage myself to develop and keep to a production schedule.  However, if I have particularly productive weeks, I may give more frequent updates, so stay tuned for more information!

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Sometimes one note is all you need

Many beginning songwriters and arrangers may avoid simplicity in order to avoid sounding simplistic or amateurish.  Remember that simplicity and simplistic mean two different things. Simplicity can be elegant and beautiful, while simplistic generally has a negative connotation implying a lack of depth.
Not all art needs to be complicated to be effective. In fact, there are many works that hide their lack of depth or significance in a lot of notes or lavish arrangements. It is much harder and more challenging to write an engaging work using a modicum of materials.
However, let me step back and get to the specific point of this entry, using a repeated single note in songwriting or arranging for effect. One would think that using a single note over and over would become boring, or seem amateurish and dumb.  However, in the right context it can not only work, but be emotionally effective.
A nice example of this in terms of arranging is the Three Dog Night recording of “One.” As the song builds, you’ll hear repeated octaves in the electric guitar.  Not only does this arrangement technique reflect the title of the song, the repetition of those octaves adds tension as the song builds. Repeated notes can often be used to add tension for two reasons.  First, the repetition can be thought of as a loop, and the listener can unconsciously anticipate the end of this loop, creating engagement.  Secondly, if the note is repeated over different chords, this note can form a pedal tone, meaning that the note will be harmonious with some of the harmonies, and discordant with others, building tension that can be used to build musical drama. Personally speaking, I often receive repeated notes as being insistent or assertive in nature, kind of a musical embodiment of, “I really mean this, so I’m going to say it again loudly for those of you in the back.”  When done in this manner, it is yet another way to create a form of dramatic engagement.
This previous example utilizes repeated notes in the arrangement, but not in the tune itself.  Using repeated notes in the tune is a much more dangerous proposition.  Here it can result in boredom.  However, used judiciously, repeated notes can be used effectively in songwriting.
“Every Little Thing She Does is Magic,” from the fourth Police album (Ghost in the Shell, is a wonderfully upbeat pop tune. However, the bridge of the song changes drastically, expressing how the protagonist wants to call the woman he desires, but cannot muster the courage.  The bridge ends on the markedly downbeat query, “must I always be alone?”
After the first two lines of the bridge the tune gets stuck on a single repeated note in the melody. This change comes with the first depressing line of the bridge, “but my silent fears have gripped me, long before I reach the phone.” Thus, the repeated notes reflect the protagonists mood change from ebuillient to despondent.  Also, since these repeated notes only exist at the end of the bridge, it only happens once in the song, helping to minimize any resulting boredom.  For instance if it happened in the verse or the bridge, it would be a much more dangerous situation.
“Julia” by John Lennon uses repeated notes in the verse of the song.  In fact, all but the end of the final phrase of the verse is a single note repeated.  Paired with the tempo and the delivery of the song, this colors the song with a somnolent mood that is borderline dream like.  While the chorus does have some contour, it does focus fairly heavily on two notes.  The only robust melodic contour that appears in the song is in the bridge.   However, this heavy reliance on repeated notes in the tune forces the song to lean a bit on the accompaniment, which is fortunately tenderly beautiful in its arpeggiated simplicity.
Using repeated notes in arrangements is a much safer bet than using them in songwriting.  However, keeping repeated notes as a technique in your potential bag of tricks is wise.  You can use the technique as a tool when you are trying to create a particular mood, or to create a brief section of passage that contrasts highly with the rest of your song.  Happy writing / arranging!

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Arranging Tips: The Orchestrated Crescendo

