Creating organic sounding music with mixing

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I’m always a bit reluctant to discuss mixing on this blog. The biggest mistake people make in mixing is to apply all the advice they can find online to their own work. This approach might not work, mostly because there are so many factors that can change how you approach your mix that it can be counter-productive. The best way to write about mixing would be to explain something and then include the many cascades of “but if…”, with regards to how you’d like to sound. So, to wrap things properly, I’ll cover one topic I love in music, which is how to get a very organic sounding music.

There are many ways to approach electronic music. There’s the very mechanical way of layering loops, which is popular in techno or using modular synths/eurorack. These styles, like many others, have a couple main things in mind: making people dance or showcasing craftsmanship in presenting sounds. One of the first things you want to do before you start mixing is to know exactly what style you want to create before you start.

Wherever you’re at and whatever the genre you’re working in, you can always infuse your mix with a more organic feel. Everyone has their own way, but sometimes it’s about finding your style.

In my case, I’ve always been interested in two things, which are reasons why people work with me for mixing:

  1. While I use electronic sounds, I want to keep them feeling as if they’re as organic and real as possible. You’ll have the impression of being immersed in a space of living unreal things and the clash between the synthetic and the real, which is for me, one of the most interesting things to listen to.
  2. I like to design spaces that could exist. The idea of putting sounds in place brings the listener into a bubble-like experience, which is the exact opposite of commercial music where a wall of sound is the desired aesthetic.

There’s nothing wrong with commercial music, it just has a different goal than I do in mixing.

What are some descriptions we can apply to an organic, warm, rounded sound?

  • A “real” sounding feel.
  • Distance between sounds to create the impression of space.
  • Clear low end, very rounded.
  • Controlled transients that aren’t aggressive.
  • Resonances that aren’t piercing.
  • Wideness without losing your center.
  • Usually a “darker” mix with some presence of air in the highs.
  • Keeping a more flat tone but with thick mids.

Now with this list in mind, there are approaches of how to deal with your mix and production.

Select quality samples to start with. It’s very common for me to come back to a client and say “I have to change your kick, clap and snare”, mostly because the source material has issues. Thi is because many people download crap sounds via torrents or free sites which usually haven’t been handled properly. See sounds and samples as the ingredients you cook food with: you want to compose with the best sounding material. I’m not a fan of mastered samples, as I noticed they sometimes distort if we compress them so I usually want something with a headroom. TIP: Get sounds at 24b minimum, invest some bucks to get something that is thick and clear sounding.

Remove resonances as you go. Don’t wait for a mixdown to fix everything. I usually make my loops and will correct a resonance right away if I hear one. I’ll freeze and flatten right away, sometimes even save the sample for future use. To fix a resonance, use a high quality EQ with a Q of about 5 maximum and then set your EQ to hear what you are cutting. Then you lower down of about 4-5db to start with. TIP: Use Fabfilter Pro-Q3, buy it here.

Control transients with a transient designer instead of an EQ. I find that many people aren’t sensitive of how annoying in a mix percussion can be if the transients are too aggressive. That can sometimes be only noticed once you compress. I like to use a Transient designer to lower the impact; just a little on the ones that are annoying. TIP: Try the TS-1 Transient Shaper, buy it here.

Remove all frequencies under the fundamental of the bass. This means removing the rogue resonances and to monitor what you’re cutting. If your bass or kick hits at 31hz, then remove anything under that frequency. EQ the kick and all other low end sound independently.

Support the low end with a sub since to add roundness. Anemic or confused low end can be swapped or supported by a sine wav synth that can be there to enhance the fundamental frequency and make it rounder. It make a big difference affecting the warmth of the sound. Ableton’s Operator will do, or basically any synth with oscillators you can design.

High-pass your busses with a filter at 12db/octave. Make sure you use a good EQ that lets you pick the slope and high-pass not so aggressively to have a more analog feel to your mix.

Thicken the mids with a multiband compressor. I like to compress the mids between 200 and 800. Often clients get it wrong around there and this range is where the real body of your song lies. The presence it provides on a sound system is dramatic if you control it properly.

Use clear reverb with short decay. Quality reverbs are always a game changer. I like to use different busses at 10% wet and with a very fast decay. Can’t hear it? You’re doing it right. TIP: Use TSAR-1 reverb for the win.

Add air with a high quality EQ. Please note this is a difficult thing to do properly and can be achieved with high-end EQ for better results. Just notch up your melodic buss with a notch up around 15khz. It add very subtle mix and is ear pleasing in little quantity. TIP: Turbo EQ by Melda is a hot air balloon.

