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Monthly Archives: April 2022

NYC Recording Studio Meditation

The Sounds of Meditation

April 29, 2022 by mirrortone
General

We’ve had the privilege recently of working with a company called Maloka – a mindfulness meditation app. They have meditation guides and influencers from all over the world contributing to their suite of meditation programs. When they record in NYC, they use our space in midtown Manhattan. Much of what we do is record the voice-over talent of the meditation artists, making sure their personality and tone are well captured and listeners feel like they’re in the room. But we also love to work with the unique instruments that accompany many of the programs!

Pictured here are a set of crystal bowls that are played to create a ‘sound bath’. The sound is gorgeous. We set up a large condenser mono overhead mic, an omni mic, and a stereo pair of small condensers in front of the player. This allowed us to capture plenty of options to give the performance and the sound a multi-dimensional feel.

Studio Insights: What is Compression?

April 15, 2022 by mirrortone
General

In a nutshell, the job of an audio compressor is to smooth out volume levels, making them more consistent. In a vocal performance by a singer, there might be really quiet breathy moments at the beginning and end of words and phrases, with big open vowels sung in between. Compression can help the listener hear the detail and nuance in the quiet parts without being overwhelmed by the loud parts.

Or while recording something like drums or a podcast recording where people might suddenly burst out laughing, a compressor can help ‘tame’ the loudest moments, keeping things from distorting and surpassing what the mic can pick up cleanly.

In any case, the first job of a compressor is to reduce loud sounds. Once those loud sounds are reduced, the whole recording is going to sound at least a little quieter. So depending on how much quieter things sound, the last part of a compressor’s job is to compensate for that by making everything a little louder once more, back to whatever ideal listening level. That final stage is typically referred to as ‘makeup gain’.

The idea of makeup gain is sometimes confusing to people because it sounds like you’re reducing loudness just to add the same amount of loudness right back, so why bother? But to give it a goofy analogy let’s say you’re 6’4” and we need you to be under 6’ to get through a doorway. So you crouch down and now you’re 5’1”. But you’re not feeling like your old self because you’re so much shorter and bent over and all. So we give you a nice pair of 10” stilts to walk on. So now you’re still bent over and ‘compressed’ down to 5’1”. But on a pair of ‘makeup gain’ stilts. And still coming in comfortably under the overall level we needed you at. More or less confused..?

Too much compression can make things sound flat and lifeless, losing the natural dynamics that give a recording life and character. But without any compression, it may be difficult to hear the quietest parts of the performance, especially in context of a full mix.

Compression is often used on multiple levels of production. Sometimes at the recording stage, usually on individual tracks in mixing, on sub groups, and at the mastering stage. Just like EQ, compression is at the same time one of the most basic and most varied tools in audio. We’ll elaborate on different kinds of compressors, and the various parameters you might find on them, in another post.

For now, we hope to have shed some light on the general concept and application of compression.

NYC Recording Studio Ozone EQ Analyzer

Studio Insights: What is EQ?

April 8, 2022 by mirrortone
General

EQ is short for ‘equalization’ or ‘equalizer’. And the thing being equalized are the frequencies that characterize a sound. If you’re listening to some music in your car and the bass and drum hits are making your doors rattle, you might find the EQ settings for the car stereo and turn bring down the low frequencies to balance things out. Or… maybe your car doors aren’t rattling enough! So you boost the bass so you can feel those sweet sweet vibes through your whole body 🤤

NYC Recording Studio Car Stereo EQ
Car Stereo EQ

The term ‘equalizing’ is maybe a misnomer because the goal of using an EQ is not necessarily to make all frequencies equal to each other. Instead, we’re often trying to make adjustments, rebalancing things subjectively to hear more of something that sounds good or less of something that doesn’t sound good. But that’s what it’s called so get over it. 

There are lots of different forms and applications for EQ. There are analog equalizers like this MXR equalizer pedal that uses faders to make boosts and cuts, or our Trident Series 65 mixing console which has a section of white eq knobs on each channel strip. And there are zillions of digital equalizers with… digital stuff… used to make frequency adjustments. 

NYC Recording Studio MXR 10 band EQ pedal
MXR 10 band EQ pedal
NYC Recording Studio Trident Series 65 Mixing Console Tweaking Knobs
Trident Series 65 Mixing Console

There are also equalization ‘analyzers’ that will give you a visual representation of frequency levels in a sound. This is sometimes a built-in feature of a digital EQ plugin, like in iZotope’s Ozone EQ pictured at the top of this article.

And while it may be helpful to think about EQ as a way to boost frequencies that sound good and cut down frequencies that sound bad, it definitely gets more complicated than that. EQ is often used in the mixing process to set complimentary frequencies so things sound good in relation to each other, not just by themselves. So while the low strings of an acoustic guitar might sound really nice, we might actually want to cut those frequencies if they’re competing too much with a piano part or a bass line.

Which makes me realize I’ve mostly been talking about EQ with music in mind. There are tons of sound design applications for EQ in things like radio and film. EQ is one of the most basic concepts of audio and it’s also one of the widest and most versatile.

Hopefully, this is a good start for being in the know!

Recent Posts

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  • Mixing Wondery Media’s ‘Blood Ties’ in Dolby Atmos
  • Studio Insights: Creative Vibes
  • Home Recording Studio vs. Professional Recording Studio: What’s Right For You?

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