Making Meditation Music and Binaural Beats

Binaural beats have greatly affected my life. Not only that, but they were the reason I became an electronic musician.In a Meta full circle, I am excited to release this online course on Binaural Beats. It dives deep into Binarual Beats, Isochronic Tones, Frequencies, and more. Been years in the making, and honored to finally release it.

Fifteen years ago I got into being a psychonaut. It was a strange and wild point of my life. I was doing dream experiments, binaural beats, and exploring consciousness.

That time greatly shaped who I am today. In a strange full circle, I have been revisiting those experiments the last few years. I have been drawn back into my love of Binaural Beats and how to dial in your consciousness.

After a lot of discovery and work, I have created this online course on how to make your own binaural beats and using sound to affect consciousness. It feels pretty amazing to have this thread through my life and find a new way to help others on their own journey. Here is a trailer video for the course:

If you are interested in learning more on how you can affect consciousness with sound, then check out my online course on making binaural beats. 

 

Understanding LUFS Standards for Mastering

OK… this is going to be heady.

I tell musicians this all the time. Mastering is not music. Mastering is more of a technical science then it is a musical expression. Yes, there is an art to it, but you have to understand a lot of basics on how we perceive sound and different loudness standards.  If you want to be a musician, you might skip this and get a mastering engineer. (Shameful plug… I do Mastering) If you are interested in learning the art of mastering, continue on my brave friends.

Back in the wild days of the internet (Are they done? Bitcoin anyone?), many streaming services arose. At the same time, there were loudness wars ramping up on Tv and video streaming. Along the way, we had a massive range of loudness per platform. If you had your headphones in and listened to a song on iTunes, and then flipped to Youtube you might hear a huge difference. Or worse, TV and commercials. So… some really smart people made a standard of tracking loudness. There are two main ones LUFS and LKFS.  Now… I know some nerd out there will give me a talking to, but LUFS and LKFS are in practice the same thing.

(Read more on the Loudness War with this Guest Article)

This standard helped make volumes of songs or video be pretty close to each other. It has helped a lot in ending the loudness wars. But… The different streaming services have different loudness standards and algorithms to take measurements and apply the normalization.  When mastering our songs we want to keep the LUFS range to about the final range by that particular streaming service. Otherwise, if we go over then the service might lower the volume to get the LUFS they have decided to keep as a standard.

 

Below is a graph of the different streaming services and the LUFS standard they use.

 

Note: There isn’t anything on Soundcloud? That is because as of now (Jan. 2018) there is no loudness standard for Soundcloud. That means the loudness wars are alive and well there.

 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO ME?

Well, this means a few important things.

  1. If you are thinking of self-mastering and don’t understand LUFS, consider learning it or getting a Mastering Engineer.
  2. You might want to have a different master sent to the different services. At the very least a different master for YouTube than for iTunes.

I also like to remind engineers of the art of mastering as well.  The rule of thumb has been the same since the 90s, make it as loud as possible as long as it still sounds good. You want to make it loud, but not distort the sound.

Having said this, it makes sense to know the LUFS standard of the platform you are releasing on. There is no reason to push the sound louder and degrade the sound further if the platform you are releasing on is going to lower it anyways, resulting in the same volume and worse quality. You want to balance the art of making it sound good with the science of the standard of each platform.

KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE

There you go… Keep this in mind the next time you are mastering tracks and wonder what LUFS to set the track at.  If you’re interested in learning more about mastering, I teach 1-on-1 classes and we can dive into the subject. Or if you just looking for a mastering / mixing engineer, hit me up.  

Makaya McCraven – Beat Science

I was stoked to host the Ableton Live User Group in Portland last month. We had the rare opportunity of having the guest speaker Makaya McCraven. Makaya is a world-renowned jazz drummer. Pop Matters’ put him in the top jazz albums of 2015. In this Video Makaya MacCraven walks us through his creative process with editing, chopping, and working off the grid. Lots of gems in here, so enjoy.

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Check out Makaya’s music at: https://www.makayamccraven.com/

By |2020-10-05T16:18:00-07:00September 5th, 2017|Ableton, Producers Blog, Sound Design Tech|Comments Off on Makaya McCraven – Beat Science

Recording Multi-track with Ipad and Zoom H6

While working on my new Subaqueous Album, I came up with an idea. I wanted to record vocals with Marya Stark  but not in the studio. I wanted to trek out to a remote place in the woods and dive deep into the music. After much experimenting, I found out a way to use the Zoom H6 and the Ipad to record. We were able to do full multitracking, layering, and even editing out in the woods and it all fit in a backpack.

Here is the video walk through. Below that, I have some links to the app and gear used.

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Here is a list of some of the things you might need. (more…)

Physical Modeling with Ableton Live and Chromaphone

One of the key techniques I use in my instrumentation is Physical Modeling. This type of synthesis has a unique and organic sound.  Wikipedia defines it as:

In sound synthesis, physical modelling synthesis refers to methods in which the waveform of the sound to be generated is computed by using a mathematicalmodel, being a set of equations and algorithms to simulate a physical source of sound, usually a musical instrument.

I also really like this image as a reference to how Physical Modeling does it. You can see how they have broken an instrument into its parts and used different synthesis to achieve a sound that emulates it.

Here is a video on my favorite Physical Modeling synth and an overview.

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By |2020-10-05T16:20:50-07:00February 21st, 2017|Ableton, Gear Review, Producers Blog, Sound Design Tech|Comments Off on Physical Modeling with Ableton Live and Chromaphone

Creating a Thick and Clean Kick

Getting your kick just right can be quite the task. I have been using this new VST called BigKick to quickly create the perfect sound for my mix.  Here is a video walkthrough of me using the VST, my thoughts, and some techniques.

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Check out BigKick at Plug-In Boutique 

Got any tips on synths and samples for a kick? Comment below.

By |2020-10-05T16:20:50-07:00February 21st, 2017|Ableton, Producers Blog, Sound Design Tech|1 Comment