Using volume...

[RAMI]

Is it standard practice, or is it done at all, to use volume to bring out certain parts of a song?
I don't mean the volume of individual instruments. I mean, for example, bringing up the whole mix for the chorus. Or having song get slightly gradually louder so that by the end of the tune it's a couple of db's louder than how it started. Does this give the illusion of more energy as a song progresses, or is it useless? Any ideas or personal experiences? thanx

 

[Bartman]

Can't speak to standard parctice

Rami,

I can't speak to standard practice because I'm a hobbyist, not a pro.

That stated, I sometimes use a volume envelope on the entire mix to bring up the volume of a chorus or other song component that simply sounds better if it is a little louder relative to the rest of the song.

My first choice is to nail the dynamics with the performance but it doesn't always work out that way.

Peace,

Bart

 

[Dogbreath]

I'm no pro either, (noy even sure what an "envelope" is) but I'll go thru and automate fader levels to bring up (or down) either chorus or lead solo's to add more to it. Just a skosh.
Once I've done my 2-trk mixdown, I'll nudge the chorus or whatever part of the song that needs a bit of a crescendo. Not sure if this is what you meant but figured to toss in a couple of pennies worth.

 

[Bartman]

Agreement

The maloderous mouthed canine and I are in agreement.

 

[RAMI]

Yes, yes. Cool, thanx guys. I have a song that seems to build in energy and tension as it progresses. It just feels right to slightly turn it up very gradually (and barely noticeable) to enhance that effect...thanx for the sugestions. I wasn't sure if a master level of a tune would be something that is sometimes played with.

 

[Dogman]

Yes, yes. Cool, thanx guys. I have a song that seems to build in energy and tension as it progresses. It just feels right to slightly turn it up very gradually (and barely noticeable) to enhance that effect...thanx for the sugestions. I wasn't sure if a master level of a tune would be something that is sometimes played with.

I'd go for it man, and see if it brings out the desired effect. Sounds like on a song that builds a certain way, it would give it a good boost, dynamicly.
Ed

 

[LemonTree]

as long as whoever masters the track doesn't smash the life out of it there's nothing wrong with it. Dynamics are your friend

 

[treymonfauntre]

i know a few bands that will slowly smash the hell out of the last song on the cd until its deafeningly loud and distorted. the contrastingly pure silence and cd laser going back to the beginning of the cd after it ends is nuts.

 

[RAMI]

Interesting posts. Thanx. I guess like anything else, I have to try it. Interesting point about making sure that the dynamics aren't sort of cancelled out if the mix is compressed.

 

[RAMI]

Not quite the same subject, but close: What about tempo changes? Slightly faster choruses, or a song speeding up gradually. Of course I realise there are alot of tunes through history that finish a lot faster than they started or even the tempo all over the place. But I'm talking more about deliberately programming the click track to speed up or slow down the tune.

 

[LeeRosario]

Well now you're getting into songwriting concepts.



Historically, when you go into a higher key and faster tempo, you further excite the mood. That's why you'll hear alot of pop music that suddenly goes into a higher key. You usually don't see that until your bridge or roughly half way into the song.

Like for example, Celine Dions Titanic track is a prime example (shutter). That part where suddenly shit goes even higher. You can usually tell when the singer is close to poping a vein in her neck and her eyes turn wicked red. (Oh I doubt she's crying).

A click track simply marks time, it does not expand or compress the tempo of your song (traditionally).

Same with your previous question, which is based on a songs dynamics. Usually the practice in pop rock comes with automation.


Your verses are usually about 3 db lower than your choruses. And your outro sections can be maybe a tad higher than your choruses to further excite the listener. But you see, there is a bit of catch 22 with this:

You can lower your verses, or my prefered way to do it is simply alternating how many tracked parts you have in each section.

So if you have drums/bass/vocals/2 guitars during your verses, you simply enhance your chorus with an appropiatly more elaborate part.

Maybe like slowly bringing in a new lead guitar line and some backing orcestral stuff. It just depends on the song and the context of the song.

Putting a harp and violin behind a killer thrash chorus wouldn't be my first choice, but hey! you never know! That could be the sound I define myself for!

The safe way is to simply do what every other successful song in the market does: copy from another sucessful song. Kind of like a comedian who tries "safe" material that will be received well by the network vs trying bold material that most people would be shocked to hear, but if successful, may generate a new trend.

But think about it, if you've been struggling as a musician for 10 years and you suddenly get signed by Roadrunner, you want to stay there, right?

So you put out this hit record, everyone raves about it. Roadrunner pays the radio stations to air it, they pay rolling stone to give it a good review (sorry, I just spilled the beans), and they pay fuse to give it some air time on TV and say good things about it.

You're a star! So what do you do on your next album?! Do you go with "safe" material? The stuff you know would keep you around a little longer? Or do you go against the advice of roadrunner to put out an even bolder record? Knowing that if it fails, you've lost your 10+ years of hard work.

Cause that's the reality of music. The market no longer supports evolution of artists. You either have a hit single and continue to the next round or you pack up and go back to Idaho to work on the cattle ranch you hated so much. (just examples).

That's the essence of the competitive market. It's all about using other ideas as your own in hopes of having enough pull to get things in your favor.

That's why producers and musicians tend to listen around for what's "hot". Cause if Jerry Finn realizes that a symphony behind a rock band makes it epic, and epic is what sells....


then he might choose to say, "hey green day, I got an idea". Or maybe it was green day that opened the idea up to him.