Double Compress all your melodic sounds. This can be done with 2 compressors in parallel. The first one will be set to 50% wet and the second at 75%. The settings have to be played with but this will thicken and warm up everything.

Now for space, I make 3 groups: sounds that are subtle (background), sounds that are in the middle part of the space, and space that are upfront. A mistake many people make is to have too many sounds upfront and no subtle background sounds. A good guideline is 20% upfront as the stars of your song, then 65% are in the middle, and the remaining 15% are the subtle background details. If your balance is right, your song will automatically breathe and feel right.

All the upfront sounds are the ones where the volume is at 100% (not at 0db!), the ones in the middle are generally at 75%, and the others are varied between 50% to 30% volume. When you mix, always play with the volume of your sound to see where it sits best in the mix. Bring it too low, too loud, in the middle. You’ll find a spot where it feels like it is alive.

Lastly, one important thing is to understand that sounds have relationships to one another. This is sometimes “call and response”, or some are cousins… they are interacting and talking to each other. The more you support a dialog between your sounds, the more fun it is to listen to. Plus it makes things feel more organic!

SEE ALSO : More tips about working with samples in Ableton

Becoming a professional musician

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Back in 2002, I received a government grant for a European tour. For me, this was the beginning of the process of becoming a professional musician. A lot of Canadian arts and music are funded by the government; if you’re organized and a resourceful, you can get funding. I was lucky enough to be one of those people. Every country has their own grant programs and some are better than others, but I know there are many other places in the world where governments offer this type of financial support; it’s simply a matter of knowing where to search.

That said, this opportunity was served to me on a silver platter, and without it I’m not sure I would have ever been keen enough to make the jump from semi-pro to full-time musician. Many people ask me how I did it, and while I don’t really like to tell the story or explain to people how they themselves can do it, I thought I’d discuss it in a blog post.

The main reason why I’m cautious to talk about this topic is because the music business world is extremely spontaneous and unpredictable; I could tell you step-by-step how I think you can “make it” but it still might not happen. Same goes for how to get signed to a label or how to write a “hit”. There are steps you can follow, but luck is usually the deciding factor.

However, networking quite heavily might influence your chances by creating more opportunities for luck.

A student I was mentoring for a few months once said to me “I work about 5 hours a day on music and I still don’t get noticed or get signed…” My response was that the harsh reality is that the world doesn’t care what you do, how you do it, or why you do it. Things happen or they don’t, and you have very little control over that. Unfortunately this response sort of ended our working together; I had broken his hopes.

I’m not trying to be pessimistic but I really try to invite people to be as realistic as possible about music to remain mentally sane, and not burn out like I did in 2007. Working in the domain of “The Arts” demands a lot of resilience and it’s always an intense roller coaster ride.

I know I might sound grumpy or negative, but I also have some good news: I’ve seen many people succeed and many fail, and I have noticed recurring characteristics that can make a person succeed or fail. In an effort to share with you the most helpful points, I’ve summarized these characteristics below.

With regards to who I’ve seen succeed directly, I hate to name drop, but I can tell you I’ve seen artists like Maayan Nidam, Ion Ludwig, Seth Troxler, Sean Reaves, Deadbeat, Akufen, Guillaume and The Coutu-Dumont, Mike Shannon, Lee Curtiss, Ryan Crosson, and even Luciano, who I first saw in Barcelona while he was still relatively unknown and have followed him since, grow exponentially.

So, what do some of these people who have succeeded have in common?