Writing an arrangement for a song can be challenging.  While multiple verse / chorus songs can encourage familiarity, this can be an asset as well as a detriment.  The familiarity is what engrains a song in your memory, and prods you to sing along (especially with the choruses). However, the same familiarity also breeds boredom.
Thus, each successive verse and chorus should be progressively more detailed and layered simply to sustain interest.  Some of this can be covered by the song itself.  If the story of the song hooks and engages listeners, it should help in this regard a bit.  The performance itself may add some of this interest.  Performers (vocalists, drummers, bassists, guitarists – the whole ensemble) may, intuitively or otherwise, grow in dynamics and musical detail over the course of the song, adding a level of progressive drama and interest.
However, this progressive adding of aural interest is complicated by the convention that the chorus should be higher energy than its surrounding verses.  Again, this can be covered a bit by the song itself.  A melody that goes into a higher musical range or a key change to a brighter (higher) key can infuse much of this energy.
Typically, some (if not all) of the interest must be built by the arrangement itself.  Thus, many effective pop songs can be classified as what I call orchestrated crescendos.  An orchestrated crescendo is an arrangement where at least one layer of audio material is added on each successive verse and / or chorus.
It is helpful to think of arranging and mixing to be allied fields.  In fact, in many styles of popular music the roles of arranger, producer, and sound engineer (mixer) may merge into one or two roles.  The importance of these roles has caused many artists to self-produce, or act as producers for other artists.
“You Really Got Me” by the Kinks is somewhat different.  Rather than being arranged as a crescendo over the course of the entire song, it is arranged to be a crescendo over every verse. In the second stanza of each verse the backing vocals are added, with all the vocals becoming strident around the seventh line, building to the refrain, “You really got me, you really got me, you really got me.”
However, my personal favorite example of on orchestrated crescendo is “The Boxer,” recorded by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.  The introduction is a stripped-down arrangement that focuses on an acoustic guitar with an arpeggiated figure.  The first verse adds Paul Simon’s lead vocals, while Art Garfunkel’s backing vocals are added in the second verse.
Up to this point the song has sounded bright, clean, and sweet.  When the chorus starts, the lyrics “Lie-la-lie” repeat using a simple sing-songy melody.  The sweet, lullaby-esque nature of this melody contrasts heavily with a very loud, heavily reverberated snare hit, which sounds comparatively violent (almost like a gunshot).
As each verse progresses, some small element is added: percussion (bongos), bass harmonica, dobro, etc.  The solo section features an electric guitar playing a simple arpeggiated melody that sounds like a trumpet. This was done by recording the part on both an electric guitar (picking the note with the sound off, and fading in) and trumpet, and blending the two together at the mixing console. Rather than go for an impressive, complex solo, “The Boxer’s” solo section is used to feature a pleasant melody that reads somewhat like a funereal bugle call, that adds to the work’s overall somber mood.
In the final verse, the song moves from a first-person perspective (“I am just a poor boy”) to a third-person perspective (“In the clearing stands a boxer”). This shift in perspective leads us to question is the song’s protagonist the boxer?  Is the boxer a person observed by the protagonist?  Is the story of the boxer and protagonist simply connected by our view of the adversity encountered by both?
This final verse also makes use of some addition of gain, which in concept is good, but in its execution comes off a bit clumsy. Starting in about the third or fourth line of the verse, the volume of the lead vocals is gradually increased.
When we reach the end of the song, the chorus is repeated over and over, string sections are added one by one, going from mid register, and moving into higher registers.  As we near the end, low brass is added giving and dark heavy tone to the chorus.  At the very end all the layers are stripped away, nearly all at once, leaving a solo acoustic guitar.  This super-high contrast is very cathartic in terms of releasing the built-up tension of all this layering.
So, if the recording of a song you are working on seems fine, but not terribly engaging, try adding more layers as it goes on.  If that means that you need to strip down and simplify the first verse so you have somewhere to build from, give it a try.  It may just be the narrative thread that will keep your listener engaged.

