Subject:audio reference books

Posted by: joejon

Date:1/21/2004 2:55:36 PM

Someone had posted a question about the Sound Forge Power book, but the response was merely 'yes, I have the book' and they liked it. The person posting the question said he is a hobbyist, (like me, with very limited knowledge). I bought a book called 'The Desktop Studio". I returned it because it gave definitions, but nothing really to get me going. I know everyone likes to do things a little differently, but as a beginner, it would be nice to have somewhere to start. Things like, what effects are better with certain instruments, what order to apply effects, how to adjust the various sliders and settings to achieve different results and what is typical. I have the 'Vegas 4 Workshop' book, but there is not much on audio. I read the Sound Forge and Noise Reduction manuals. Does the 'Sound Forge Power' book cover in more detail about the various controls than the manual, and how to actually work with your audio to get the best possible results? There are many audio books on the market. Maybe there's another book someone could recommend. I see that there is a book coming out called 'Digital Audio Explained' that looks interesting. Any input is appreciated.

Subject:RE: audio reference books

Reply by: Big_Faced_Boy

Date:1/21/2004 3:51:13 PM

The best advice I can give is to trust your ears and work on as good a quality sound system as you can afford, and make sure it's set up right!

As for what effects work well with what instruments, reverb works well with most things, (I refer to Sony Reverb, but parameters are generally the same) "pre-delay" is the length of time before the reverb starts to sound, "decay" is the time it takes to fade, "early" I generally turn off unless it sounds good. It's generally best to keep your reverb in the midrange (>500Hz and <5kHz), so attenuate high end frequencies (of >2.5-5kHz) to relieve that fizzing, and low end (at around 250-500Hz) to prevent huge unnecessary sub booming that you won't hear without a subwoofer, and if you do, it'll probably be crowding your sound out.

It's hard to say what works with what, it's a matter of trying and seeing. You can always cancel/undo anything that sounds bad.

Chorus is easy enough to work out. Suffice to say that it detunes the sample slightly and mixes it with the original to fatten the sound. Think of ABBA piano (good honky-tonk fatness) and horrid 80's jangly guitars... not to say that chorus is always bad on guitars, they just overdid it somewhat in the 80's. The Phase parameter, where applicable, adjusts the stereo position of the detuned signal.

Wah sounds great on guitars and clavs. Try putting reverb on before wah in your effect chain to give it something to chew on.

Phase essentially plays the sample back twice at the same time. Feedback will provide more audible action. To see what it's actually doing, try playing back a sample twice simultaneously (do this in ACID by loading the same sample twice and drawing it in over itself), or do it in Sound Forge by copying a sample and pasting it over itself using ctrl+m (paste special>mix). You can do mad things with phase. If you copy a sample in Sound Forge, press ctrl+e (paste to new window) then Tools>invert/Flip (inverts phase, or turns + to - and vice versa, then copy this and paste it back onto the original, one will cancel the other, and you'll get silence. Nada. Zip. This is called phase cancellation. Try reducing the volume of the inverted sample (Process>Volume) and see what happens now. Now think about the effect of moving the stereo position of the inverted sample, and you'll be thinking about advanced phasing!

Delay simply repeats whatever is fed into it. Just play and you'll work it out. Sounds great on all sorts. Lots of feedback (long decay)=big long mash! Try Blue Line plugins (free) stereo delay. This has a fantastic tempo-sync feature.

Filters work in three main ways:
1. Low Pass will only allow frequencies below the cutoff point to sound.
2. Band Pass will only allow frequencies within a certain range (typically 11.5%) to either side of cutoff point to sound.
3. Hi Pass will only allow frequencies above the cutoff point to sound.
Resonance is essentially a gain (volume) boost at the cutoff point. Filters work well when automated in ACID.

Not sure what else I can say! I feel like I've just poured my heart out to you!

BFB

Subject:RE: audio reference books

Reply by: MyST

Date:1/21/2004 5:41:23 PM

Joejon, I'm the one who was asking about the Power book.
I did get it afterall.
As a hobbyist, SF 6.0 is about as powerful a tool as I'll ever need, so I'll probably keep using it long after others are discussing SF 9.0. When I need guidance with it down the road, I want a reference book that deals specifically with this software.
I got it now because it won't be available soon (SF 7.0 is out...the software, not the book). It's already scarce.
If you're like me, I think it's definitely a good idea to get it. It addresses almost everything available in the software. There's only so much detail Scott can go into, but I think it makes for a good reference book.
As far as how to use what to get a certain effect and so on, check out the very inexpensive Paul White mini books available from Amazon.
I've got Basic Effects and Processors, and I have Basic Mixing Techniques. Also avaliable is Basic Mastering. Do a search for Paul White at Amazon.

M

Subject:RE: audio reference books

Reply by: CRNA59

Date:1/21/2004 9:34:55 PM

I have SF 7.0a and just got the book SF 6 Power. Scott did a great job on this. I'm waiting for SF 7 Power!! WHERE IS IT??
As a precurser, I purchased/read Home Recording Power. It does explain some of the fundamentals on what effects to use and what they do.

Regards,
Bruce

Subject:RE: audio reference books

Reply by: joejon

Date:1/22/2004 1:42:06 PM

MyST, I looked at the Paul White books. They were written 4 years ago. Do you think the information in them is up-to-date enough for today's technology?

Subject:RE: audio reference books

Reply by: keether

Date:1/22/2004 1:58:29 PM

Did you see the first reader review of the Paul White books on Amazon.com? He/she really panned it: "This book could be condensed into a couple of concise paragraphs." Others didn't have such a low opinion of them. I myself like Sound Forge 6 Power.

What I advise you to do, joejon, is take a short track that you know fairly well and run it through the works. Run Noise Reduction on it with a couple of different settings, first one, then the other, and write down the settings so you can repeat them later. Only change one thing at a time. Listen to your track after NR and also listen to the "noise" you removed. When you hear music in this removed sound, then you know you may have removed too much from the track you are trying to improve. Use different plug-ins. I like to use Crackle Removal on tracks obtained from old vinyl records. Then there's Clipped peak restoration. When you run a process over and over, you get familiar with the steps to take, and your ear becomes more attuned to differences between before and after.

One reason why people haven't responded to your original post with exact numbers, is that there are far too many variables. I "remastered" Handel's Messiah from vinyl because somebody loved a 1957 production of it. That would not be handled the same as some popular music digitally recorded in our time.

So yes, I would recommend Sound Forge 6 Power, definitely.

Good luck.

Subject:RE: audio reference books

Reply by: MyST

Date:1/22/2004 7:12:42 PM

My suggestion is if you're going to get the Power book from Amazon, add one of the Paul White books to see what you think about it?
Alot of the software effects has it's roots in hardware effects processors, no? If Paul says that using the EQ in a certain way will help remove hiss/ sibilance from a recording, it's still applicable today with software.
Even the mixing book is useful for software like Acid, using only loops. Aren't you going to want to mix those drum loops/guitar loops/keyboard loops/vocals loops... you get the idea.
There's always someone at each end of the spectrum as far as reviews go. I once read that ANYTHING from Paul White was worth buying, and especially at that price.
All I can say is that reading his inexpensive books, I've learned quite a few things. But then again, that's different for everyone, isn't it. I think at $10, you could do alot worse (like a magazine with 60% advertising).

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