Rock music inside
Once upon a time, I began writing a series of articles for one Internet magazine about how rock music works, so to speak, “from the inside”. After seeing the article Basics of recording from an amateur for fans, he decided to share his own experiences. I hope it will be interesting to someone.
Rock music is the music of life for very, very many, this is music that bears in itself the strongest energy: from gloomy and dark, to pathetic sublime, and everyone can find in it something for themselves. The subtle beauty of rock ballads and the incredible drive of the "action films" has been blowing the mind off a huge number of people for about 50 years. But we will not delve into history, we will not try to prove who was the first rocker after all: the Beatles or the Black Sabbath - let's leave it to musicologists. Also, we will not try to distinguish it between styles, saying “this is pop pop, and this is tru”, because, in my opinion, MUSIC cannot be enclosed in any kind of framework. The purpose of this article is somewhat different - I want to try to shed light on what rock music is from the inside. The fact that for most of the eyes is hidden, and that which excites many people: “how did he do it?”, “What is it sticking out?” Is what separates the listener and the musician. I want to try to shed light on those things on which rock music is mostly based: instruments, game techniques, the technological side of the issue, but I want to make it as simple and clear as possible. This is exactly what I lacked in my time and, I hope, will become interesting and entertaining for you. I will also try to make a small excursion into the art of recording and how to make ROCK at home :).
I will ask you in advance to forgive me for some engagement, bias and lack of education on some issues - I'm just an amateur, not a professional, but this is music is an art for which there will always be at least 2 different points of view.
A few words need to be said about the software that is used for sound recordings and will be needed to create a song.
First of all, it is the host program — the main editor in which all the work (recording / editing / creating) takes place on audio and midi tracks. Usually they have a huge number of features, various twirls, flexible settings and other crap. In addition, they cost a lot of money (some of them cost up to 4-5 thousand evergreens), which makes up a considerable share of the cost of all the equipment in a professional (legal) studio. But, not forgetting where we live - it doesn’t really concern us :). Of the most common and professional hosts, you can highlight Nuendo, Cubase, Ableton Live, Logic (for Mac), Sonar. Of the more amateur and "friendly" - Fruity Loops. Personally, I prefer the Nuendo, as it is very ergonomic, comfortable and has a fairly solid base of embedded tools.
The working window in Nuendo looks like this:
')
Red - audio track list
Blue - list of midi tracks
Yellow - Midi Party
Green - batch audio
We also need the so-called VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugins and instruments (VSTi).
VST - These are separate programs that connect to the host. Plug-ins process the sound (separate audio tracks, groups of tracks or the entire track together — essentially this is the effect), while the instruments impose their own sets of samples (sounds) on the prescribed midi track (in fact, this is a software synthesizer).
A huge number of VST plug-ins and tools for every taste can be found on torrents.
They are connected very simply:
I will give an example of the form of several different VST instruments:
First of all, I would like to talk about the most important, from my point of view, musical technology, which directly or indirectly forms the basis of most musical compositions, regardless of style or direction. This, without exaggeration, is the most frequently used and convenient technology, but first things first.
What is a midi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and why is it so wonderful? Midi is a musical protocol for transmitting and recording data. If it says simpler, this is a technology that records at each moment of time a NOTE played, its VOLUME (velocity) and DURATION (in fact, there are a number of parameters, but at this stage they are not important). That is, it is some control signal that tells you what kind of note and how loud it is necessary to play.
Why is it so good? Firstly, it is a very convenient way to record (note-taking :)) parties. Secondly, the received signal can be processed as you like: put any sound or sample on it. Thus, we can simulate any instrument, everything depends only on the quality of the sample that will play this or that note.
The simplest example of using midi technology is monaural and polyphonic mobile phones. Melodies in them are recorded by notes and loudness, and any selected instrument plays them (in monophonic telephones the instrument (sample) is one: “piiiiii”, there can be many of them in polyphonic). What you hear in the columns when you run the midi file (*. Mid) on a computer is Microsoft’s standard General Midi Bank and many believe that the midi ends there (sometimes the notion of “midish sound” is found means artificial, plastic and unnatural). However, a correctly “typed” part in midi (with realistic dynamics — loudness of notes, such as they would be when playing this instrument) and good samples (which often take more than a dozen gigabytes) can give a result that is little or no different from well recorded live instrument. This makes it possible, in the absence of a real piano / violin / saxophone, to get a very similar, and often better sound, than it could have been recorded in conditions of limited material possibilities (not on a super-duper studio).
It is worth noting that some instruments (such as a guitar, some wind instruments) are almost impossible to make them sound realistic, since their sound is too rich in the “nuances” of the game and complex timbres.
It’s impossible not to say that the majority of synthesizers also work using Midi technology or similar to it, reading the note and the force of pressing the key and generating the necessary sound for this note.