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Tips for Using Equalization

Equalization (EQ) is the most used effect / modifier in the audio world.  While there are no hard and fast rules to using EQ, there are some guidelines that can help you utilize this tool effectively.
Personally, I like to record as flat as possible, that is I tend not to adjust EQ during the recording process.  I would feel quite different about the situation if I was recording a live band in a performance situation.  Since I would already be EQing each mixer channel so it sounds good live in the given space, I would tend to record the tracks post EQ if possible, in an attempt to document the particular sound of the mix of that given performance.
Another element to consider during the recording process is mic selection and placement.  If you make good choices at this stage, you will have less work to do in the mixing stage.  I tend to try to use mics that have as close to flat frequency responses as possible, though I tend to use dynamic microphones (that may boost 5kHz a bit) when recording snare, kick, and guitar amplifiers.  I would also use dynamic microphones for tight miking most other percussion instruments (cowbell in particular).  However, I typically make this choice as much due to SPL levels as I do for getting that 5kHz presence peak.
Most guidelines for mic placement are designed to give you a decent balance of the given instrument’s tonal characteristics.  That being said, there are some instruments where there is no consensus on mic placement, and different options may highlight different portions of the instrument’s frequency range.  For instance, pointing a microphone towards an acoustic guitar’s sound hole will result in a deeper, bassier tone that can sometimes sound a bit boomy.  Pointing the same mic more towards the finger board will give you a more trebly sound (which could sound thin).  Angling the mic somewhere between those two positions may get you the general balance you are seeking.  If you have the luxury of time during your sound check process (and you should always strive to have that luxury, as it is really more of a necessity), don’t be afraid to spend some time with mic placement with the performer playing at performance volume with that particular track soloed out so that you can hear the tonal quality.
If you want your mixed audio to sound natural, and you have used decent mics, and placed them well, you should have to do only small adjustments to any given track’s EQ.  However, don’t be surprised if you use EQ on nearly every track (pre-existing loops in most recording / sequencing software tend not to need any EQ, as they have typically already been equalized).   I tend to put EQ as the first item in any effects chain.  The only reason you’d really want to put EQ later in the effects chain is if you are using plugins that can drastically alter the timbral balance (Dessers, Multiband Compression, etc.), and want to readjust after the plugin.  However, beware that you aren’t simply undoing the adjustment you made.
One common approach is to use the lowest shelf filter of the EQ to attenuate any frequencies below the lowest frequency that can be produced by a given instrument.  Likewise, for any bass instrument that has little to no audio content in the high frequency range (10kHz or so), the highest shelf filter, can be used to attenuate any frequency above the highest overtone that is produced by a given instrument.  This technique can be used to reduce room noise and leakage.
Another useful guideline is to use EQ to cut unwanted frequencies, rather than to boost desired frequencies.  The logic of this guideline is that if you use EQ to boost, you’ll increasingly run the risk of adding distortion. For a beginning audio professional it is easier to hear the desired frequencies rather than to identify unwanted frequency ranges.  When your EQ has a master gain setting you can still boost frequencies, but then use the master gain setting to pull all the frequencies down to compensate.
Now when it comes to adjusting EQ settings, you may try one of three approaches.  One of these is to try the plugin’s presets.  A second approach is to use recommended settings for a given instrument as noted in a book, article, or trusted website (I will put my personal book recommendations in a separate post).  The final approach is to try changing the settings on your own. While the first two approaches are completely legitimate, in the long run you will want to become comfortable changing settings on your own, using only your ears as a guide.
Take a recorded track, solo it, and add EQ to the channel.  While you are listening to the track boost a single band somewhat dramatically.  Sweep through the frequency spectrum while you are listening.  Listen for what parts of the sound are in what ranges, and what ranges sound good, or seem to emphasize the characteristic sound of that instrument.
Once you find a frequency band that sounds good, tweak the range by moving it around in a smaller range while listening to the sound.  You can then broaden and narrow that bandwidth by using Q or resonance.  Once you find what sounds better, a broad bandwidth or a narrow bandwidth, you can move on to amplitude.  Move the bandwidth up and down vertically to boost that frequency more or less until you settle in on your desired sound. If you noticed several effective frequency ranges, do this process using one bandwidth for each of the effective ranges.
Notice how much louder the track is with your EQ boost.  You may then pull down the EQ’s master gain level a corresponding amount to compensate. Once you think you have the settings you want, toggle between having the EQ on versus bypassed to make sure you like the resulting sound better than the original.

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The Joy of Hawaiian Lap Steel Guitar

I treated myself over spring break and bought a Rogue RLS-1 Lap Steel Guitar.  At the risk of sounding like an advertisement, I got a good deal on it, and you get a lot for your money. It comes with a stand and a soft case that holds both the instrument and the legs for the stand. While there are a number of online reviews that complain that the stand is ‘shaky,’ I have no such problem with the instrument that I bought.

There dozens of ways to tune a lap steel guitar, with about half a dozen of them being common. I want to focus on a single tuning system so that I might be able to improvise more proficiently at some point. I’ve selected C6 tuning (C, E, G, A, C, E – bottom to top), as it is easy to get both major and minor chords by playing the bottom three or top three strings respectively.

However, before being able to improvise or write original music for the instrument, it would be wise to get some basic experience playing the it. I am focusing on learning Hawaiian lap steel guitar, as I am a long time fan of Hawaiian string music.  As I put it to my wife years ago, “it’s like a mini-vacation for your ears.”