Who knows?


But back to dynamics...

If you listen to albums that weren't smashed, then you can feel dynamic changes.

That's probably one of the finer and more difficult parts in commercial audio production. Volume automation is almost as mystical as mastering cause there is no rule on when or when not to use it.


(Gay mode) Only what your heart says!


Wow, I got carried away!

 

[LemonTree]

fine points Lee, where have you been hiding all this boards life?

 

[LeeRosario]

fine points Lee, where have you been hiding all this boards life?

Good question! I seriously don't know what just happened there. I went off on this side tagent and got excited about talking music politics!

yikes!

 

[RAMI]

Whoah! My brain hurts.

Anyway, just to clarify. I am well aware of dynamics while playing, and that is something that good musicians should be aware of. I realise that bridges usually take the song somewhere else, either pitch-wise, lyrically, dynamically, etc...etc...etc...
I was just wondering if raising the volume of the WHOLE mix on mixdown is an accepted practice, or if you should stay away from playing around with the overall volume.
As far as tempo is concerned, "A click track simply marks time, it does not expand or compress the tempo of your song"...Well that was the essence of my question. Does it have to simply "mark time"? Can you not program your verses at 85 BPM and your choruses at 88 BPM (for example)? Just for a slight boost. I wonder how natural it would sound for a drummer to play to something like that. Or maybe it's done all the time and it's a barely noticeable thing.

 

[LeeRosario]

Whoah! My brain hurts.

Anyway, just to clarify. I am well aware of dynamics while playing, and that is something that good musicians should be aware of. I realise that bridges usually take the song somewhere else, either pitch-wise, lyrically, dynamically, etc...etc...etc...
I was just wondering if raising the volume of the WHOLE mix on mixdown is an accepted practice, or if you should stay away from playing around with the overall volume.
As far as tempo is concerned, "A click track simply marks time, it does not expand or compress the tempo of your song"...Well that was the essence of my question. Does it have to simply "mark time"? Can you not program your verses at 85 BPM and your choruses at 88 BPM (for example)? Just for a slight boost. I wonder how natural it would sound for a drummer to play to something like that. Or maybe it's done all the time and it's a barely noticeable thing.

Cool...let me see if I can try to answer this directly.

If you mean programming the click, independant of the actual tracks, then yes, you should be able to. Each program does this differently.

I hear things on the radio that might be a perfect example of this, but I beleive it's rehearsed and captured live rather than edited or digitally manipulated.

However, to track that would be tricky and it has it's consiquences. When I get to that point, I found that I usually end up with 3 options:


Once I've programmed the tempo change at a specific bar....


1) I could have the drummer rehearse the change, and once he's got it, then I hit record and hope for the best. So if I have to, I'll edit later to match the transistion a little better.

2) I could have the drummer simply play his parts at 85, start up a new playlist for 88bpm, and then have him record his parts at 88. Then the rest would have to be editing and lining up the parts as naturally as possible.

3) Another option is to simply have the drummer play at 85 all the way through, and time expand/compress the parts you want for 88. However, I haven't heard time compression that sounds natural as of yet on drums. So I avoid this when I can.

4) There is another way, but this one is more of an advanced production technique. It involves using beat detective to cut up your drum parts and refit them for the tempo you want. However, I rarely do this, so I couldn't tell you word for word how to get this done. Plus it takes some time to get it done correctly, because if you do it wrong then you can change the feel of the groove.

Good time compression can work fine in small increments on vocals and guitars, but drums and percussive instruments tend to suffer with time compression.

I think the best way to achieve natural tempo change is by trying the first reference.

Editing something like this is not hard, just that it seems too precise to sound human.

 

[RAMI]

Thanx Lee, lots of good info there. I would imagine the easiest way would be to just program the click with the speed changes you want and then just play to it. If the transitions are too un-natural to play to then I'm sure they're too un-natural to listen to.

 

[noisewreck]

Just to add to LR's point about time compression/expansion on drums. It doesn't sound good because it messes with the transients. For this reason drums tend to respond much better to beat slicing (be it Pro Tools Beat Detective, Cubase HitPoints or ReCycle).

About tempo changes, going from 85 BPM to 88 BPM isn't that drastic, although if you just jump to it it might mess with the drummer. It would be better if you ramped up to it within 1-2 measures. It would sound more natural that way anyway, specially if it matched crescendo.

 

[RAMI]

It would be better if you ramped up to it within 1-2 measures. It would sound more natural that way anyway, specially if it matched crescendo.

Good point. Starting to accelerate a bar or 2 before would probably be more natural sounding.

 

[dgatwood]

Is it standard practice, or is it done at all, to use volume to bring out certain parts of a song?
I don't mean the volume of individual instruments. I mean, for example, bringing up the whole mix for the chorus. Or having song get slightly gradually louder so that by the end of the tune it's a couple of db's louder than how it started. Does this give the illusion of more energy as a song progresses, or is it useless? Any ideas or personal experiences? thanx

It may very well get compressed in radio play to the point that nobody hears it, so if that's your target, it might not be that useful. Something that can really create the illusion of more energy is... well, more energy.

In particular, a dense recording naturally sounds louder than a more sparse recording, even at the exact same volume. A nice trick is to add thicker instrumentation during the chorus. Everything comes down proportionally, so the volume doesn't change much, but in your mind, it gets a lot louder.