The Secrets of Good Sound of Music

First of all, let's try to answer the question: "What is a good sound? What is it?" What makes the sound of some
recording define as "good", "transparent", "punchy", "sounding great"? Why certain recordings passed to
history's pantheon of fame? Was it only about the great performance and composition or was there something
else to it?

Is a good sound all about clear presentation of all the instruments and vocals? Is it like the clearer and louder
the better? Well, most obviously it is not. 

The definition of good sound, set over the last 50 years in the history of home listening Hi-Fi is derived in the
following way: "... Great sound is a thrilling listening experience, in which all the instruments and vocals form
a certain artistic unity. All the instruments and voices are perfectly audible, but they are working together and
are perceived as one whole thing, not just the sum of parts or individual parts. The appropriate balance is
maintained between the bass, the middle and the treble, and top class stereo and 3 dimensional panorama is
captured in a manner which promotes obtaining additional space in the stereo listening. But in the same time all
the sounds are glued together making an impression, that each part can not exist without the others. The sound
is warm, full, natural, giving a great listening experience even at a very high volume levels ...". It will never tire
the ears. Of course, the quality of each sound recording can be fully assessed only when listening through
superior equipment, that is, when we play it back through a great player, a sonically excellent amplifier and
outstanding speakers. But listening to music has such a property that even with relatively weak audio
equipment the difference between well-produced recordings and weak, average recordings will always be easily
recognized.

The great sound of music is something hard to explain but easy to spot- it just thrills, grabs attention and makes
you feel the music with all your body and soul.

It is just.... great!

Let's try to look at various factors affecting the quality of the final sound of music recordings.

Hardware or software?

Recording music from the beginning of the music industry was carried out with use of analog equipment, the
digital devices were not present then even in wildest dreams. There were no computers, no software to process
and edit music, both recorders and gear transforming the sound worked wholly in the analogue technology,
based on different fluctuations and changes in the frequency of electric currents and magnetic induction
phenomenon. For example, the recording equipment used for tracking in studios were reel-to-reel tape recorders
using  the features of magnetic tape to record sound, and it's ability to store music in form of magnetic field
variations.

This way the sound cod be stored on the magnetic tape and then played back. Each tape machine contained the
so-called magnetic head, which was a small device with electromagnetic coils used to read the sound from the
tape passing over this head. This formed the electromagnetic induction and small currents in machine's
electronics from read changes in the magnetic tape media. All the sound processing equipment was based on
various characteristics of electric current, and its fluctuating changes reflecting changes in the frequency of
sound waves. The signal it this form was passed to the amplifier, which changed it to much stronger electrical
impulses, which were passed then to speakers. The speakers exchanged the electrical energy into the movement
of speaker coils. The speaker coils moved the air creating the sound waves in it, which could be heard by
human ears as the sound of music or speech.

Around the year 2000 and even earlier, the digital recording technology came to recording studio for good. It is
entirely different from the analog one and is reflecting any changes in the sound wave by means of the strings
of ones and zeros, the so called digital words. The advantages of digital technology of recording is that such a
recording is devoid of such negative artifacts as glitches, tape and electronics noise, aging and stretching tape
with it's gradual degradation, etc. Similarly, equipment for processing digital audio, such as compressors,
equalizers, reverberation units and other devices have much less noise of own components, it will not age as the
tubes or capacitors, is more reliable and more stable in operation. Another very important advantage is that you
can save a lot of settings in electronic memory slots of such equipment and recall them on demand in the form
of "presets". the analog equipment could not be reset to exactly same settings once the knobs and sliders were
moved.
Does this mean that the digital equipment is clearly better than analog? Does it produce better sound and what it
is better to use - the "digital" or "analog"?
We have many yes' and no's over here. Here we will try to describe the most important features of both of these
techniques and we will challenge one against the other.
 