I bought a copy of The Art of Hawaiian Steel Guitar by Stacy Phillips. It is a great book.  It starts with a couple of pages about the history of Hawaii. It then covers the history of Hawaiian music.  In particular it focuses on how traditional vocal styles can be heard in the later developed steel guitar stylings.

Phillips then moves on to common playing techniques in Hawaiian lap steel playing, along with an explanation of the tablature he uses in the rest of the book.  Tablature makes it much easier for a beginner to get started, because it is essentially a graph telling you where to put your fingers at what times.  However, tablature is fairly useless if you try to switch instruments, or as we will see later, tuning systems.  That being said, Phillips presents songs in a general order of increasing difficulty, and introduces each song noting what are the challenges to playing each.  He also gives a historical background of each song, and identifies notable recordings, including any that he has based his transcription from.

Unfortunately for me, Phillips has chosen to put most of the tunes in traditional open G tuning (G, B, D, G, B, D bottom to top), as I want to focus on C6 tuning, Thus, for every tune, I have to translate it into traditional musical notation, and then annotate it to indicate playing information, such as what fret number the slide should be at (indicated in Roman numerals), and what string number is played (indicated using Arabic numerals).  Thus far, I’ve been able to translate the first three songs from the book into C6 tuning. While I haven’t mastered any of these tunes yet, I am starting to make progress, and can imagine a time where I might start to get some of this to sound decent.

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Building an Electric Cello

I used to play cello when I was in my early teens. For the past several years I’ve wanted to start playing cello again. However, the problem is that I currently don’t have proper storage space for an acoustic cello. Besides taking up space, an acoustic cello has to be treated tenderly. While it is not super fragile, it is not the sort of instrument that you want to just aggressively shove into a closet. I realized that a solid body electric cello, when put in a soft case, could be shoved in a closet without much fear of damage.

Photo 1: Rough cut of the neck / head.

The one thing I hate about acoustic cellos is the wooden tuning pegs. Anytime there is a drastic change in humidity the instrument can go greatly out of tune, and it can be very difficult to get it to stay in tune. Thus I looked for electric cellos that had electric bass style tuners. I could only find one such instrument in my price range, and the online reviews were not great.

Photo 2: Neck / Head with nut and purchased fingerboard attached.

Photo 3: One of the boards for the body with a channel cut for the endpin.

Thus, with Professor Gernes serving as an advisor, I decided to build an electric cello. I found a design online that seemed suitable. I made a couple of changes. I decided to make the head and neck out a single piece of wood instead of using separate pieces. I also decided to make the body a little thicker, and make it out of two pieces of wood, which allowed me to cut a channel down the center of the instrument, yielding a place to put an endpin.

Photo 4: A test to see if the tuners fit.

Photo 5: Neck / head assembly attached to the body (via a neck plate), with the endpin inserted. Note the piece of wood added to the body near the endpin (the wood seemed a little narrow on the face where the endpin is, so I thickened it a bit).

The design I used did not account for a solution for a belly rest or a place for the legs to grip the instrument like an acoustic cello. Several people online came up with their own solution to the problem, but I did not like any of the solutions I saw. Eventually I came up with the idea of bending copper pipe in the same manner of the volume antennae for a theremin, allowing for a lightweight modular way to build out from the instrument. However, I was not able to bend the pipe with a tight enough radius without putting kinks in the pipe (even though I had used a set of pipe bending tubes). I came up with the solution of using small pieces of wood that would be connected to the body using copper pipe, utilizing compression fittings attached to the side pieces and body of the cello.

Photo 6: A profile of the neck showing the cut down from the neck to the head. Note that I later carved down the connection between the neck and head so that it is smoother.

Photo 7:  Here I’ve added compression fittings to the body for the side pieces and the belly rest, with the belly rest in place using copper pipe to connect it.

I built the instrument using a small amount of finished pieces. I bought a fingerboard, an endpin assembly, a bridge, tuners, and a tailpiece (though I have been carving a tailpiece that I may use to replace the manufactured one I’ve been using at some point). The piece is finished using five coats of tru-oil. One mistake I’ve made in building the instrument is that the strings a bit high off of the fingerboard near the nut. This is easily fixable though by simply filing down the grooves for the strings in the nut. Initially, I made the mistake of buying cheap tuners. This made it so I could not bring the A string up to pitch. Since these photos I have replaced the tuner on the A string allowing me to bring it up to pitch.