  •  They had a financial back-up plan. Some people don’t have a financial plan and in that case, they are totally okay with living poorly to be able to do what they love. I’ve been there. However, I was fortunate to have two back-up plans for money: a strong professional background with a university degree in the social sciences and teaching. In times where I wouldn’t tour, I would teach part-time in schools or in private. Plus my parents were totally okay with helping me with some investment for my studio. But at first, I hated the struggle. If you want to become a professional musician, know that they first years are really, really rough, financially speaking. You’ll need to be working part-time at something you know you can do for money. Many DJs/producers I know work at restaurants, and honestly not making music all the time is actually a very good thing.
  • They were ready to move to get closer to opportunity. I’d say that pretty much all artists I know who went big moved to where they needed to be. In the early 2000s, we saw a huge exodus of producers worldwide to Berlin because it was cheap but also a huge hub for opportunity. Everyone was there. When Richie Hawtin moved there around that time, it was clear that it was the thing to do. Honestly, if you’re physically far from opportunities, you’re making it harder on yourself. The chances of becoming a “Soundcloud rapper” are probably less than one in a million.
  • They built a solid portfolio of work. If you’re a DJ, your goal is probably to get the most prestigious gigs in the scene you’re in. Find your niche, see who are at the top and where they play, then use that as your model. If you’re a producer, find people who could be similar, then see who they work with, what they use and try to see if you can emulate. It’s not very original and it might not work but you’ll learn in the process and understand what you should do going forward.
  • They understood they couldn’t do it alone. Again, if you can be physically close to all your influences and scene, it can be a very strong move. For instance, in Montreal for a while a lot of producers were hanging out a local bar called Laika; going there once a week was important to hang out, connect, share questions, hear people’s point of view, all things that changed my life personally. Now I get the same thing with MUTEK; producers from all over the world attend. With a bit of luck, I cross people’s paths and connect with them. It’s also important to be in these types of places to be available to people who want to reach out to you. Even if it doesn’t lead to anything, it can sometimes bring you opportunities you didn’t expect.
  • They understood what they did best and used that skill as leverage. Whatever you want to do in the world of arts, it’s essential to understand that it’s not because you’re passionate about something that it means you have a talent for it. Same goes for if your friends say you’re good at it. Professional validation is fundamentally important. You might have a special talent that many other people can benefit from. Maybe you’re amazing with visuals or sound design. Perhaps you’re strong in understanding how to patch cables and you can make modular synths work amazingly. In reference to my previous point, find what you do best and connect with people who recognize, appreciate, and need your skill.
  • They were/are outgoing. I’ve never seen someone that is not outgoing succeed. For instance, I first met Seth in 2006 in Detroit. After spending a few minutes with him, it was clear that this guy was someone everyone would love. Natural charisma, funny, super friendly and also, talented. But what if you’re not outgoing or remain unknown, like Burial? Yeah… right. Burial had to connect with someone to get signed. It didn’t just happen magically. Connecting is important and essential. You create more opportunities for things to happen.
  • They never stopped looking for opportunities and said yes as much as possible. Follow your model. Be in the places that person might go to, and connect with people there. Being a social butterfly can bring you into contact with people who share the same dreams. The number one myth people think about with regards to music is “competition”, and they may become selfishly competitive themselves. If you understand that competition is just an illusion, you’ll want your peers to succeed too because if they do, everyone wins. Trust me on that one.
  • They were reactive and responsive. When you work with people, don’t stall on communication and action. Act quick, almost impulsively. Make things happen. Work on tons of projects, collaborate, and never think of the outcome as in a success or failure. Make sure you don’t go broke in the process, but focus on making quality projects. If you become prolific in creating amazing things and make them for a while, it is almost impossible that no one will hear about one of them. But this takes time and resilience.
  • At times they compromised, but kept their integrity. This means, yes, you have to do some things you don’t want to do.

So how did I, Pheek, do it?

  1. I took on a few model artists and labels as my mentors.
  2. I connected with many of them at MUTEK. I was never pushy. I was more interested in having them know who I was and what I did. No one likes opportunists or pushy behaviour. You want to befriend your mentors with no expectations.
  3. Eventually I became known for the music I was doing and started to be in demand because I was releasing music people liked.
  4. I was saying yes to almost everything that made sense for me.
  5. I understood that downtime or lack of interest in my work didn’t mean I wasn’t in demand, but that I needed to go back to the studio and work harder.

Nowadays, I know that my personal leverage is in audio engineering, understanding people’s ideas, and helping their music make more sense. This now also my backup plan. I would say that I work on my own music about 10-20% of my time and I prefer it this way, because when I do it, I don’t need to make it in order to have it sell. I’m done trying to convince people to book me or sign me. I make music with the pure intention of making something I love and there are no compromises.

This is sort of what I recommend to everyone. Never lose your voice, no matter what happens. I’ve seen artists crash after a while and it was always because they lost themselves at one point. That is the only thing all people who fail have in common, is that their initial intention was succeed with no plan and they jumped on a trendy bandwagon. There’s a price to being ephemeral.

Music experiments: creating your own inspiration

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In this post, I discuss using music experiments in your workflow and inspiration in general. I don’t know if it’s just me, but lately I’ve noticed how software companies have been using “inspiration” as the key work to sell anything and everything. I’m seeing this in other fields too, not just music production.

“Limitless inspiration with this tool!“

“Never miss inspiration ever again when you use (this thing)!“

Inspiration is not needed to make music. If you wait until you feel inspired to make something, you might wait a long while before you do anything at all. We often wait for the perfect conditions to make music, but these conditions rarely present themselves on their own. I’ve been asked a few times to share details about how I make music: where does it start? What do you do to be productive?

