I’ve done a lot of jobs in this studio of mine, but few make me beam like the CD project I did with Rick Andrews.  Rick’s really put his heart into his music, and keeps up the good fight trying to get exposure and have success.  His guitar speaks a different language that’s really unique to him.

It was a great project to work on, very unique with lots of energy in every song.  Rick was very exacting and opinionated about how everything should be in the mix.  He couldn’t always explain it, but rather he felt it.  He knew when it was just the way it was supposed to be, and I moved things around until they fit his vision.  By the way, that’s the way it’s supposed to work!

On one tune he had called “Waited So Long” he expressed some frustration with.  It wasn’t a “that guitar should be on the left” kind of thing, rather Rick thinks visually about the songs.  He explained the movie he had in his head to me in great detail, and said “the song needs to sound like that!”  I knew what he meant, it needed something extra to communicate that vision…so I pulled that one out of RiffWorks into a DAW and found him a bassline that did the talking (of course Rick did the rest of the talking!).  Thanks for the kudos on that one man!

Today, I logged into Facebook, and saw a couple things about him.  First, today is his birthday.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRO! The second was arguably at least as cool, a video of Melodic Revolution Records artists, including Rick!  You can view the video here, he’s shown about half the way through.  Rick also has a track up on their main page, scroll down to #22 and give a listen to “The Sea and the Lighthouse”.  Awesome stuff

Rick is a great example of keeping true to yourself, keeping your head down and pressing forward.  Some day I’m going to get a phone call asking me what it was like to work with him “way back when” and I’ll be happy to oblige.  You can be part of the story today…check him out and get a download of of his debut CD here.  Support Indie music, and keep it real!!!

With the recent group buy on SampleTank XT packs, I’m guessing by the questions I’ve seen some of you jumped on that deal (or are considering the new group buy they have going on) but have never really messed with virtual instruments or DAW programs.

I threw together a short video to give an you an idea of how these things work together, and (in theory) how ReWire would let you use SampleTank through Reaper and into RiffWorks.  I say in theory because the RiffWorks and Reaper are not talking properly with ReWire.  It’s too bad and hopefully some day it will get sorted out!

This video is available in HD, so hit the full screen button!

Sonoma Wire Works has had FourTrack out for a while, but I’m just getting around to iPhoning myself so I’ll give a review of it!  First off, FourTrack is a four-track.  What the heck is a four-track?  Let’s look at some brief history.

Back in “the day” (as in way back in the early 1960′s and before), recording was a little bit different than today.  Good studios had things like record-cutting lathes, driven by a falling weight.  Gravity was much better at keeping time than motors of the day.  In these olden times, you didn’t mix tracks, you mixed people.  You moved the people around to balance the sound into the mic.  I guess if you told them to move closer in certain sections, they were the original automated faders!  They played live, it cut the wax, and if the take was good it was done.

I’ll skip the Les Paul part (you should read up on the man, we wouldn’t be here in recording without him), but the jist is it was figured out how to record more than 1 track at a time, with tape.  It cost a bunch of money, but it was doable so over time studios with a bunch of money started putting them in.  Let’s keep the cliff notes version going…in 1967 the Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s” which was recorded on…a four track.

Now let’s be honest with ourselves.  Abbey Road Studios has unique acoustics, and the very best equipment money can buy.  A large selection of the best mic’s, preamps, compressors etc. were at their disposal.  But all crammed down into 4 tracks of tape.  So while the iPhone mic is not exactly a Neumann, for $10 you’re at least mixing and making decisions like the Beatles!  Even better, you don’t have to limit yourself to 4 tracks at the end of the day.

The final piece of history is mine.  In the late 80s we borrowed a 4 track to record our band demo.  We couldn’t afford one, but it was the holy grail at the time for a band.  And we had what turned out to be a hell of an engineer make our tracks sing!  In 1992 I finally saved up enough for my own 4 track.  I also had a MIDI interface and a Roland D-110 to trigger drums off SMPTE code striped on the 4 track.  That plus the computer, was probably around $3K.  Ten bucks, plus being able to use Instant Drummers in RiffWorks would have been simply too hard to comprehend even in 1992!

