On my desk lie a pair of Sennheiser headphones. That is reason enough to briefly write what “cans” can do and what they cannot.

I use headphones regularly for two things. First for focusing on acoustic details as if i look for noises or if i try to find the perfect amount of attack to set on a compressor (it determines how much the transients of the signal get through and generally sound good if set for “long” but to keep signals “hot” i often try to reduce the attack as much as possible without killing the transients). The second use of headphones in my working room is to judge the bass - that is the amount of bass in a track. Mainly because the bass response in my working room ist not perfect as in 99% of all rooms.

Headphones work like magnifying glasses and therefore you can work on details or an single sources and they dont interfere with your room so good headphones have a very linear frequency response.

Sounds like you can sell your speakers and spend everything for great headphones for mixing ? No ! First the stereo-response is bi-aural and hence a mix dont translate the same when heared on speakers. But even more important is that you cant see the whole picture with magnifying glasses. A great tip for mixing is to judge a mix played from good speakers just above the hearing threshold (very soft that is) - and that is the absolute opposite of the hearing experience with headphones. In the “cans” you still can hear most of the details of a bad mix which will get lost if played on speakers. So, dont mix with headphones on. 

Oh, but there is another great use of good headphones - listen to well recorded music on them with your eyes closed… you will hear details you never heard on speakers and the intimate listening experience is really cool for many styles of music. For “ambient” electronic music for example

Lastly i will just add that i seem to be a serious Sennheiser fan… the last years my main headphones included HD580, HD600 and now HD650 and i two times did listening tests comparing them to other brands (didnt like AKG at all, but the high-end Beyerdynamic came close)

There lately was a post in the “RMB Forum” about the Loudness War in recent pop productions (The link had a lot of faulty details and descriptions in it… better google “Loudness War” or buy the Book “Mastering Audio” by Bob Katz)

Of course i generally agree with all that but then someone named a culprit: THE COMPRESSOR !

And now you see so many compressors in my rack and even more in my plug-in list - am i participating in the loudness war and trying to kill all dynamics in my songs ? No, because there is a misunderstanding…

A compressor is a tool. 

Its like a knife. You can cut nice figures out of the tablecloth for your girlfriend or you can stab your own grandma. The same with compressors. And to bring evidence i give you a snippet of a tune with my typical use of compression for this style of music (its most obvious sounding in this style).

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And now you can hear what happens if i switch off all compressors in this mix (and try to restore the levels a bit) Especially listen to how the bassline doesnt work with the groove anymore. The kick also doesnt “cut through” anymore and the claps have become washy.

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And here is an example of OVERCOMPRESSION… its loud but its flat sounding… if you listened to the other recordings before you have to reduce the volume…

 

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A compressor makes loud audio softer. It reduces the level in loud passages. And when it does there is a time factor involved. The compressor needs a bit of time to reduce the level and a bit of time to return to full level. And by changing these times you can make a compressor “groove” or even “pump”. The Magic is in the knobs labelled “Attack” and “Release”.

Many producers and engineers use compressors as a dynamic-tool, to give instruments or group of instruments a distinct loudness envelope - a groove. And some of them use compressors (or even worse -brickwall limiter) for killing all dynamics in order to get a higher perceived loudness which often results in harsh sounding recordings that are fatiguing to your ears and cant be heard loud anymore without physical pain. Both are using the same (or similar) tools… 

For example put the album “californication” on good speakers with high volume… i couldnt stand it… and worst of all this now is kind of an industry standard and expected by major labels. (If you didnt yet, google “Loudness War”)

Good that i dont have a major deal anymore  

Whats the Status right now ?

In the last years i was quite busy with composing/producing music for advertising and media. But beside this work i collected every cool sound, every unheard mixing idea and every beautiful melody which came to my mind. If i now look into the folders of my harddrive ill easily find dozens of preproduced tracks, ideas, grooves. Nothing finished yet, but a lot of potential audio jewels.

What to do with such a mess ? And what to do with the experience i got from working with so many styles for advertising ? What to do with nowadays audio possibilites which would have been a “dream studio with several hired guys” some years ago and would have been absolutely impossible to have more than a decade ago…? (Ill talk about the technical details later for shure)

Another problem with those snippets and recordings was that there was no common style to them, no big scheme, not even the same “sound” of mixing. They where all just to different to simply put them on one album even if you´d “remix” them all.

Then i realised that I never did a concept album. Something which is not a mere “best of” collection of the last years but more like a collection of about twelve different angles of view onto one common topic. And that was the challenge i got hooked up with. Some days later i had a topic i thought to be ideal - not to cheesy but diversive and a bit technical as well… No, i wont tell you that topic yet… It doesnt even matter for the future consumer of the album - it is just my own guideline to not get lost in the varieties of sounds and styles and its there to not make it too easy for me

Welcome everybody ! In the next weeks (12 Weeks still aint “months” ) i will try to write daily about all the processes neccessary to make a full length electronic album.

I will include all the sources of inspiration, the thoughts, the tools, the places, the people, troubleshooting with before/after examples, fotos and stories. There will even be polls about some of the decisions and YOU are always able to comment or ask questions.

I hope all of you will enjoy the

FOOTPRINTS OF AN UPCOMING RECORD

ROLF MAIER BODE