I have a track I’ve mastered. It’s -14.7 LUFS and -1.2 True Peak. I’m pretty happy with it other than I wish it were about a decibel louder. So I thought I’d try to go for -13.5 LUFS. But it seems whatever I do the true peak is more sensitive to than the LUFS. For instance, the first thing I did was raise the gain on the Multipressor in the master chain from 1.6 to 2.0. The overall LUFS integrated went to 14.4, but the True Peak went to 1.0 which I want to keep under. Should I increase the limiter then? Shorter version of the question: How to increase the LUFS without increasing the True Peak? Thanks! I bought a copy of Levels.
I do think I have figured out one thing: Just a small bit of audio or so can make your True Peak sky rocket out of the blue while 98% of the mix is well below your target, even though it’s not necessarily audible. Once you identify that bit, and it’s not hard with a metering plug-in like Levels or Youlean, you can create an identical track, cut and copy that bit to it and apply more processing to just it, whether that be a Limiter, faster attack time on your compressor, and then it frees up the majority of the track to breathe! [I made these comments to this video post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS07ChRkY4M ]
Last night the idea came to me as a melody A-F#-D-A-C-B. I didn’t know what the notes were until I played it on the guitar and this is where the Snarkman was another blessing, since it identifies the notes as you are playing them. Then I was able to surmise that it was over a D-C-G chord movement. I tapped the rhythm as 109 and layed down the first demo on the iPad in Garageband with an accompanying “Drummer Track.” I sang mumbo jumbo which is what I usually do just so I can get the jist of the idea before I go to sleep.
1:49 pm. Today, I’m going to try writing the lyrics. I’m going to listen to what I mumbled last night and see if I can write some real words. 2:30pm. I got a first verse, chorus, and half of a second verse, but I had to stop. Or maybe I didn’t need to stop, but it feels like I need to stop for a while, do some other things and let my subconscious go to work. I still struggle with just letting out anything that comes to my mind, which I think you have to do on your first draft. When push comes to shove and its going to press tomorrow you can clean it up, but for now let your mind have some space. I think the desire is to make everything so pretty, especially when the music is pretty, so when something comes out that is either nonsensical or not necessarily a pretty image, the impulse is to quash it. I say let it out, especially on the first draft. I’m trying to walk a fine line here with a balance between the subconscious and the conscious. I want to let each have its day in court so to speak. On the one hand if I wait for the subconscious to come up with the most perfect line, it’ll never get done, on the other hand if I just go with the first thing, not trying at all to bring some sense into the equation it won’t have any value either. “Sound and Sense” as my college poetry textbook said. An equal mixture of both. That’s poetry.
5/19/20
Well, let’s see. So technically I put in 40 minutes on this yesterday, but as I was doing other things the song remained in my head, and new lyrics started coming to me. Luckily with the Notes App whether I work on it at the desk or when I’m out and about with the iPhone, it all syncs up. Today, technically I sat down with it another 45 minutes or so. Well the end result is, I’ve got two or three pages of lyrics, way more than I need, but they don’t necessarily make sense together. Also, when I sing the ones I have, it just feels like there are better lyrics hiding, but I can’t force it or they won’t reveal themselves. Actually after I wrote for 45 minutes I opened up Soundtrap and layed down a couple guitar tracks. I’m a little stressed about the lyrics. It feels like a delicate line to walk between not rushing them and procrastination. I don’t mind having this creative space at the beginning, but I definitely don’t want it to go on too far. There should be some kind of deadline, but I’m not sure what it should be.
Hey, I really love working with Garageband on the iPad. I think it’s a revolution. It’s so intuitive, unintimidating, and most importantly fun! Of course, it still has a way to go to be a “professional” production device, but I feel that is coming in years to come, and as you can hear this production sounds pretty good! And this was done on an iPad1 along with merely singing into that little pinhole mic. Other than that all the instruments were just “smart” instruments played entirely on the iPad. Hope you enjoy. This song is called “Kuzbass” by Josh Rouse that I covered.
Well, I’ll continue to add to this post as I go along. I use Garageband everyday. Of course now that I’ve started, this will quantumly move me on to Logic I’m sure, but maybe the same tips in Garageband will apply in Logic as well. Also, I’m sure I’ll never completely leave Garageband. It’s too much fun! Anyway if you have some tips you’d like to share too, put them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list. Or if you have questions leave a comment, and I’ll try to find the answer.
Copying a region – You can always select the region then in the Menu select Edit>Copy>Paste, but there’s an easier way: Select the region with your mouse pointer, hold down the option button and simply drag the region with your mouse.
Deleting a track – Select the track (mouse over the track and left click the mouse. You’ll know it’s selected when the region on the very left that contains the tracks controls, which is normally gray, turns a color, either blue or green, depending on whether its a real or software instrument track. Once the track is selected, hit Command + delete, and it will delete the whole track.
Mastering – Well, this isn’t a tip about mastering per se. I know close to little about the subject, and desperately want to learn more. But if you haven’t already noticed after cutting what you think is a good sounding song, the export feature with Garageband is atrocious. It’s so bad I don’t see how the product can ship with it. If you check the “Auto Normalize” feature in preferences the tune will sound fine but the volume is way too low, which I find ironic because it touts itself as a feature that gives you “full” loudness. If you don’t check that feature you’ll get the volume you want, the volume you hear when you play the song in Garageband, but the exported MP3 will sound annoyingly fuzzy. Both unusable. Why can’t I have an MP3 that sounds like what I’m hearing when I play the tune in Garageband itself? Well you can only it’ll cost you $60. There’s a program called “Wire Tap” for Mac which records accurately any sounds coming from your Mac’s sound card. You fire up Wire Tap hit record and then press play on Garageband, and it will capture the tune exactly as you are hearing it. $60 sounds too high for this feature and it is, although Wire Tap is a solid program from a solid company and it’s useful in other situations as well. Having not moved up to Logic or Logic Express, I’m wondering what their exporting features are like. Anyone know?
