Mike’s Blog

The Green Room has moved

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:46:29 +0100

So I’ve been quiet on here for a while. In no small part, because a) I’ve been very busy writing up reviews, workshops, interviews, etc. b) I’ve moved house.
The second part of this has been a long heavy struggle, but now I’m in I’m glad I did it, and the effort is certainly being repaid. Not only is my new flat bigger, but I also no longer share it, and to top things off I can now get back to having a room for my studio. That room might be the lounge, but who cares, it’s not like I needed a living room for anything else...
This means my project studio now has a dedicated space, one which thankfully sounds much better than my last room, although I’m having to get used to the enhanced low-end, now that I have space for a sub.
In the meantime I’ve been working on a redesign for this site, which should be coming soon, and this weekend I’m going into Metropolis to sample the balafon I bought in Mali which I mentioned I’d sample up for you all. I’ve not much experience with making sample libraries, nor in fact with recording balafon’s, but I’ll experiment away until it sounds good and have something for you all to play with soon enough. I’ll even try and write up my experience with making the sample library for anyone interested.

Remixing Carry Your Heart for the PEACE compilation

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:00:05 +0100

In January, shortly after I got back from Mali, I was asked by Catherine A.D. if I could help her out with a remix for a compilation she’d been asked to contribute to. Being the generous sort I leapt on the idea, grabbed the stems to “Carry Your Heart”, figured out the chords, and then chucked most of the stems out and got started on a remix.
Considering the short turnaround required for the remix I possibly took on a little much by throwing out all the original parts other than the vocal, but the last thing I wanted to do was throw a house beat and a bass line under the track, and every time I approached the song’s original parts individually I felt like they worked so well as a whole that I didn’t want to split them up in any way or remix it in any conventional way. I also wanted to put something of my recent trip to Africa into the remix. Thankfully I had my partner in crime Phil Joannides along for the ride.
We started the process with me adamantly insisting that the chorus was going to be in 6/8 using a calabash loop (a calabash is a West-African percussion instrument made from the dried out and hollowed shell of a gourd), that our kick drum sound was going to be a heavily treated calabash sample, and that the chords would be picked out by three acoustic guitar samples I’d made that morning, each lasting only one bar and comprising of a single arpeggiated chord. I expected Phil to put up a little more of a fight, but he seemed happy with the suggestion, or at least he didn’t just leave the studio immediately... and between us we got stuck in chopping up the three acoustic guitar samples and pasting them onto the timeline under the vocal, paying little regard for the initial chord structure of the piece.
Initially we just built up the guitar chords over the intro and first verse following this with an instrumental chorus built-up from the calabash rhythm. We toyed with various sounds to add to the chorus but both agreed a cello sample-instrument seemed to lend itself to the atmosphere we were creating. While I layed down a cello line using the London Solo Strings library in Kontakt, Phil toyed around with expanding the drum sounds using Battery - this actually got swapped out later, but provided us with a rough idea to jam around. I layered the cello part with a viola part and Phil got stuck into Massive to develop a new bass line for the second verse. At this stage everything is a little sketchy, no production work had been done and while the song was coming together the arrangement was being constantly swapped around, with parts flying backwards and forwards an considerable amounts of tea being drunk.
The bass line and calabash under the vocal of the second verse seemed to be working but going back into the chorus seemed a little lack-lustre so we brought up another bass sound in Massive and layered this under the chorus. The other problem we had in the second verse was the line “I folded your heart into mine to make a paper dove”, which for some reason we kept mis-hearing as “make a paper towel”. This isn’t something anyone else would probably spot until you tell them (don’t go looking for it please, Catherine will kill me!), but since it was winding Phil and I up rather than try to mask it I decided to make a feature of it, and delayed the word “dove”, which is clearly enunciated in the solo’d vocal, adding MoogerFooger ring modulation in increasing amounts to each delay. Of course with the word “dove” now delayed we no longer heard “towel” and all was well again.
For the third verse we decided to keep the momentum going by keeping the bass line from the second verse but adding back the acoustic guitars from the first verse, with a new even more choppy arrangement. To prevent the progression of the song from being to obvious though we moved the bass line from Massive to the cello library in Kontakt, this also meant we could drop the strings out from the second chorus, which seemed to us to be a good idea. The strings were the hook in the instrumental chorus, so keeping them out of the second chorus meant more room could be given to the vocal, and by holding the hook back you increase anticipation. Bringing the cello back in reminds you of that hook without requiring us to use it again. The cello actually got moved onto double bass in the end, because we wanted a lower register, but the association with the strings is still there.
For the final chorus we decided to go all out, hitting it with almost everything we had to make it sound huge before dropping away for the final held note. The last thing we added before taking a break for a few days was the banjo part, ably played by my housemate, James ‘Pag’ Pagliero. Phil and I had agreed from the start that we wanted a banjo part to bring out the folky vibe a little more, but as we went on we started hearing more eastern themes in the vocal, so we weren’t entirely sure that was the way to go until Pag picked the banjo up and almost immediately played the riff that went onto the track. It seemed to capture the spirit perfectly, especially when I dropped a bit-reduction plug-in over it so that it fitted with the glitchy cut-up feeling of the acoustic guitars.
After a few days break to clean our ears, Phil sent over the synth pads and new drum beats and I cut and pasted audio and MIDI regions from throughout the track to create the outro, adding some of the new drums Phil had provided.
The arrangement was finally taking shape so I started to work on a mix, which I bounced back and forth with Phil. A couple of parts were added, removed or just moved but on the whole we were happy with it, the crackles and heavily automated bit-crushed delays were added to try and build around the atmosphere of the chopped up guitars and 8-bit banjo. We didn’t have time to head into Metropolis to get the mix done, so everything was done in the box before I handed it over to Phil who mastered it himself at Metropolis.
The final remix can be heard on the PEACE compilation, which is available here along with 180 other tracks, including artists like Mogwai, Patrick Wolf, Fennesz, Amiina and Vieux Farke Touré for a €5 donation to Amnesty International. For comparison, the original single is available on the Carry your Heart EP here, or for streaming on Catherine’s SoundCloud here.
My thanks to Catherine for letting us turn her track inside-out. We were quite worried when she came for a playback, but she must have liked it, because she asked me back to mix her new EP (and she asked Phil to master it at Metropolis); Skeleton Songs, which is available for pre-order now here. Full release 7 June, 2010.
Skeleton Songs was recorded as a raw as possible by Catherine, using her home studio to capture the first take of every part and was mixed in a single day at Metropolis. However, you wouldn’t know to listen to it.
Phil and I had done a couple of things together before this remix, but since doing this one we’ve really hit the ground running and we’ve got a bunch of stuff in the pipeline and a few things already in our “done” pile, of which the only one you can hear so far is the Tunng remix up on our SoundCloud account, but we’ve got a few remixes and some original material we hope to unleash soon. But we’ve still got our ears to the ground so please feel free to get in touch with us by leaving a comment on here, or e-mailing me here, if you think you’ve got something that you’d like us to take a look at.