Photo 8: Side pieces and belly rest are added. Note that the side pieces and belly rest can be easily removed for compact storage.

Photo 9: Here is the instrument after adding five coats of Tru-Oil, but before adding the strings, bridge, and tailpiece.

Electrifying the instrument is easy. I attach a clip on microphone made by Korg to the bridge, and I run that into a pre-amp. The output from the pre-amp can either be fed into a guitar pedal, or straight into an amplifier. The instrument actually sounds pretty darned good, but I won’t post an audio file yet, as I’ve barely begun to practice.

Photo 10: Here is a photo of my first test of the instrument. Note that the clip on microphone is not attached, and that the side pieces may need to be shortened slightly.

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“Pantone” for Theremin and Video

I have been playing theremin for a little less than a year.  The instrument has quickly become a passion for me.  As a composer, it is desirable for me to be able to publicly perform some of my own works.  Thus, the challenge is to write a piece for an entry level performer that is still going to engage an audience sufficiently.

Setting the piece at a slow tempo allows the theremin to focus on slow lyrical lines that are within my grasp as a performer. The fixed audio part, created using Apple’s Logic Pro, serves as a compliment to the slow, lyrical nature of the theremin.  The fixed audio uses faster, often syncopated rhythms that add a surface level energy to the piece.

Another way to add energy and excitement to the piece is to add a visually engaging video to accompany the work.  The concept behind the work attempts to bridge the visual and audio worlds.  In the visual realm, pantone refers to a color classification system. In sound, I offer pantone as a description of an instrument, like the theremin, that can create any frequency that exists between its highest and lowest possible notes.

Creating a video for Pantone creates another set of problems, related to my relative inexperience as a visual artist.  Years ago I wrote a chamber opera, Into the Cautious Season, that used projected images that were similar in nature to a graphic novel representation of the plot and libretto to both set the scene, as well as to display the libretto.  I created the graphic novel version in black and white as well as a version using some color.  Inspired by the water color skies used in It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, I used watercolor paints on the black and white images to create a limited color version.

cautious

Due to my lack of skill as a visual artist, I cannot say that the graphic novel version of Into the Cautious Season was successful.  However, I can say that it was good enough to be a proof of concept, and that I believe a version done by someone with decent illustration skills could work well. Moreover, I began to think that simple scans of single color fields of watercolor paint could make an interesting basis for a video.

For Pantone I started with nine black and white images from the patent drawings for the theremin.  Then, I used watercolors to paint single color designs that mimic the designs on top of the drawings.  After scanning the images into a computer, I then made nine glitched versions of each, by changing each image file to a text file, copying, pasting, and deleting material before changing the file back into image files.

glitch

For each musical phrase of Pantone I superimposed nine of these glitched images on top of each other in Apple’s Final Cut Pro.  I set each layer to zoom in and out and to move about independently of the other images. Furthermore, each layer was set to only let a percentage of colors through. This approach resulted in a detailed, yet slow moving texture of colors. One final detail added to the video involved adding an increasing number of visual accents that coincide with musical accents.  These were achieved by exporting specific frames as images, glitching those image files, and superimposing them for about four frames over the video.

glitchaccent

Sonically speaking Pantone is an homage to the future of my youth.  When I was a child, commercially available analog synthesizers were relatively new.  Artists like Wendy Carlos, Don Dorsey, Jean-Jacques Perry, and Isao Tomita created sonic palettes that will always sound like the future to me. In creating the fixed audio accompaniment for the piece, I emphasized timbres that emulated these analog synthesizers.

Ultimately I believe that Pantone offers several features that can engage listeners:  lyrical melodic material performed on a novel instrument, a fixed audio part that is rhythmically energetic, a sonic palette that invokes a nostalgic science-fictionesque world, and a colorfully meditative visual component filled with detail.

(in performance in Pawtucket, RI on December 4th, 2016)

(in performance in Bridgewater, MA on March 1st, 2017)

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A cavalcade of podcasts

As a professional commuter, podcasts add greatly to my quality of life. When a podcast is both informative and enjoyable / entertaining, being stuck in traffic can be reduced to a mere inconvenience. Podcasts that are inspiring, and can give musicians of any skill level ideas for their next work transcend entertainment to a near necessity.

