New Monday 44
Happy Monday,
Driving Songs
A friend had an early morning event to drive to, and it got me thinking about speeding around in a car, which of course got me thinking about the best driving song anyone has ever recorded, this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zKAS7XOWaQ&list=PLe6ZCJT_4KPm_1xpeYct48rflHClPpPyW&index=1
Damn, that song rocks. It's the perfect driving song: perfect tempo, perfect feel (thanks to a great rhythm section, Ian Paice and Roger Glover), killer solos by Jon Lord and Richie Blackmore, and a one-and-done vocal by Ian Gillan. Lyrics about cars and/or sex, of course.
'Made in Japan' was a seminal record, cut absolutely live with no overdubs across three nights in Japan, in 1972. The Japanese market was clamouring for a live album, the band grudgingly complied. They really had no faith in the project, but not wishing it to suck completely, they flew engineer/producer Martin Birch in to record things.
Birch tracked things down to either 8-track reel-to-reel or two 4-track decks that were synched. Organist Jon Lord recalls there being two 4-tracks, but the technology limitations of the times leads me to think it was probably an 8-track. Martin Birch thought the equipment used looked like junk. The band's PA system was by Marshall and based around a 16-input solid-state console, so perhaps that figured into the recording somehow as well. No one had high hopes for the recording, and most of the band didn't bother to attend the mixing sessions.
Actually, the recording came out REALLY good. So good that the band managed to push their record label, Warner, into releasing it in more countries than just Japan. 'Made in Japan' was hugely successful, aided by a single, 'Smoke on the Water', and is rightly considered one of the great live albums.
8-tracks. Those drum sounds cut to two measly tracks perhaps? A track of bass, a track of organ, a track of guitar, and a vocal. A pair of tracks used to record the audience. Or maybe the whole is mainly a stereo mix off the board? Big magic afoot on 'Made in Japan'.
I've put together a playlist of songs to drive to, and you're all invited to contribute. It's located here on YouTube, with 'Highway Star' leading it off. There are obvious choices like 'LA Woman' and 'Radar Love', and some less obvious entries, like The Cure's 'Just Like Heaven' and the Moody Blues' 'Question'. The criteria for inclusion is: it has to make you want to speed around in a car, and there's only one song entry per band or artist. Lots of things you like by Iron Maiden? Sorry, whittle it down to one. People might be wondering why 'Them Bones' isn't on the list. Because 'Them Bones' is a song that makes you want to WRESTLE. This was the fave soundtrack tune when my son was a toddler and we would re-enact the WWF on the big bed upstairs for hours, with constant, completely safe body slams, etc.
Either put your entries in the comments on YouTube or reply to this email. If this is somewhat successful perhaps we'll make some other playlists.
Setting Levels
I recently got an email asking questions about the operating level of our audio plug-ins. Hi Alex!
I wasn't fully satisfied with my answer. Actually, I'm not fully satisfied by any answers or dogma regarding audio levels. Dan and I have discussed this at length many times.
There's a lot of online talk about levels, gain staging, where should the faders be, what should the meters read, yada yada yada. This is a complex topic.
I've written a series of articles on this, covering the technical stuff in an understandable manner and always stressing the practical sides of things. Here are links. If you read it in the order of the links it is like a comprehensive course. You can also, of course, skip around.
https://korneffaudio.com/what-the-heck-is-bias/ (It starts off discussing bias. Because if you understand this then everything else makes a lot more sense.)
https://korneffaudio.com/harmonics-and-harmonic-distortion/
https://korneffaudio.com/what-causes-distortion/
https://korneffaudio.com/noise-in-audio-engineering/
https://korneffaudio.com/dynamic-range-headroom-and-nominal-level/
https://korneffaudio.com/compression-saturation-and-distortion/
https://korneffaudio.com/at-last-gain-staging/
https://korneffaudio.com/nominal-level-and-meters/
Here's all of this in a nutshell
Digital audio equipment, and the procedures and processes involved in recording digital audio, are heavily based on equipment, and procedures, and processes developed by years of analog recording, and this makes total sense. Digital recording evolved out of analog recording. We think of, and describe, many aspects of digital recording using an analog recording mental model.
The most important mental model that we use is that there is a "sweet spot" to set the levels, in which one gets an optimum result.
With analog equipment, there is definitely a sweet spot. It's a place wherein the signal feeding in and the signal feeding out of the equipment are as similar to each other as possible: the frequency response is the same, the transient response is the same, there's minimal noise, there's minimal additional harmonics added (harmonic distortion). The sweet spot is the level at which the signal has maximum linearity: what goes in is what goes out. This is assuming you're not actively eq'ing the signal or compressing it or some such.
That sweet spot corresponds to something called the Nominal Level. Gear is designed to work at nominal level, and if you want things to sound good, try to get things to be at nominal level.
How do you know what the nominal level is? It's usually indicated by a meter of some sort. Get the meter to look correct, and the audio will be correct. It really is that simple.
So, what does a correct meter look like? It depends on the meter. I could get into a huge discussion about meters, and next week I will specifically break down the meters on various Korneff Audio plug-ins to help you really understand things, but for now, I'll give you the absolute baseline concept:
RED IS BAD
If there is nothing else you learn, learn this. Red is a warning, and most meters will show red when levels are out of the sweet spot on the high side. Levels below the nominal (below the sweet spot) aren't as problematic as levels above the sweet spot that cause things to flash red. Seriously, most level setting on both analog and digital devices is simply to adjust the input
so that things occasionally flash red. OCCASIONALLY. Not all the time.
Remember that our plug-ins, and most plug-ins, are based on analog circuits, and that means that there is math in there that is emulating the behaviour of how an analog circuit will sound depending on if you're in that sweet spot or not, and the meters on plug-ins are there to help you get the plug-in to operate in its sweet spot. So use the meters and your ears. Also, bear in mind that the sweet spot/nominal level is kinda on the big side. It isn't incredibly specific. It's like parking spots in a parking lot: there are a lot of parking spots that are near the door of the place you're trying to go and you don't have to get your car perfectly in that one damn perfect spot.
You don't have to be anal or OCD about your level setting, you just need to get somewhere near the door.
To answer Alex very specifically, digital audio uses a sort of "imaginary" nominal level that is labeled as -18dBFS, and our plug-ins, and most plug-ins, are designed to be their most linear at -18dBFS. In other words, the sweet spot is at about -18dBFS, but you don't need to be anal about this number, you really just need to know how to understand meters, and we'll talk about that next week.
I hope this helps.
Warm regards,
Luke
