Happy Tuesday!
As promised/threatened, here is another email with usage ideas, inside information, and whatnot on our plug-ins.
El Juan Limiter
The El Juan is the first of our plug-ins using our proprietary licensing system. From now on, all our plug-ins will be using it and we’ll upgrade the original 5 too. Soon.
The El Juan started as a joke. A certain plug-in company changed their business model, switching over to subscription, which pissed a lot of people off. Dan was on Social Media, listening to the complaints, and posted something along the lines of “I’ll make a version of XXX and give it out for free if 1000 people like this post."
A few days later, Dan got to building the El Juan. The origin of the name you should be able to figure out.
The El Juan definitely excels at making things louder, and it does this by limiting and makeup gain. But it also has waveshaping.
Waveshaping
When you change the shape of a waveform, it adds additional complexity, in the form of additional harmonics. A simple sine wave goes in, waveshaping can add an octave to it, or thirds, or whatever you want, really. Waveshaping can add a bunch of sweetness or a bunch of garbage.
The “traditional” analog way to waveshape was to clip the waveform by overloading a component in a circuit or an entire device. Yes, saturation and distortion are forms of waveshaping. Digitally, one can apply math to replicate analog saturation and distortion, and that is waveshaping. Or, unlike the analog world, one can use math to add a very specific, controlled series of harmonics to a waveform.
A simple way to think of this: when I refer to waveshaping, I’m referring to math that adds a limited, very controlled set of harmonics. Saturation uses math to add more than one or two harmonics, and distortion adds tons more harmonics. Waveshaping - simple and a little. Saturation/Distortion - complex and a lot. The El Juan’s waveshaper adds some harmonics, which result in a richer, fuller sound. It doesn’t add saturation per se, it’s waveshaping, it’s adding some of the elements of saturation - the nice ones!
The El Juan has two different waveshaping options, which change the harmonic structure of the signal feeding through it, much the same as feeding the signal through a different console brand will affect the structure of the signal. And this gives you a hint as to how we use the El Juan. Like the PSC and the AIP, we almost always start the El Juan by flipping it around to the back and playing with waveshaping and input eq.
Here’s a video which shows a lot of the power of the El Juan.
The available settings are clearly marked and the effect will be obvious to your ear. Start back here, getting something that you like that fits your mix. Then, switch around to the front and use the limiter section to further process your sound.
Goofy Goofy Secret: the original marketing for El Juan was supposed to be like a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western comic book. The Tale of El Juan was narrated by a robotic turtle named “Old Pedro.” However, when I was typing things out, I made a typo and wrote "Old Pedo.” I thought it was hilarious, so there was a running gag of Old Pedro and various other characters mispronouncing his name and Old Pedo, I mean Old Pedro, having to constantly correct it.
Again, I thought it was funny. But a few people found it less so... and somewhat insensitive, childish, stupid, tone-deaf, etc. So Old Pedro the Turtle got shelved and thus died one of the great marketing ideas in North American history.
Puff Puff mixPass
The Puff makes things apparently louder by using... waveshaping! The Puff Puff is basically a dedicated waveshaper. If something is already compressed and still not sitting there correctly, the Puff will make it a bit louder (and actually undo a bit of the compression by popping out the peaks a little bit).
How does waveshaping make things sound louder? It adds harmonics, and typically, when you add things in audio, there’s a power and loudness, unless things are out of phase. That’s a very simple way of explaining it. Try this: think of additional harmonics as adding density — the signal becomes thicker, richer, and our ears perceive it as louder. Note that the Puff makes things PERCEPTUALLY louder, but there isn’t much of a change on the meters. You don’t get a different LUF reading typically.
Quick Tip: Dan’s basic trick is if something sounds good, do the same thing again. Put a Puff Puff on a channel or a bus, and then add another one, Most of the time the result is a delight.
Both El Juan and Puff are designed as bus processors. That doesn’t mean they won’t work on a single channel, but our development thinking was that these are things you slap on a bus or across a mix. Both do similar things but in very different ways, and there’s also some redundancy. The El Juan also has waveshaping and the Puff also has a clipper on it.