The analog is a traditional recording technology used in the music industry from the very beginning of its
existence. Throughout all those years it has influenced very much indeed the way we perceive the recorded
music, with giving it a specific sound, and has become a kind of "standard", likeable and admired by the
producers all over the world. Digital technology is something relatively new, in its pure form it completely
different from analog, but it offers more opportunities for editing, the ease of handling and far greater ease of
use with almost no rewinding time, and also it offers drastic reduction in costs of tape and maintenance needed
with the tape machines. It is accessible to anyone who wishes to engage in music production. These are clear
advantages, which probably decided that digital technology increasingly is displacing analog.

But what about the sound? Today, there are still many producers and sound engineers who prefer the analog
tape to digital technology. It is true, that the pure digital sound without any devices changing it's character
sounds much worse than analog. But that digital character can be changed by use various analog devices in the
sound paths, or the sophisticated software applications that emulate the sound of widely recognized analog
classics of the past. Therefore, achieving the great sound out of digital recorders is possible and lies in hands of
knowledgeable engineer. And working in digital domain is cheaper and faster.

One of the most important ways of changing the digital sound is equalizing it.     

Secrets of equalization-What is it and what benefits gives the equalization ?

Proper equalization of tracks making up the mix of a song is just as important as the choice of palette of colors
used by the painter when painting the picture. A true masters never painted in a way that put too much contrasts
in his work, the sometimes deliberately used the somewhat fuzzy contours, soft lines, dark shades of light or
weak colors. The sound of the song should be sculptured and shaded similarly. Not necessarily all which is very
strongly contrasted, is very clear and loud is good - most often, the human ears are more likely to assimilate
sounds, which are complementary to each other in spectral and dynamic sense than those that are competing
against each other, measured only in the largest volume and very broad band. The secret of perfect sound
recording lies in making all the tracks to complement each other and form a one, coherent picture. The greatly
recorded and produced music is always perceived as a unity bounded together. One of the most powerful tools
to sculpture the tracks is equalizer.

Equalizer is a device used to select certain frequencies in the spectrum of sound recording or just live sound
during concerts and strengthening or weakening those frequencies, depending on current needs. It is an
indispensable tool for mixing a song or correction of errors in the tonal balance during mastering. Thanks to
skillful use the equalizer can make the badly sounding instruments in the mix becoming full of details, we can
highlight the best elements of the recording and bring them to the first plan and set a good tonal balance so the
recording starts sounding as a whole, and not just short-conglomerate of different sounds, where everything is
very clear, very equal and very .... boring. the good sounding music should always make us wanting to turn up
the volume. The music that sounds bad does not give us that urge. 

Equalizer was discovered by the phone companies which started to use it in order to compensate for extremely
unequal bandwidth transfer of the telephone lines. The certain frequencies were lost during transmission on the
telephone long distance. Soon, however, the sound engineers in recording studios understood that by using this
device they can achieve a lot better sound when recording music or of a human voice.
There are many types of equalizers, both tube and transistor (solid state) type, but for several years they also
appeared  in the form of computer programs, which are the so-called VST, DX and RTAS plug-ins, which can
be used in host audio-midi sequencers such as Logic Audio, Pro Tools, Cakewalk or Cubase, where they can be
freely combined in the whole chain of effects.
The advantage of the program equalizers is that they are devoid of noise inherent in analog technology and are
resistant to wear and aging components. All the settings can be easily stored and recalled as presets.

From the other hand, their analog counterparts, while being susceptible to breakage and more cumbersome to
use, are often characterized by some own, unique and very musical sound, which automatically makes the
music material more pleasing and easier to mix. There was a lot of equipment built on tubes and in fact, the
tubes have something very finesse to their sound giving the effect of warmth and fullness and  the material
recorded with their use sounds better. The software, such as the T-racks and Waves Ren EQ or Vintage EQ try
to emulate that behavior and bring it to the digital world.   
When skillfully used they can give a very pleasing effects that is pretty close to analog sound. 

