ASK : WITH OWEN PALMER
Owen Palmer’s been back at the precinct for another round of intense questioning via a Q&A session on our Facebook page. Look out for future expert ‘ask me anything’ sessions at facebook.com/computer.music.mag
QALL EARS Marco Korbar
I’m still a beginner at music production and money is an issue. I wonder if I can get still good results with a pair of studio monitors which cost €200, instead of expensive ones (€500 or above)…
AMy advice to you is to spend that €200 on the best pair of headphones you can find instead. Some people don’t like producing on headphones, but I think you can get used to them. Ideally, you’ll have decent headphones and decent speakers, but I’ve heard some great productions done on mid-budget cans, so it’s definitely possible to cut some corners there. Do try to test your material on speakers as often as you can, though, so you learn how to compensate. OP
QTRI YOUR BEST Darren Winter What are your top three pieces of advice for new and experienced producers?
A1> Make your tracks sound as close to how you want the finished product to sound as you possibly can, as early as you can. 2> Go for the simplest solution to achieve this. Higher quality doesn’t necessarily require a greater investment of effort, time or money. Often the simplest solution is the best, so go with that. If it doesn’t work, perhaps you need to step up the complexity a notch. 3> Please yourself first. You need to elicit strong emotional responses from yourself before you can expect them from anybody else. Don’t try to make music to be enjoyed by other people that you’re not feeling yourself. OP
QWIDEBOY Logan Atbud What are the differences that you see between a professional stereo panorama and amateur stereo panorama? How can you manage to make the stereo panorama sound natural?
AProfessionals plan their stereo images meticulously; amateurs don’t grasp the basic concepts and end up with myriad self-inflicted stereo ailments.
There are numerous approaches that work really, really well, but they all share something in common: they sound good summed to mono; they sound good from the left channel only; they sound good from the right channel only; and there are no oddities in the side feed. You can get more insight into your mix by checking it with Voxengo’s free MSED, or Brainworx’ free bx_solo. I mostly use StereoChannel by SleepyTime Records, but it’s Windows-only. OP
QKEEP SMILING? Alon Ashkenazi I always found the smile curve in EQ a problematic thing. I remember reading a lot about the fact that many producers use a smile curve to make their mix sound louder because of the
“It’s not the artist’s job to make the music sound good on small speakers with a lossy format”
frequencies the ear is sensitive to. But cutting the midrange in my final mix – even by 2dB – makes the mids sound like they’re missing a bit. Is there a better way of approaching this? Is the whole smile curve just a myth that shouldn’t be used on music with many mid elements and leads?
AThe short answer is that you can safely ignore the concept of a smile EQ curve and just do what sounds best to you. Believe me when I say I’ve searched high and low for a simple ‘catch-all’ rule about what your final frequency curve should look like. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the resulting frequency curve isn’t as important as many people believe, since it’s not nearly the full picture. OP
QBRING IT ON? Angelo Caspers When do you think a producer is good enough for a remix contest?
AA little known fact about me is that I’ve won about 15 online production contests under various aliases. When I play, I play to win. I won’t enter unless I’m confident that I can turn in something that sets my entry apart from everybody else’s. The easiest contests to win are those with a public vote, because the winning formula is very predictable.
When I enter, I go in with the attitude of “I’m going to win it, or the entry that wins is going to have to be so good that I’ll gladly lose to that entry”. OP
QSCALING THE PEAKS Log Atbud What instruments do you think need to be checked for resonant peaks and EQed? I’ve seen some people do it in every track, some in certain tracks only, and others in no tracks at all.
AAll of them; every single instrument. I check with my ears first, though; I wouldn’t reach straight for the EQ unless maybe I was hunting down an obscure frequency issue. Even then, I’d try muting/soloing channels first to ascertain the source of the problem. OP
QSMALL SPEAKERS Afif Afifah The majority of songs heard by people will be in lossy formats on tiny speakers. How should we mix with respect to that?
AIt’s not the artist’s job to make the music sound good on small speakers with a lossy format – it’s the content platform’s job. And to be honest, they’re not doing the worst job... YouTube’s audio quality has come on considerably in the last few years, and I understand SoundCloud have plans to improve their audio quality. I can’t see how it’s going to continue to be a big concern moving forwards – this is just a flash in the pan. I think we’re going to hear much betterquality music coming from streaming services over the next several years. As for small speakers – they are what they are, but they’re definitely getting better, on the whole.