Here’s a thing: You’ve slapped the El Juan across your mix bus, you’re doing some mighty fine limiting and things are sounding good, and you think, “Let’s add the Puff Puff to this and see if we can’t end the loudness wars once and for all.”
Where do you put the Puff? Before the El Juan or after? That’s a good question.
I’ve tried both, and I usually wind up with it after. So, once I limit things with El Juan, then I put the Puff on after it and play around with it a little more. I almost always swap the positions of the two, but generally, the Puff goes after.
Here’s a video where I’m using Puff and El Juan together. Some good ideas here.
Quick Safety Tip: Even though the Puff doesn’t typically change the meters, it doesn’t mean that putting it on last won’t clip your mix bus. One thing I do is have a True Peak meter on the bus after the Puff, and I make sure I’m keeping the true peak value at -1 or even -2, depending. We could have a whole ridiculous discussion of all this stuff and I assure you, we will, and soon.
The WOW Thing
The original WOW thing was a cheap plastic box you could slap on your computer speakers to get things a little wider sounding for, I don’t know, more drama when playing Legend of Zelda. Eventually, the WOW thing found its way onto the guitar tracks of a number of famous albums in the 90s and suddenly it’s a must have guitar secret. And to be honest, it’s great for that. But at its heart, it’s a psychoacoustic processor that uses delay and phase shift to fool your ears into thinking things are outside of the geometry of your speakers.
The WOW gently gets rid of everything below about 1kHz - the more you turn up WOW, the more this frequency cut happens. Hence, the WOW thing by default makes things brighter. And this is where the misnamed TrueBass control comes in, it adds back bass. Actually, it invents bass. It’s not TrueBass at all. All the real bass on the track died in a horrible filtering accident earlier in the signal flow. And this is what I love about the WOW Thing: it’s a great bass/low end enhancer.
I use the True Bass on kicks, bass — anything where I want something kind of big, low and pillowy, rather than something super tight down there. It works great for this. Also, you can’t go wrong putting the WOW thing on reverb returns.
Here’s a video I did a few months back in which I stem mixed a song using only The WOW Thing. There’s a ton of ideas in this video on how to use it to get more bass, more motion, overload it for additional harmonics...!
Pumpkin Spice Latte
This is a surprisingly complex little plug-in disguised as a seasonal beverage.
Pumpkin Spice was designed to be an all-in-one, a mini-channel strip that could get something rough and chewy out of a vocal track. Of course, people are using it all over the place, not just on vocals. I like it especially, a friend of mine swears by it on brass, and it does work.
There are limiters and compressors all over the place on the Pumpkin Spice, and they’re all interactive with the rest of the controls so that you don’t really know they’re there. You can slap this sucker on a raw vocal track and you’d be surprised by how much things will get under control without touching a knob.
Pumpkin Spice is a quick idea tool. Throw it on a track, play around and get some ideas. Perhaps execute the ideas using more adjustable plug-ins, like swapping out the reverb for something with more adjustments, but often it sounds so good as it is, we just leave it on the track.
Fun Usage: Set the delay time to under 5ms or so. Crank up the feedback and you’ll get crazy comb filtering, a “stuck flanger” effect. Change the delay time to shift the resonance up and down. Then, automate that delay time every now and then to wake everyone up. Fun stuff!
That’s it for this Tuesday. See you next week... on Monday.
Warm regards,
Luke
Happy Monday!
We started our Black Friday Sale today. And we added plug-in bundles, which people have been asking for. SO... 40% off plug-ins and up to 60% off on bundles!
Kim Deal
A few weeks ago I wrote about albums by older guys. I was in some sort of search for meaning, I suppose.
On November 22nd, former Pixie and Breeder Kim Deal, at age 63, released her first "real" solo album, 'Nobody Loves You More'. It's simply wonderful. Might be the best album of the year.
Kim had released a few things on her own in the past decade, things she recorded on eight-track tape — she's an analog kinda gal, but finally hunkered down in Florida, learned Pro-Tools (by bugging her friend, engineer/producer Steve Albini for lessons over the phone) and got to it.