I listen to two or three podcasts that may be of interest to those involved in songwriting, recording, or film scoring.  The best of these, The Sodajerker on Songwriting, is a series of hour long interviews with highly notable songwriters including people such as: Lamont Dozier, Kenny Loggins, Richard Sherman, Paul Simon, Valerie Simpson, Mike Stoller, and Paul Williams.  The interviews are conducted by two songwriters, so the questions are intelligent, and pertinent to the songwriting process.  While the interviews are centered on songwriting issues of production, gear, and recording can come up frequently in artists who are well involved in such activities.

A similar podcast, Song Exploder, features 10 to 15 minute episodes where a major band or artist talks about the creation of a single song.  Each episode ends with the released version of the song in question.  The podcast has had numerous high profile guests, including:  Alexandre Desplat, The Lumineers, K. T. Tunstall, U2, and Wheezer.  The podcast is much more evenly split between topics involving songwriting versus production.

Finally, a third podcast that I have listened to (although not as extensively) is Sideshow Sound Theatre.  This podcast is partially fan oriented, and partially review oriented.  The hosts of the show are film music fans who are aspiring film / media composers.  The hosts pick a different theme, genre, composer, or franchise for each episode, and discuss the particular scores at hand in depth.

I have listened every episode of The Soda Jerker on Songwriting and Song Exploder.  I am currently (very) slowly working my way through Sideshow Sound Theatre.  Not every episode is inspiring, or gives me valuable ideas that I can use in my own work.  But sometimes it only takes a single idea to completely revolutionize how you approach your art.  Hearing from people involved in the same artistic endeavors as you are is perhaps the best way to broaden or advance your own skills.  Finding the time to listen to these resources is perhaps one if the best ways you can spend your time in the advancement of your own work.

 

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Tackling Reverb

I think of reverb as being kind of like ketchup, namely the right amount is supremely tasty, a bit too much can over power and ruin the flavor.  What constitutes that sweet spot is of course personal taste, but finding the right settings to achieve that goal can be daunting, particularly considering the number of parameters in many reverb plugins.

Perhaps the simplest manner is to start with presets. Find something that kind of suits your tastes, and edit the parameters from there. However, if you want to start from scratch, and forge your own sound, some advice might be useful to get you started.

The two most basic settings for reverb are the mix (or wet / dry balance) and reverb time.  If you think of a real reverberant space, reverb time is the amount of time it takes for the sound to dissipate (technically for it to drop 60 decibels in volume).  The mix (or wet / dry balance) would be the distance from the original sound source.  For instance, having the mix near 0% (or dry be loud with wet turned down) would be close to the original sound source.  A mix level nearer to 100% (or dry being quiet, with wet turned up) would be far away from the original sound source.

When I start building reverb from scratch, I like to turn up the mix to 100%, so I am listening only to the sound of the reverb.  Once I get the sound where I want it, I can dial the mix back until I like the balance of the dry and reverberated sound.

Once I set the mix to 100%, I next set the reverb time to set the size of the virtual space of the reverb.  Do I want a small or a cavernous sound, or somewhere in between.  To sound realistic (which is not necessarily important), it is best to stick to times under four seconds.

Then I like to play with any setting that would determine the size of the room.  Subsequently I like to modify any setting that changes the tone color of the reverb, such as low frequency levels or high cut levels.  If you are looking to emulate a natural reverb sound, you want to cut out some of the high frequency components, as that frequency range tends not to reflect off of surfaces very efficiently.  Finally, I like to move on to other settings that control aspects like density and diffusion.

Again, once I am satisfied with the overall sound of the reverb, I mix in enough of the dry tone so the original sound has enough presence, and the reverb fades into the background.  During the process, you will probably adapt to the sound a bit, so most people tend to use more reverb than is necessary.  For this reason, it is advisable to listen to it again the next day when your ears are fresh and dial it back a bit if so desired.

That being said, reverb can be a great tool for hiding thin or poor tone quality (particularly on vocals).  It can also be used to mask small mistakes.  Overusing reverb in this manner as a crutch can result in you not addressing more fundamental performance, recording, or editing issues that can be fixed with a little extra experience or practice.  However, when you find a reverb sound that you like, save it as a preset (using a name that is meaningful to you, or relates to the specific project so you will be able to recall it).  Saving your own presets can allow you to build a catalog of your own sound.  But remember that a little reverb can go a long way.  Avoid slathering it on too much, unless you want something that sounds very effect-y in nature.