Recording – Hit the “R” key to start recording and the Space bar to stop recording. A little easier than using your mouse to click the record button and the stop button, especially when you have a guitar in your lap.
Relieving an Overtaxed CPU – I’ve noticed especially when I have a lot of tracks, the play head will stop in the middle of a song or my Midi Controller is not being as responsive as it should. I learned today that you should “lock” all the software instrument tracks in this case. This temporarily turns the software tracks into sound tracks which relieves the CPU usage. The Lock feature is that little padlock icon underneath the name of the track. You simply click it. Then later you can un click it to restore it to a “green” software track.
Splitting a Region: Again this can be accomplished with Edit>Split once the track is selected and the play head is in the right spot where you want it split. But I also find it easier to simply hit Command + T
Vocal Recording – Well this tip may only apply to me but the general principle may apply to more. I bought a condenser mic from Guitar Center 5 years ago for about $200.00. It’s a good looking solid device: Audio-Technica AT-3035. I used it for years with a stand alone BOSS-1600 DAW. Seemed to work fine. In Garageband, although overall the sound was great, I got a lot of hiss and popping especially on my “S,” “Ch,” and “T” sounds. I scratched my head for I do have a screen in front of it. Well yesterday I Googled it. Turns out it has a couple of switches on it that reduce that very thing. Tried it out last night and a new World opened up. I could get a clear, loud sound without all that nasty popping. 5 years later I learn this! So if you run into some kind of problem like this, check your mic’s documentation for all the settings, or if you’ve lost them Google it. By the way this AT-3035 has glowing reviews from all the places I surfed. Everyone of them said its the best diaphragm mic for the money hands down. I think you can get one for only $100 now. So if you’re in the market for a vocal mic, you might check it out.
Other Resources:
Synthopia.com – “Garageband Tips & Tricks” by Jeff Tolbert – Nice page of tips. I especially like the last one which deals with editing the drum loops that Garageband comes with to add some fills and variation to make them sound less monotonous and more spontaneous. Learned what the word “paradiddle” means: 4 16th note snare hits in succession. I knew the sound. Didn’t know there was a word for it. I can hear it in my head during a song when I want a “paradiddle” and he shows you how to make one.
Here comes the summertime, the feeling’s in the air.
I remember cigarettes, tube socks, sun burns and long blond hair.
Here comes the summertime, yeah it’s coming soon.
I remember living upstairs, drinking iced-tea and swimming pools.
And the feeling doesn’t last that long.
Before you know it, it’s up and gone, oh yeah.
The things we do…
In the summertime, yeah it’s coming soon.
I remember watermelon, finger banging, purple rain and being cool.
Here comes the summertime, the feeling’s in the air.
I remember drive-ins, soap operas, fireworks and county fairs.
And the feeling doesn’t last that long.
Before you know it, it’s up and gone, oh yeah.
The things we do…
Yet another cover of Josh Rouse’s 2006 album “Subtitulo.” I guess I could call myself “1972” and become a Josh Rouse tribute band! Hahahahahah. No really, it is one of my favorite albums, and he’s one of my favorite artists, but really I was just in the mood for making covers lately, mostly just to practice Garageband. Oh just got a new Presonus Firestudio Mobile so I can record directly into Garageband. So I’m so happy, and it’s much more fun producing now. The only thing I’m dissappointed in is that I just realized that Garageband doesn’t support sample rates over 44.1k, and I was hoping to work with 96k. I guess I’ll have to move up to Logic, although at least it does support 24-bit depth rate, so that’s better than my 16 bit Boss BR-1600. The FireStudio also came with recording software that’s suppossed to be good and does support the full 96k, so I guess I’ll make my next song on it, but I do love the ease and fun of Garageband so much.
The only thing is that I still can’t get the recording levels right. It’s like when I’m laying down the track, it doesn’t sound loud enough, so I crank it to what sounds good, but then when it comes down to the final thing, there’s always some clipping during various parts, which makes the “Normalize” feature of Garageband render the tune way to low, or if you un check that, the tune is just blurry and overall unlistenable. Drives me crazy!!!!
I found one solution in the program called Wire Tap Studio, a Mac program that tries to accurately record exactly what is playing through the Mac Audio Engine, which makes it sound a little better. At least listenable. What’s weird is that within the program when you are playing all the tracks, everything sounds pretty good, especially through the high quality headphones, but when you go to export it, I guess it comes through the compression, everything comes out the other end sounding crappy.
Wire Tap helps because it tries to accurately record what’s coming out of the Garageband sound engine, but you can still here a lot of clipping and distortion in at different points in the track. I’m going to have to really focus on my analog tracks, recording them maybe even a lot lower than what initially seems right. I don’t know. What’s so weird is that the professional loops, even the the wave ones, will barely have any level, but they will sound crystal clear, and plenty loud enough.
I want to be able to record those kinds of tracks!
This is a cover I just made of a Josh Rouse song called “Quiet Town” which is the first cut off his 2005 album “Subtitulo.”
For some reason I’m in cover mode, or mostly just practice mode with recording and working in Garageband. I really have to get an interface for the computer. I can’t stand working with this BOSS BR-1600 anymore. The screen is tiny. But I do like going into the closet to record with the condensor mic. Feels like I’m going into the “studio.” Feels like I’m doing some work. It’s relaxing.