Most of 'Nobody Loves You More' was recorded by Steve Albini, with Kim producing, along with a crackerjack bunch of players ranging from rock musicians to jazzers, to string players, and more. The record is lush, quirky, and ever-interesting. Songs evolve from sparse, punky Americana into a cha cha, or there's a pedal steel, or strings. It's all over the map, but it's held together by melody and Ms Deal's fascinating voice. It takes a bit to get used to — she sounds like an animated cartoon character played by a chain-smoking alcoholic, but it's the perfect voice to deliver the pain and magic of this album.
The record is full of pain. She lost her mom to Alzheimer's, and then, following in quick succession, her dad, her aunt, and her uncle — within one year. And then she lost Steve Albini — he died after 'A Good Time Pushed', the last thing he ever recorded.
But while it's a painful record, it's not sad. There's something gorgeous and content about it, triumphant and wise. And Ms. Deal has a great sense of humor, which comes out in the lyrics and the scatological arrangements. It's such a good record, and so worth a listen. In a fair and decent world, it would sweep the Grammy's.
But it won't. Because it's not something built to fit an algorithm and tweaked to within an inch of its life — there's not even autotune on it. It doesn't have guest rappers, songs written by fourteen people, or Max Martin anywhere near it. Kim has about 7,000 subscribers on YouTube. This music wasn't written with data science and AI pitching in on the lyrics. It's not statistically constructed to increase engagement. It ain't fucking "content."
It's a record by someone doubling down on the one thing all of us can double down on: being one's self. Unapologetically screwed up, vulnerable, perhaps a bit pissed-off, but playing your own damn game.
'Nobody Loves You More'
Some things on YouTube:
A short one this week. Have a lovely time - the holidays are upon us. Love love love.
Warm regards,
Luke
Happy Monday -
While I was writing this, producer Shel Talmy died. You might not know his name, but you surely know 'My Generation', 'Friday on My Mind', and this little ditty from The Kinks.
This was a groundbreaking recording. There’s fuzz guitar on it!
Now, the story is, to get that guitar sound, Dave Davies slashed his speaker with a razor blade. At the very beginning, before the band kicks in, you can clearly hear a buzzing that might or might not be the two edges of a paper speaker cone against each other, but also, by 1964 people knew that if you turned up an amp a lot you’d get distortion. Heck, people knew this since... forever? So, I think it’s a combination of a turned-up amp and a damaged speaker, but I wasn’t there. I was only a year old and still wetting myself.
Another thing to hear: the bassist not muting his bass. Listen for an out-of-tune resonance that can be heard in the gap in the iconic riff. Even as a kid this used to drive me nuts. What does it take to wrap a sock around the neck at the nut?
By the way, Jimmy Page is on this session, because The Kinks’ lead singer, Ray Davies, wasn’t playing his usual rhythm guitar. Producer Shel Talmy wanted him to concentrate on vocals and brought in Jimmy Page to do Ray’s parts. Because it was live in the studio with no overdubs. Now, both Jimmy Page and Dave Davies claim to be playing the rhythm part, which is unusual because usually guitarists claim playing the solo.
Talmy also produced a few very early David Bowie records, when Bowie was still Davy Jones. You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving is not one of Bowie’s best compositions, but even on this one we can hear hints of his latent songwriting ability. Check out the “rave up” sections that are verging on pure noise.
Talmy wasn’t all noise and rock, though. He recorded some gorgeous acoustic folk stuff. Let No Man Steal Your Thyme by Pentangle is a lovely recording. Check out the cello glide from left to right at the start, and the precision and clarity of the various parts.
Shel Talmy, off to that analog tape studio in the sky at 87.
Pumpkin Spice Latte
Shameless plug-in plug: go buy a Pumpkin Spice Latte. $14.99 - that’s less than what an actual Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte would cost you at a Starbucks in New York, and our plug-in, with its combination of saturation, ambiance, and echo is far more useful and less fattening, unless we’re talking about your tracks, because then it’s more fattening.
Microphone Stuff
I love microphones. I love having a lot of them to choose from, I love moving them around, I love buying them, I love trying different microphones and going, “meh... that sucks, try the XXXXXXX (insert your go-to mic here)”.
In no particular order: mic stuff.
What the 3:1 Rule really is
“When recording with multiple microphones, the 3:1 rule states that the second microphone should be placed three times as far away from the sound source as the first microphone.” Definition courtesy of the internet.