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getting the gear monkey off your back

I get two or three emails a day containing coupons to buy new gear.  If you’re like me, this gives you the shakes.  There’s a part of me that just itches to buy gear every time I see something shiny and new.  Giving into these urges can be expensive, and can fill your drawers and closets with gadgets that seemed so necessary a year or two ago that you hardly use anymore.

I have found it useful to ask myself a couple of questions before I buy any new gear.  The first question is, “do I need it, or do I want it?”  When assessing a perceived need, there are three situations:  a piece of equipment that could result in getting more work (see also:  gigs, $$$, green, moolah, Benjamins), a piece of equipment that allows you to do something you already can do faster, or a piece of equipment that is going to allow you to do something unique that while good for your career / work may not result in income in any direct, attributable fashion.

In the case of the former situation, balance the cost of the piece of equipment versus what it could mean to you through additional work by figuring out how many jobs/gigs you would need to pay for the cost of the piece of gear in question.  If it would take too many gigs to pay it off, perhaps it is not worth it.

In the situation of a piece of gear that allows you to do something you can already do faster, ask yourself how much time would it save me per job?  Think of what your time is worth to you, but by considering how much is the minimum amount you would work for per hour.  This allows you to put a dollar amount on the amount that you ‘save’ per gig.  How many gigs would you have to do to clear the price of the piece of gear.

In the final case, where there is no easily quantifiable result, you have to do some self questioning.  What would this piece of equipment allow you to do that you can’t do already?  How would this piece of gear improve your work in such a way that it will increase your profile, or make your work more notable?  Do you really think this gadget or device will help you attain a higher level of work?  If so, it may be worth it (provided you can afford it).

If you have determined that piece of gear is not something you need, but rather is something you want, you have to ask yourself if you would buy yourself a gift that is at that price point.  You should follow that question up by assessing how long it has been since you’ve bought yourself a gift.  Again, you should keep in mind whether buying yourself a gift is something you can afford at the current moment.  Perhaps you might want to set yourself an annual budget for such self gifting to keep yourself in line.

One final idea you could keep in mind when considering a purchase is resale value.  Some gear (particularly instruments and microphones) maintain amount of resale value.  This could allow a person to use a piece of gear for as long as they want to, and resell it later to recoup some of the value for the item.  However, not all gear retains value, and some items go in and out of style. causing the value to fluctuate wildly.

If you do intend to buy a piece of equipment, and resell it later if you feel you aren’t getting as much value out of it, look on eBay to see what used instances of that piece of hardware are selling for.  Pay most attention to equipment that is truly used, and not listed as being ‘like new.’  Also, check to make sure that that gear actually sells for those prices, not simply that it is being listed at that price.  This can obviously be hard to do with newly introduced gear.  However, you can sometimes find used instances of older models of the same piece of equipment to judge value.

You can use this resale value to offset the value of the gear you intend to purchase.  However, be honest with yourself.  Do not use resale value as an excuse to buy something if you are not the type of person who typically resells old / used gear on eBay or Craig’s List.

A nice coupon or a sale is typically not a once in a lifetime opportunity.  It is fine, and in fact wise, to let it pass.  If you let the opportunity pass, and regret it, that is something you can take into account and plan ahead for the next time it is on sale (because nine times out of ten, it is only a matter of time before the item goes on sale again).

One exception is used / vintage gear.  Some pieces of vintage gear can become very rare, and can sometimes increase in value with time.  Before you buy ask yourself whether it is in good enough condition to make it practical.  Also, ask yourself if it breaks, will you be able to find someone who can fix it.  You may also want to ask yourself whether there are modern emulators of this piece of equipment, and if the emulators would be sufficient.  If you are satisfied with your answers to these questions, and buying the vintage piece of gear still seems valuable (and if it is in your budget), feel free to do so.

I’ve found these guidelines to be valuable for my own purchasing habits. While they might not work in quite the same way for you, I encourage you to at least come up with your own criteria for keeping your gear habit in check.  If I had to choose one of these guidelines as being the most important, it would be being honest with yourself about whether it is a need or a want.  Ultimately it is fine to buy yourself a gift if you can afford it, but try to be honest with yourself.  Don’t pretend you need something that you simply want.