Another advantage of plug-ins is the ability to save settings for each track, or the instrument and easily recall it
as well as to exchange "presets" between individual engineers via the Internet. For some time they have found a
permanent place in the best and most expensive studios around the world, often displacing analog hardware
devices. Which technology is  clearly better? Is the hardware, analog equipment really indispensable? There is
the ongoing debate about that between the professionals, but the mere fact that such a discussion takes place
means that the software is already an extremely serious competitor for the best hardware devices. A few years
ago serious sound engineers of great reputation  only shook their heads over the software and would never
replace their acquired for serious money hardware of famed and legendary brands, such as the Pullman,
Fairchld or Manley. Today, many of them openly admit that their hardware devices are currently in the studio
closets collecting dust.
Both types of technology, and both approaches to the music production have their hard supporters. A clear
answer on which approach is better or not is not possible. The most important here  is a human factor. The ear
and experience of the person using these devices. The true fact is "a main device" in mastering is ... producer
with all his emotional and artistic sensitivity, the luggage of experience and othe skill of listening to music,
which  he has acquired throughout his life. Both software and hardware devices are capable of achieving
excellent results in the production of music ... provided that they are operated by suitable person.
 

Is a very widespread view that the equalizer only affects the tonal range of sound, and nothing more. Nothing
more mistaken - equalizers are powerful dynamics processors, we can shape the dynamics of the recording to a
very large extent and specifically for certain parts of the band. We should be thinking about equalizers as the
dynamics processors, but acting differently to audio compressors.

A typical equalizer can be built in 2 kinds - the parametric and graphic. The parametric equalizer can be
adjusted, in general, by knob, through which we can determine the frequency, and then weaken or strengthen it
using another knob. We can have a few of such pairs of knobs in parametric equalizer. Graphic equalizer is
slightly different, it has one permanent frequency for each, but it has more regulators usually built as sliders,
which makes it able to graphically present the curve of correction in graphical manner. and it usually has many
bands (sliders) of correction.

Very often we hear the question, what frequency is best suited for bass, for a guitar solo, a vocal or for some
other instrument. How to set the equalizer in order to improve the sound of the piano or sax? Many websites of
music producers and even manufacturers of the equipment give a kind of "rules" on a permanent basis, the
optimal settings for equalization of individual tracks. We are surprised that such solutions are proposed by the
renowned and corporate deliverers, which of course should not take place, because such settings are simply not
existing.
They do not really exist because the nature of a recorded sound depends on too many factors such as the type of
microphone, and the track for which the instrument was recorded (what role in the mix it is to play), the
instruments differ much from each other not only in the construction and transducers, but for example in the
types of used amplifiers and ambience.
Art of mixing the music is like the art of mixing paint for a picture, it is all about skilful operating the contrasts,
the tracks do not have to sound equally strong or clear, sometimes it is very desirable to make one sounding
duller to cause another one shine better, for example a bright piano and smooth guitar (or vice versa). So we can
say with certainty that there are no optimal, fixed equalizer settings for different tracks in the mix as an initial
optimization of their frequency spectrum. However, you can specify a certain characteristic frequency, which
occur in the range of individual instruments, which may prove helpful for less experienced mixers just for the
start. These figures are typical of the standard-sounding instruments and voices, recorded with a good
condenser microphone thorough a decent preamp or mixing desk. We insist, that those figures can vary
considerably when used in mixes.

Frequencies are classified into 3 ranges, but regardless of these 3 bands, there is still a general bass and treble
frequency for all the instruments. Those we will give you at the bottom of the table. These ranges are:
 

-Base frequency range, which focuses on the most energy in the instrument and which is the main basis of the
instrument's tonal character
-Distinguish frequency range, which results in drastic change in the sound timbre  of the instrument
-Presence frequency range, which decides on the resolution of the track in the mix, adding it will highlight the
instrument in the mix, turning it down will cause smoothness in sound

Here are frequencies for different instruments:

M
a
l
e12
2
28
5
V0
5
o0
c Distinguish
Base Frequency  [Hz]
Frequency[Hz]
Presence Frequency Remarks
a
l
T
r
a
c
k
 