This is what a midi party looks like:
Yellow - The so-called PianoRoll - shows which note is played
Blue - Actually the notes themselves, their duration and volume (more red - louder)
Red - Volume of notes, each note with its own “column” of velocity
Green - Control Panel in the editor
The drum part is also recorded using midi technology, where each note corresponds to a beat on one of the drums / cymbals.
The midi batch shown above using different instruments:
Acoustic piano: dump.ru/file/4946866
Bells: dump.ru/file/4946869
Rock organ: dump.ru/file/4946874
The above bass midi drum set is shown separately and in mix:
In the mix: dump.ru/file/4946883
Separately: dump.ru/file/4946877
Recording any song consists of 3 main stages: accumulation, mixing and mastering.
-The accumulation is the actual recording of all the instruments (if they are “live”, then the recording, if it is midi, then the prescription of the party, the selection of samples). Very often, the sound of the instrument during the accumulation and the sound that is produced in the finished song are very different from each other due to subsequent processing, but many sound engineers believe that the accumulation process is the most important and that it is necessary to achieve the necessary timbres of sound of each instrument.
- Mixing is the mixing of all received tracks, fitting balances of loudness and frequencies (equalization). This is truly the most creative and demanding stage, because it is at this stage that the sound of the whole composition is born, the general sound and the concept of the song are plastered. At this stage, it is necessary to “make friends” a guitar with a bass, a bass with drums and track that everything is audible and “climbs” and does not “hide”.
-Mastering is the final stage at which the already mixed track is processed. The main goal of this stage is to make the resulting track sound equally well on any equipment - from professional to sven for 25 hryvnias. However, often at this stage the track is given a more “compressed” or, on the contrary, more “airy” sound. There are many options for mastering - starting from expensive “masterful studios” and individual master engineers, ending with simple software processing of the received track. I use a special vst plugin - Izotope Ozone 4, which is connected as an effect to the so-called master bus (the bus is the channel through which the audio stream goes: there may be a bass guitar bus, guitars, vocals, etc; - this is a common bus, through which the sound stream of the whole mixed signal goes) - then the necessary preset is selected and the settings are selected. This is quite convenient, since it can always be turned on / off to control whether some instrument disappears in the mix after mastering, and for this you do not need to export the track and tinker to some other program:
It is competent mastering that gives the track “firmness” and high-quality sound.
Example mix without mastering: dump.ru/file/4946886
Mastering mix example: dump.ru/file/4946950
I hope you were interested!
Rock music is the music of life for very, very many, this is music that bears in itself the strongest energy: from gloomy and dark, to pathetic sublime, and everyone can find in it something for themselves. The subtle beauty of rock ballads and the incredible drive of the "action films" has been blowing the mind off a huge number of people for about 50 years. But we will not delve into history, we will not try to prove who was the first rocker after all: the Beatles or the Black Sabbath - let's leave it to musicologists. Also, we will not try to distinguish it between styles, saying “this is pop pop, and this is tru”, because, in my opinion, MUSIC cannot be enclosed in any kind of framework. The purpose of this article is somewhat different - I want to try to shed light on what rock music is from the inside. The fact that for most of the eyes is hidden, and that which excites many people: “how did he do it?”, “What is it sticking out?” Is what separates the listener and the musician. I want to try to shed light on those things on which rock music is mostly based: instruments, game techniques, the technological side of the issue, but I want to make it as simple and clear as possible. This is exactly what I lacked in my time and, I hope, will become interesting and entertaining for you. I will also try to make a small excursion into the art of recording and how to make ROCK at home :).
I will ask you in advance to forgive me for some engagement, bias and lack of education on some issues - I'm just an amateur, not a professional, but this is music is an art for which there will always be at least 2 different points of view.
Licensed software
A few words need to be said about the software that is used for sound recordings and will be needed to create a song.
First of all, it is the host program — the main editor in which all the work (recording / editing / creating) takes place on audio and midi tracks. Usually they have a huge number of features, various twirls, flexible settings and other crap. In addition, they cost a lot of money (some of them cost up to 4-5 thousand evergreens), which makes up a considerable share of the cost of all the equipment in a professional (legal) studio. But, not forgetting where we live - it doesn’t really concern us :). Of the most common and professional hosts, you can highlight Nuendo, Cubase, Ableton Live, Logic (for Mac), Sonar. Of the more amateur and "friendly" - Fruity Loops. Personally, I prefer the Nuendo, as it is very ergonomic, comfortable and has a fairly solid base of embedded tools.
The working window in Nuendo looks like this:
')
Red - audio track list
Blue - list of midi tracks
Yellow - Midi Party
Green - batch audio
We also need the so-called VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugins and instruments (VSTi).
VST - These are separate programs that connect to the host. Plug-ins process the sound (separate audio tracks, groups of tracks or the entire track together — essentially this is the effect), while the instruments impose their own sets of samples (sounds) on the prescribed midi track (in fact, this is a software synthesizer).