How to explain this... It’s not about phase. Phase doesn’t magically fix itself if things get three times farther away from each other. It’s about the LOUDNESS of LEAKAGE. What causes phase issues is the unintended stuff that gets into the second mic, and if it’s loud enough, plays phase havoc with the intended stuff in the first mic.
We have this:
It’s the leakage from the acoustic guitar, if it’s loud enough in the vocal mic, that will cause phase issues when it’s heard with the direct sound picked up by acoustic guitar’s mic. The guitar leakage (indirect sound) on the vocal mic will phase interfere with the guitar (direct sound) on the guitar mic. Following the 3:1 rule means hopefully the direct sound is a lot louder than the indirect sound. It’s controlling level, not phase. If you’re in a small, reflective room with tons of leakage everywhere, all of it loud, you’ll have phase issues regardless of distance.
Instead of the 3:1 rule, do this: Use one microphone. If you can’t do that, the closer the mics get to each other, the closer they have to get to their individual sound sources.
I learned something called acoustic separation. This was like, if you didn’t want the leakage to cause an issue, make sure it’s 26dB quieter than the direct sound. In practice, this is pretty hard to hit, so even if you’re getting 10 or 15dB of difference on the meters you’re doing well. Of course, 26dB is better.
And for God’s sake, don’t get a ruler out and measure this stuff.
Mic Position as EQ
If you’re using a mic with a directional polar pattern, there are a TON of placement options that can drastically change the frequency response of what you’re recording. And I’m not talking about where on the sound source you’re placing the mic. I’m talking about proximity effect and off-axis coloration.
Distance for Low End
Think moving closer or farther for low-end effects.
Most directional mics exhibit proximity effect—the closer you get to a sound source, the more the mic will enhance the low end. Some patterns and mics have more of this than others. Figure-eights (bi-directional) have the most. Rather than boosting the lows, move that mic closer, or swap in a mic like a figure-eight. A fig-eight on a bass cabinet or a kick is a fun thing. A 414 switched into fig-eight is a great thing on a guitar cabinet, also on toms (provided there’s not a cymbal over the tom).
Of course, if you’re trying to get rid of low mud, proximity effect will not be your friend. Proximity effect is often the cause of muddy vocals. Back the singer up a foot.
Fun phase trick. Mic something with a fig-eight, then put a board of wood behind it so the direct sound bounces off the board of wood into the back of the mic for instant phase strangeness. Have someone move the board closer and farther for a flange effect.
Added benefit of bidirectional polar patterns: they have the most side rejection of any mic, which makes them very useful when you really need to isolate a source from something on either side of it and there isn’t a bunch of stuff leaking into the back. Very useful on congas and such, also pianos.
Also, while most omni-directional mics don’t have proximity effect, some, usually multipattern condensers, do have it, so use those ears.
Axis for High End
The reality of directional patterns is that they’re a mess. You see them in books and mic spec sheets and they look like this:
Seems nice and uniform, doesn’t it?
Nope. The response changes depending on the frequency. In fact, the only place a mic is reliably flat, or somewhat like its frequency response diagram, is dead on from the front. From any other angle, the response is different.
The basic rules: the lower the frequency, the more the polar pattern tends to be omni; the tighter the polar pattern, the stranger the frequency response. The most consistent patterns are on bi-directional mics, the wonkiest are on supercardioids and shotgun mics. Here’s a more realistic response graph for a supercardioid mic.
A total mess above 1kHz. Or... think of it as a bunch of little EQ curves to play with.
Point the mic straight at something, get one frequency response. Position the mic off-axis to the sound source and the high-frequency response changes. It’s like a built-in low-pass filter.
There’s a lot of control here. Put a mic slightly above a singer’s mouth, point it down towards their chest and you can smooth out a spittie high end. Still sibilant? Move the mic right or left a bit. Come in from the side of their head, pointing towards their opposite shoulder. Adjust bass by coming in closer or further away. Adjust sibilance and highs by changing the mic’s axis.
A quick tip: if you’re going to be doing really weird mic angles on a singer, be aware that there’s a “turn towards the mic gravity” going on. Put a dummy mic in front of them so they sing towards it, and then let the weirdly placed mic do its job unnoticed.