A letter to my MP; Martin Linton

Thu, 8 Apr 2010 12:40:42 +0100

As anyone who knows me or follows me on Twitter will know, I’m deeply opposed to the Digital Economy Bill in it’s current form. I first wrote about this on my blog on the 24 November, 2009 (here) and I’ve been following the process as much as I can since then. However, with only a few small changes the bill was rushed through in a process known as the wash-up. Here is my final letter to Martin Linton (credit to Steve Lawson for some of the statements herein):

Dear Martin,

Thank you for your letter dated 31 March, 2010 regarding the upcoming elections. I wrote to you on 17 March, 2010 with serious concerns about the "washing-up" of the Digital Economy Bill. A bill which in my considered opinion is seriously flawed from start to finish. Not only is the bill based on false information, but it was written in such a way as to display a clear lack of understanding of how the internet works or how individuals like myself in the creative industries make their money.

The response to my e-mail, dated 17 March, 2010 from your staff suggested that you would be concerned at the lack of debate over such an important bill, and a later response dated 23 March, 2010 informed me that you had passed my views on to Lord Mandelson. So I had hoped that you would have taken a keen interest in this bill. Yet, I tuned in to watch the second reading on 6 April, 2010 and didn't see you in the House. Since you weren't there you were unable to hear your colleagues Tom Watson, Eric Joyce, Fiona McTaggart and Austin Mitchell as well as John Redwood clearly define many of the technical as well as cultural flaws in the bill and argue for the scrapping of it in its current form. Yet despite not having been there for the debate I see your name on the list of MPs who voted in favour of the Digital Economy Bill.

By voting for the bill in its current form you have displayed to me a fundamental lack of understanding of how the internet works, how it enables people like myself and the clients I work with to create a fanbase and thus make money from their art. Not only have you displayed your ignorance by voting for this bill, but by voting having not even attended the debate you have displayed arrogance and contempt for the democratic system.

I understand that you will be standing for re-election in Battersea, Balham and Wandsworth. However, for the reasons explained above I will not be voting for you.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Hillier
Sound Engineer and Music Technology Journalist

The 1s and 0s of digital audio

Mon, 5 Apr 2010 16:40:33 +0100

To many people audio engineering is an art-form, and the title “engineer” is a misnomer, appropriated from some long-gone age where recording studios were filled with men in white lab-coats and audio tools were invented purely to deal with the problems at the time. Unfortunately this idea of the audio engineer is propagated not just by those outside the community but even by some within it. There are plenty of established audio engineers who only have a vague idea of the science involved, and many of these frequently make great sounding records. They have an ear for what works and what doesn’t and their understanding of the science goes as far as understanding what happens to the sound when various knobs are turned or buttons pressed. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach, but it’s one that I’ve never been happy with myself. I find it much easier to adapt to new technologies and new ideas if I understand not just what it is it’s doing, but how it’s doing it.
To me an engineer is neither a scientist, nor an artist. Engineering blurs the line between the two, applying the discoveries of science, results frequently in great art. But to do this you have to have a thorough understanding of the tools and materials at your command.
I wasn’t lucky enough to study audio engineering at university and I’ve had to teach myself most of what I know - reading constantly and asking pertinent questions of engineers with far greater knowledge than I. To that end I am lucky, and grateful to all those who have helped. And I’d like to give a little back in that department.
Over the years I’ve discovered a few areas of fundamental audio science that are frequently overlooked - and one of the most common areas is digital audio. What is digital audio? What does bit-depth relate to? What is sample-rate a measure of? Not understanding this, leads to several common mistakes. So to try and prevent those mistakes from being made I’m going to try and talk you through some of the answers to those questions.