A huge number of VST plug-ins and tools for every taste can be found on torrents.
They are connected very simply:
Tool
Effect
I will give an example of the form of several different VST instruments:
Miroslav Philarmonik (symphony orchestra)
Addictive Drums (acoustic drums)
MS-20 (analog synthesizer emulator from Korg)
Midi - salvation for the musician
First of all, I would like to talk about the most important, from my point of view, musical technology, which directly or indirectly forms the basis of most musical compositions, regardless of style or direction. This, without exaggeration, is the most frequently used and convenient technology, but first things first.
What is a midi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and why is it so wonderful? Midi is a musical protocol for transmitting and recording data. If it says simpler, this is a technology that records at each moment of time a NOTE played, its VOLUME (velocity) and DURATION (in fact, there are a number of parameters, but at this stage they are not important). That is, it is some control signal that tells you what kind of note and how loud it is necessary to play.
Why is it so good? Firstly, it is a very convenient way to record (note-taking :)) parties. Secondly, the received signal can be processed as you like: put any sound or sample on it. Thus, we can simulate any instrument, everything depends only on the quality of the sample that will play this or that note.
The simplest example of using midi technology is monaural and polyphonic mobile phones. Melodies in them are recorded by notes and loudness, and any selected instrument plays them (in monophonic telephones the instrument (sample) is one: “piiiiii”, there can be many of them in polyphonic). What you hear in the columns when you run the midi file (*. Mid) on a computer is Microsoft’s standard General Midi Bank and many believe that the midi ends there (sometimes the notion of “midish sound” is found means artificial, plastic and unnatural). However, a correctly “typed” part in midi (with realistic dynamics — loudness of notes, such as they would be when playing this instrument) and good samples (which often take more than a dozen gigabytes) can give a result that is little or no different from well recorded live instrument. This makes it possible, in the absence of a real piano / violin / saxophone, to get a very similar, and often better sound, than it could have been recorded in conditions of limited material possibilities (not on a super-duper studio).
It is worth noting that some instruments (such as a guitar, some wind instruments) are almost impossible to make them sound realistic, since their sound is too rich in the “nuances” of the game and complex timbres.
It’s impossible not to say that the majority of synthesizers also work using Midi technology or similar to it, reading the note and the force of pressing the key and generating the necessary sound for this note.
This is what a midi party looks like:
Yellow - The so-called PianoRoll - shows which note is played
Blue - Actually the notes themselves, their duration and volume (more red - louder)
Red - Volume of notes, each note with its own “column” of velocity
Green - Control Panel in the editor
The drum part is also recorded using midi technology, where each note corresponds to a beat on one of the drums / cymbals.
The midi batch shown above using different instruments:
Acoustic piano: dump.ru/file/4946866
Bells: dump.ru/file/4946869
Rock organ: dump.ru/file/4946874
The above bass midi drum set is shown separately and in mix:
In the mix: dump.ru/file/4946883
Separately: dump.ru/file/4946877
Stages of creation
Recording any song consists of 3 main stages: accumulation, mixing and mastering.
-The accumulation is the actual recording of all the instruments (if they are “live”, then the recording, if it is midi, then the prescription of the party, the selection of samples). Very often, the sound of the instrument during the accumulation and the sound that is produced in the finished song are very different from each other due to subsequent processing, but many sound engineers believe that the accumulation process is the most important and that it is necessary to achieve the necessary timbres of sound of each instrument.
- Mixing is the mixing of all received tracks, fitting balances of loudness and frequencies (equalization). This is truly the most creative and demanding stage, because it is at this stage that the sound of the whole composition is born, the general sound and the concept of the song are plastered. At this stage, it is necessary to “make friends” a guitar with a bass, a bass with drums and track that everything is audible and “climbs” and does not “hide”.
-Mastering is the final stage at which the already mixed track is processed. The main goal of this stage is to make the resulting track sound equally well on any equipment - from professional to sven for 25 hryvnias. However, often at this stage the track is given a more “compressed” or, on the contrary, more “airy” sound. There are many options for mastering - starting from expensive “masterful studios” and individual master engineers, ending with simple software processing of the received track. I use a special vst plugin - Izotope Ozone 4, which is connected as an effect to the so-called master bus (the bus is the channel through which the audio stream goes: there may be a bass guitar bus, guitars, vocals, etc; - this is a common bus, through which the sound stream of the whole mixed signal goes) - then the necessary preset is selected and the settings are selected. This is quite convenient, since it can always be turned on / off to control whether some instrument disappears in the mix after mastering, and for this you do not need to export the track and tinker to some other program:
VST Izotope Ozone4 connection:
VST Izotope Ozone4 menu:
It is competent mastering that gives the track “firmness” and high-quality sound.
Example mix without mastering: dump.ru/file/4946886
Mastering mix example: dump.ru/file/4946950
I hope you were interested!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/109817/
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