Here are my little secrets:

  1. Don’t wait for the perfect moment – Just do it. This is my main motto. I’ve been reading so often that great inventors or artists would set a time to work and would do so in that time. I find the idea of preparing the brain to be able to work will make things even better than doing something out of the blue (which is also nice but can be very tricky). For instance, I try to make music for myself at the end of the day and especially on Fridays. I find the importance reinstating music as a hobby for pure fun to be essential in my creative flow.
  2. Diminish your technical limitations. Preparation is the name of the game and this is why I’ve been explaining many times that using the technique of the Mothership as the most useful tool. This idea is that when making music, you don’t spend time debugging, troubleshooting and fixing issues. You want to make music. This involves preparing your session in advance; deciding which project you’ll work on and what direction you’ll take. It doesn’t mean you have to stick to the plan, but it means you have a backup plan if you feel like you’re not sure what to do. I also love to do multiple flash-sessions of 15-30 minutes each day on music, and then spend a good few hours on full-blown creating on Fridays.
  3. Be aware of distractions. Close Facebook, your smartphone, and make sure you won’t be interrupted. To reach your “state of flow”, you need to be focused.
  4. Listen to music before creating. For a long time, my favorite time to make music was in the morning. At other times, I would fail miserably, especially at night. Nowadays, I prefer to work at the end of my day, mostly because I work on everyone’s music during the day and my brain accumulates ideas. If you’re not working in the audio field, I would highly recommend that you find a moment where you can listen to a podcast before working on music.
  5. Make sure your primary human needs are fulfilled. This might sound funny for some, but make sure you’re in a moment where you won’t be sleepy, hungry or prepare snacks, drinks and whatever you need to not stop your session.
  6. Start small. If you’re not sure of anything but feel like making music (e.g. as I type this, I do feel like making music, but don’t have any plans in mind), start with a little experiment. I find the idea of starting with little experiments to be more effective than sitting trying to make an interesting melodies. Experiments allow you to discover how things are made. How? Start with a question such as “what would happen if I use an LFO on both feedback and decay of a delay?” All experiments start with a question you’re not sure about. A question will bring many more other questions and some answers, but many failures too. But all you need is a new sound or discovering something to give you wings to continue.
  7. Stop when it doesn’t feel right. I think I’ve mentioned this the most out of anything on this blog but I’ll say it again: if the song you’re working on feels like it’s demanding to work on, then something’s not right. Stop, take a pause or switch song. Distance will tell you what went wrong.
  8. Find a random tutorial to practice. This goes hand in hand with experimenting. There are many video producers out there and this one here is a good starter.
  9. Create chaos. Creating chaos is not new in music and it’s definitely needed. How does one create chaos? There are tons of ways, but for example, use LFOs on your static plugins, use randomizers as much as possible, and add more sounds than you need. Ask yourself if the chaos is too much, and if it’s yes, then you know you’re overboard and try to see what sticks out most, so that from that chaos, some ideas emerge.
  10. Harmonize chaos. Following a dose of chaos, it’s time to stick to your best ideas so that your song really has one main idea supported with two others. Any extra or old material that you feel is good can be moved into the next song you’re working on.
  11. De-clutter. One of the best way to de-clutter is to go through each sound, one by one, and see which relationship of “call and response” they have. For instance, a vocal could appear for a few seconds, and the “response” to that could be a few notes from a synth. A song can have a few responses such as in the main melodic part, the percussion and the bass. You can go very deep into this but don’t forget that the listener will usually only give you a limited amount of attention at a time and a lot of people dislike music that is too “loopy”.

Music experiments, I think are the most important thing I’ve mentioned here. I’d like to propose you a few starters that can be seeds for future sessions. To me, experiments are where 99% of my best sound design ideas came from. Below are some questions for you to explore. There are no right or wrong answers, and they can be revisited multiple times.

  1. What effect/plugin you use the least? Try creating a loop with multiple instances of it.
  2. What happens when you pass a very short sample into 5 different plugins?
  3. Create an effect progression that evolves over more than 1 minute.
  4. Double a sample on multiple channels and change the parameter of each sample (ex. pitch, lenght, gain, etc).
  5. What is a “bad practice” rule you believe in; can you can try to make it work?
  6. What happens to a sound when you take a plugin and automate every parameter?
  7. Use record to move parameters and have the automation be based on that. Do this on each parameters of that plugin.
  8. Make a song using a maximum of 3 sounds.
  9. Make a song using a maximum of 3 channels.
  10. Only use sounds recorded in your apartment for one song.

I’m sure you can come up with other experiment ideas and I’d love to read them!