This also works for any acoustic instruments, from cabinets to pianos to drums to horns—whatever.
Mics as Limiters
Mics are mechanical, mechanical stuff has inertia, the diaphragm of a mic has inertia. “Slow” heavy mics, like most moving coils, round off transients. I’ve written about this before. Here’s a diagram I stole.
This can make a huge difference between something sitting nicely in the mix and something that sounds like a little click unless you turn it up a lot, and then it’s way too loud.
Use Pop Filters Always
If you’re sticking a mic in front of a person, put a pop filter on it. Doesn’t matter if they’re popping the mic or not. They’re spitting crap and bits of chapped lip and dead taste buds and chia seeds and whatever else is in that mouth into the mic and all over the diaphragm. Kissing is fun, but cleaning chunks of spaghetti carbonara off your eardrum isn’t. Ever pay to get a diaphragm cleaned by some mic tech? Do you want to? Put a pop filter on it. It won’t affect your high-end.
Setting Up and Breaking Down
Most of you no longer deal with this, but it’s a good lesson.
When you’re doing a big session with lots of mics, set up the stands first, the cables second and put the mics on last. Route cables so there is always a footpath for people to walk that doesn’t have microphone cables on it. Route your drum mics all around one side of the kit so there’s a clear way for the drummer to get in and out without stepping over cables.
If you drop a cheap mic, it bounces. If an expensive mic hits the floor, chances are it’s toast.
Breaking down: before you let a single musician into the studio to put away their gear, unplug EVERY SINGLE MIC and put them AWAY in the MIC CABINET and LOCK IT perhaps. Every time a mic was ever stolen or broken, in all the years I was in studios, it was during the breakdown. Get them out of there first and fast.
This was shorter until I heard about the passing of Shel Talmy. Y’all have a great week.
Warm regards,
Luke
Happy Monday!
We hope you’re enjoying the Pumpkin Spice Latte we just released. For those unfamiliar, it’s an analogy sounding channel strip, for want of a better word, that has a vintage tube console vibe along with lo-fi snap, crackle and pop pretensions. You can get a lot of sounds out of it and it’s only fifteen bucks, give or take a penny.
Everyone is into the vintage vibe when it comes to sound: old mics, old consoles, old guitar amps, old snare drums, compressors. Vintage vintage vintage. We also tend to like vintage music, or at the very least, the music we most identify with at a particular time in our lives. When we were young.
What we don’t seem to be as into is old people. Specifically old musicians. Specifically old musicians making new music. Or maybe it’s just an issue I have. Maybe. But I’ve not detected a lot of clamor for a new Mötley Cruë (Good lord—there are two umlauts in that) album.
I spent the last week listening to new records by some old guys, partially out of curiosity for what they’re up to, these guys I grew up with (and now old with), and partially for the learning aspects.
Music, the arts in general, is something from which one can learn. This seems to be a staple feature of culture at any time in history. As a kid, I learned rebellion and defiance, risk-taking and experimentation, love and loss... I learned a lot from records. It’s the same today, music is still culturally informative, but for old me, I’m looking for music from other old guys. Older than me. But not old stuff. I don’t want to recycle 1973 - 1998. I already know how to Fight the Power and that I’m Unlovable. Now I’m curious about how to grow old and still be cool.
The Cure
'Songs of a Lost World' dropped November 1st. It’s selling really well, considering it's about death and loss, delivered with The Cure’s patented gloom and doom keyboard patches and flinkie guitar parts. Critics seem to love it. I dunno. I’ve always thought The Cure worked best on quirky pop tunes that seemed to hint at something darker rather than extended noise jams with Robert Smith yelping on about something. What’s more interesting: Robert Smith buying escarole in the produce aisle at the local supermarket or Robert Smith in a black draped goth temple, lounging on a black couch? I prefer the juxtaposition in the supermarket.
However, what is cool, and generous, is that they released a three-hour concert on YouTube that’s beautifully shot and recorded. They play the entirety of the new album, along with a smattering of the hits. The new stuff, though, can’t compete with oldies like Close To Me, and they end the show with Boys Don’t Cry, something I already learned...