Here’s The Science Part
So what is digital audio? Sound, as we hopefully all know, is a wave. In air it is a longitudinal wave of changing air pressures. In analogue systems this is usually described as a transverse wave, but computers store and process information as binary data so you have to somehow convert the waveform into a series of 1s and 0s.
The most common method for describing a wave digitally is to use pulse-code modulation (PCM). This is the method used by both .WAV and .AIFF files as well as on CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray (SACD uses a different method known as DSD). PCM audio describes an approximation of the waveform created by sampling the amplitude (height of the wave) at regular intervals.

In the diagram above you can see a sine wave (red line). To turn this into PCM data, the height of the wave (y-axis) is measured at regular intervals in time (x-axis).
There are 32 sampling intervals across the full-length of this wave, which is determined by the sample-rate. A standard CD samples at 44.1kHz, or 44,100 times per second. Assuming quickly that this wave has been sampled at this rate that would make the time (T) for one full cycle equal to 32/44100 seconds, providing us with a frequency of 1378Hz (f=1/T).
In just the same way that the x-axis (time) is quantised according to the sample-rate the y-axis (amplitude) is quantised according to the bit-depth. If we were to measure the amplitude with only a single bit (binary digit) we could only describe the wave’s height in two positions - up or down, 1 or 0. With a two bit word we could measure it in four positions and with only four bits we could measure it with the 16 positions shown on the diagram above (in binary each additional bit doubles the range of the word). So assuming that the red line is a 1.4kHz sine wave, the grey area would be a 4-bit/44.1kHz representation - and as we can see it’s a pretty inexact description of the waveform. Thankfully CDs use a 16-bit word to describe each sample, which gives us 216, or 65,536 positions enabling us to get a much more accurate estimation of the waveform.
However, as good as CD audio is we’ve seen that a 1.4kHz wave is only sampled 32 times in a single cycle but higher frequencies are measured even less. A 2.7kHz wave is only sampled 16 times and a 5.5kHz wave only 8 times. As you get above 11kHz a wave is being sampled less than 4 times per cycle, making it very difficult for the standard 44.1kHz sampling frequency to store enough information on these waves at any bit-depth.
Problems also occur on the y-axis with most recordings not making full use of the 65,536 quantisation positions available in 16-bit resolution. This is because to make use of all of these the wave would have to be exactly 0dBFS. Reduce the volume by 6dB and you half the number of quantisation positions available (effectively reducing your resolution by 1-bit). On the other hand if any signal goes above (or below) the range covered by the resolution then it will simply be given a value equal to the highest or lowest value, creating digital clipping distortion. It is for this reason that engineers recommend recording at 24-bit, since this allows nearly 17-million quantisation positions. This means that even if you record with 6dB of headroom to prevent any digital clipping that you will still have a dynamic range with 8-million quantisation points, far more than the final 16-bit CD will use.

The Tunng remix and some free leftovers

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:04:19 +0000

As usual it’s all go here, with various projects all undergo at the same time (have you seen my shiny logo, designed by the incredibly talented Kerrie McKinnon?). I’ve been recording and mixing a few solo compositions which will probably never see the light of day, but I’m enjoying messing around with them. I’m also planning an EP for later in the year, which I intend to write entirely in Max/MSP - so err, that’ll be another one for the geek pile...
We’re still waiting on confirmation of the release date for the Catherine A.D. remix, Phil & I did for Amnesty International, but hopefully there’ll be more news on that very soon. In the meantime Phil & I got together to have a go at the Tunng remix competition hosted on Drowned In Sound.

For the Tunng remix we played around with various ideas, ranging from Steve Reich inspired phasing using a custom Max/MSP patch to dubstep before eventually focussing on a videogame-style chiptune remix. Having decided on this route we knew we had to make the track as playful as we could, while staying true to the original song, rather than venturing away too much into our own territory. So we started adding and replacing sounds from the original recording with our own 8-bit samples, applying judicious bit-crushing wherever we felt a sound wasn’t retro enough. As a keen collector of “any old rubbish that makes sound”, I sampled up a whole bunch of toys like the FingerDrums kit pictured and a V-Tech Winnie The Pooh phone. Neither of which actually ended up being used - neither did my currently not-circuit-bent Speak & Spell or Speak & Maths either, but sampling them all was fun anyway. As a little gift to you lot I’ve even uploaded the FingerDrums files for you to Grab: FingerDrums.zip.