SEE ALSO : Creating organic sounding music with mixing

Design Thinking for Music Production

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If you work in a field concerned with visual design, you probably have been reading a lot about Design Thinking. In this post, I will describe how I use design thinking for music. If you haven’t heard about design thinking before, here’s a definition:

“Design Thinking is a design methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems.”

Design thinking for music is relatively simple and I’d like to show you how you can apply its concepts to music to get the same benefits as visual designers. This is complementary post relating to my previous post about the importance of having a mind oriented on building a system; they go hand-in-hand.

Empathy/Attention

I was have been working with a student in a private sound design class. When the student comes for multiple sessions, we get to a point where we do critical listening; this is probably the most difficult part of sound design. I don’t mean in terms of how-to, but more with regards to technically listening to music you love to break down the “magic” you love about it. If you know exactly how a piece of music is made, it’s sometimes difficult to appreciate it again. It’s the curse of knowing how things are made, such as movies, music, food, etc. It’s good if you want to know how to make it yourself, but it also can make you jaded.

Anyhow, to get back to my story, we were listening to some experimental music and I was asking these questions to my student:

Quickly focus on the overall view of the song and try to seize what is static vs what is not. What is grabbing your attention at first and why?

Focus on a sound that you like. What do you observe in its shape? Is the pitch changing? Is the length of sound changing? Are the frequencies being altered?

Basically, you need to empathize with the sound and examine how it behaves, and determine what makes it attractive to you. The more you connect to the sound and learn how it moves on these axes, then you’ll be able to create a concept to replicate it. I usually try to name the sound in my own terms and see if I can hear it in multiple other songs. For a long time, even now, I’d be very attracted to sounds that felt “wet”, watery and bubbly. It was difficult for me to give a technical term so I’d refer to them as bubbles. I love them for how they make a song alive.D

Define the sound

Being able to describe exactly what is going on is where a lot of people get stuck. The idea here is partly to understand the axes of the sound and which one are used, how. Those axes are:

Time: Is the sound short or long?

Pitch: Is the sound high pitched or low?

Frequency: Is the sound using certain frequencies in general?

Amplitude: Is the sound low or high volume?

Position Left/Right: Where is the sound in the space?

Position far, close: Is the sound right in front of me or far ahead?

Modulation: Is the sound changing on any of those axes over time?

It might be overwhelming, but analyzing sounds this way can really help create a concept, or an idealization.

Ideate and Prototype

At this point, your sound should be defined as best you can. We then take all of the axes of the sound, one-by-one, to see how certain effects can make a difference.

Time: Think envelope. When, for instance you’re using a synth, the envelope determines if the sound is short or long, depending how you set the Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release. If the sound constantly changes length, it means the envelope is being modulated.

Pitch: This one should be pretty straightforward, pitch is simply tonal frequency shifting. If your sound changes pitch quickly or slowly, it’s likely an LFO or an envelope altering the pitch.

Frequency: By overall frequency I mean more EQ or filter related, not pitch. If the sound is muffled, there might be a filter applied. If the sound feels rich, it could be a shelving EQ applied in the mids. Playing with an EQ can dramatically alter a sound in many ways. It’s important.

Amplitude: This is controlled with the utility, more specifically gain. You can change the amplitude this way. I would recommend that when you do sound design, that you use your DAW’s utility plugins to control gain. It becomes much easier to see and understand when you re-open a project.

Position – Left/Right: Again, using a utility plugin adjust the panning, left and right.

Position – Close or Front: This position is a bit more difficult to understand and achieve. Basically, this is EQ related, but also has to do with filters. By applying an high-pass filter to a sound, the more you filter out the low end, the more you’re pushing away the sound from you. You can also lower the gain to make things feel farther away, or use a reverb to add a bit of dimensional movement.

In this prototyping phase, I usually gather together the tools I need to make a sound, and will also gather the appropriate modulators (Envelope, LFO). This approach is very modular-oriented. People who own a modular synth often proceed this way. You think of the sound, what will alter it, and determine the sources of modulation.

In your prototype development, you’ll be creating a chain of effects as a macro in Ableton. Those effects will be modulating, changing, and altering the sounds that will pass through them. This takes time to nail down correctly, but the fun part is about passing a whole range of sounds through your macro, be it generic synth sounds, percussion, or random field recordings. You might discover that your original concept might be doing something completely different than what comes out in your prototype, but the end result might be even more interesting.

Stay open to the outcome of your sound even if it’s different than the original sound you were trying to imitate. Record everything. Save your macro and start using it in old unfinished songs to recycle some of your old work.

SEE ALSO : Music experiments: creating your own inspiration