The The
The The, the nom de plume of singer/songwriter multi-instrumentalist Matt Johnson, released their (His? Their? How very modern—pronoun trouble!) first studio album in 25 years back in September. This is some smart smart music.
The The has always been smart, and confounding expectations, musically zigging when you might think it should zag. Their big song, This Is the Day, was one of the more interesting hits of the early 80s, with its Trio-esque drums, farty bass and accordion. The link is to a lame video that Matt Johnson hated when it was released. It’s easy to see why, between the totally cheesy video comping and his haircut.
'Ensoulment' is very smart—how could an album with a song on it titled Linoleum Smooth To The Stockinged Foot be anything but? Didn’t get enough politics over the past, oh, eight damn years? Try Kissing the Ring of Potus. My personal fave is a thudding lump of song called Zen & The Art Of Dating. It’s not a pretty picture and it makes me want to stay home and watch Yellowstone. But Mr. Johnson is an active participant in our increasingly unpredictable world, and the album is an invitation to dip in.
Slick, noisy, strange production, very The The. Love how they did the vocals on this. It’s like he’s staring at you from a few inches away. You can feel the stubble and smell the Chardonnay on his breath.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
'Wild God' came out in late late August. At first listening it’s dour, but with a bit of poking around you’ll find joy under it. Frogs is a cinematic treasure, uplifting and melodramatic to the edge of cloying, if not for the lyrics, which come at you in a montage of images: frogs, rain on a Sunday, some guy with a gun, Kris Kristofferson walking by, floating over a bed of keyboards and strings, with a choir out of a 70s Italian movie.
O Wow O Wow, How Wonderful She Is... oh, it’s phenomenal. Featuring the most modern production of the record, it’s a giddy celebration of a girlfriend, the Australian singer Anita Lane. She and Cave were lovers as well as writing partners, and although they stopped being a couple in the mid-80s, they remained friends and collaborators. Towards the end of O Wow, there’s a spoken word section, an obvious home recording of Anita Lane recounting an earlier time with Nick Cave, writing songs, being in love. Her laughter... It’s a snippet of the last audio she ever sent him—she passed in 2021. Heartbreaking in the best way.
If anyone wants to send me some old guy music, please shoot me links. And if you’ve got some new stuff that’s cool, that’s even better.
Warm regards,
Luke
Happy Monday, all. And I am sorry this is getting to you a little late. It’s been a busy morning!
So much going on.
Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones died yesterday.
To call this guy a genius is an understatement. He’s been a major force in music since the early 1950s. He composed everything from jazz standards to pop tunes to film scores. He produced. He arranged. He schmoozed. He put together an empire.
Please read his NY Times obituary. I knew a bit about the guy, but jeezl peezl, this man knew how to live!
Some things to hear:
Michael Jackson’s 'Billie Jean' was, I think, MJ’s biggest hit. It’s an astoundingly good recording. The snare sound alone gives me tickles.
God, the production is amazing. The bass comes in and there’s a little growl thing on the first note. Little finger snaps. Vocals panned all over - left, right, front and back. And used as percussion (listen to 'Rack ‘em Up' to see where some of these ideas came from).
Found this video - Chris Liepe goes through the multitracks as well as Michael Jackson’s original demos.
Pumpkin Spice Latte
We have a new plug-in out. Find out more here.
We’re doing a whole series of plug-ins based on Beverages. This is the first. It’s... well, basically it’s a lo-fi channel strip with vintage pretensions.
For a simple plug-in, it has a ton of power, and a wide palette of sounds. I compiled a bunch of things that both inspired the PSL and that you can use as references in terms of the sounds it can get you. Click to listen!
The Strokes - these kinds of guitar sounds
Tame Impala - these kinds of drum sounds
St Vincent - these sorts of keyboards and horns
Led Zeppelin - that lead guitar sound! Also the drums (turn up Whipped Cream!)
Clarence Carter - love that tube mic vox distortion and the grainy drums
Joy Division - basically, Pumpkin Spice Latte can get every sound on this recording
Royal Blood - the vocals, and maybe something across the entire mix
A short one this week. Dan and I were up all night for the past few days getting Pumpkin Spice out and we’re basically sleep deprived, and I for one am existing only because of double courtados.
We appreciate you all.
Warm regards,
Luke