Female vocal 355 1500 3500

Electric bass 155-150 1200 2800

Acoustic bass 105 1312 2680

Kick drum 82 1050 2200

add 100 Hz for funk
Snare 812 1320 4500 snare

Toms 212 805 1600

Cymbals 250 6500 9000-11000

Acoustic guitar 230 950 5100

 Spanish guitar 230 1500 3500-4200

Electric guitar 250 1500 3200-5250

concert grand has it
Grand piano 225 1000-1350 3500-4100 50Hz lower

Violin 350 1050 4500

Cello 150 930 3250

Trombone 245 2000 2300

Trumpet 420 850 2600

Tenor sax 285 1300 1950

Alto sax 500 1420 2212

for distorted
Hammond take away
Hammond organ 235 850-1250 3500 50Hz

Fender piano 280 750-1150 3600

Church organ 80 600-1000 1500

The common bass frequency for all the instruments is 76 Hz with such a "Q" shape that it starts from around
225 Hz.

The common treble frequency for all the instruments is 10 500 Hz with "Q" shaping the curve starting from
around 5000 Hz
 

Furthermore, each of these instruments have bass and treble frequencies common for all audio and we can
strengthen the overall bass and treble of the instrument using this setting. Accordingly, it is 76Hz and 10 500
kHz. Some experts recommend adding so-called "Air" in a range of about 13 000 - 16 000 Hz, those
frequencies, however are not, vitally affect the sound of tracks tracks. In addition, there is a danger of the
extraction of noise from the background, if a noise was present during recording. However, keep in mind that
the smartest rule in mixing is that there are no rules here. If something is good for your ear, it probably is just a
good thing. Do not look at the dials too much and just concentrate on sound. The most important thing here is
personal taste and sensitivity to subtle tonal changes in music, rather than rigid technical rules, which can not be
successful transferred to real world in every case.
 

Frequencies below around 40 Hz should be cut. These components of sound spectrum will only weaken the
whole mix, not affecting its better sound at all. Similarly, the treble should be cut in the region of about 16 500
Hz. And finally, one very important principle: Boosting frequencies generally gives the effect of more stiff
sound, and that is usually not very desirable, as natural sounds do not sound stiff. Very interesting results can be
achieved by cutting certain frequencies, the result is usually softening the sound and making it smoother.
Contrasting those 2 types of sound gives very good effect when two tracks which were treated with equalizer
boosting and cutting play together... that good rule in order to achieve great sounding music mix is to have one
track softened by cutting frequencies, and the other one hardened by boosting some frequencies. Most of the
backing instruments should be softened while the solo instruments and vocals hardened by boosting somewhat.
The softened tracks will give a nice cushion to support the lead ones.  

More expert comments and advices on the use of equalizers, the types and operation of their filters, and the
terminology and technical tricks giving excellent results when mixing music can be found in other tabs on this
page.
 

   Secrets of audio compression-what it is and what benefits gives us the audio compression?
 

Compression is often poorly understood part of the process of forming sound, and the adjusting of the audio
compressor can be quite a task, even for the experienced musicians, and often something difficult to
understand. Secrets of proper setting the audio compressor are fully explained on another tab on this page,  so
let's concentrate in the meantime we on the analysis of the impact of the sound of the compressor from the more
aesthetic and artistic than technical point of view.
The audio compressor was invented as an electronic device that was to control the sound from overdriving the
tape when the signal became bigger. It was to be a kind of an automated hand which will turn the signal down
when it is becoming too high. The sound engineers, however soon discovered that audio compressors give them
not only technical control over sound- they give them THE BETTER SOUND. Compressed audio tends to
sound more uniform, warm and round and therefore audio compressors are very widely used during mixing of
music. They help to get much better sound and it is hard to imagine a studio engineer that does not use
compressors. It is second most important sound processor after the equalizer.  

Actually, we can say that anything done with the audio compressor is on the 2-kinds the technical and the
aesthetic aspect. Most important of the two is the aesthetic. Dry recording without compression, especially
digital, is often making an impression that it is not very clear in terms of quiet sounds, is somewhat "thin". A
compressor draws all, even these very quiet sounds from the deep background and brings it up making the
whole sound image very clear to the human ear, as if given "in one piece glued together from different parts".

The role of audio compressor in creating the aesthetic part of the sound of music can not be over esteemed.

lastly revised 24 January, 2009