My usual long and boring preamble being done, let’s look at FourTrack.  First, even though it’s from Sonoma Wire Works (makers of RiffWorks), there are no riffs or bars here.  It’s a linear recording program, just like a 4 track.  The program allows 1 mono track at a time to be recorded, while the other 3 play back.  You can pick a spot in the middle of a song to record on a track (a la punch in) with the time wheel (or whatever it’s called).  Each of the four tracks can be mixed and panned independently.  Just like a 4 track.

Some things to note:

- There is no input level control.  You need to mix like in the old days (move the sound source instead of the fader).  It’s not a big deal, just keep it from going over +0db.  One of the promo vids shows a drummer playing with some version of Hot Sticks to keep the volume down, and putting the iPhone behind pillows.  It worked fine.  Be creative!

- There are no effects in the program.  If we were stuck forever with the iPhone version, that might not make some folks too happy, especially since we’re recording on a little iPhone mic.  I’ll talk both why this is not a big deal, and what you can do if you really want to be crazy and actually record songs intended to be final versions on this thing!

- There is no foldback or monitoring.  In English, you can’t hear what you are recording through the headphones.  We’re all used to this, but it’s not the end of the world.  You can hear what’s playing, just slide the headphones off a bit if you can’t hear what you are recording.  This didn’t turn out to be a big deal.

- It’s been a long time since I used a 4 track recorder.  If this is all you are going to use, there’s things you need to think about before you do them vs. a DAW or RiffWorks.  Like the order you record tracks, which ones get bounced and which you’ll want to be separate at final mix time (like the vocals).  Fortunately you don’t have to think too hard about this if you use a computer to mix in the end.  I’ll explain more!

A real example

Like most dudes I learn best by messing around with something.  So I jumped right in to try and write something quick on the fly and record it.  For me, RiffWorks is the best songwriting tool on the planet.  FourTrack to me is the best “I’m in the car and have this idea” songwriting tool on the planet.  And you can take your stuff right into RiffWorks or any other DAW.  Best of both worlds! (Van Halen, not Hannah Montana lol)

First thing, you want to force quit Safari.  Things got stuck after goofing around just a bit, so I headed over to Sonoma’s site to see what was what.  There’s a lot competing for memory in an iPhone, and at Sonoma’s suggestion,  I force-quit Safari and had no hiccups after that.  Then it’s a matter of arming a track, sliding to record, and recording!

I talked about the old days of SMPTE and outboard MIDI to have a computerized drum or metronome to play to.  FourTrack includes several metronome options, including 3 actual drummers.  You can set the BPM on the metronome.  This is important if you are going to add Instant Drummers or other MIDI drums later.  Since you can’t export the metronome drummer, you’re gonna want to.  So think out the tempo of your song and record to it.

The simplicity of the whole thing made it go very quickly.  Sure I had my usual vast quantity of redoing tracks, but it was no slower than RiffWorks or a DAW.  With the ability to re-record or punch in a section, I was able to think up the lyrics a line at a time without having to redo them all.  I recorded 2 guitar tracks, a bass and a vocal in no time…while writing my short masterpiece in real time.  You are not worrying about effects or inputs (other than keeping the level within reason), so you’re focused on only one thing – playing.

So, with 4 tracks all used up, it was time to “bounce”.  For you young folk, bouncing goes like this.  You mix the tracks you have the best you can, and “record” the mix to 2 tracks for stereo, freeing 2 more tracks up.  For you older folks, yes I know we used to bounce 2 or 3 tracks to one mono one…how did we ever survive? lol  You can bounce to the current song, or to a copy.  I chose to bounce to a copy, i.e. a new song file keeping the original intact.  I like to be safe!

4 track thinking…or not!

With 2 free tracks, I decided to record a backing vocal and a solo.  Once these were complete, it was mix time.   At this point I discovered a problem.  I’ve long since forgotten my 4 track ways in favor of seemingly unlimited tracks in the computer.  My vocals were uneven, but were bounced.  No way to change any levels or re-record now!

I figured, this is just a test so not a big deal…it was time to get this tune out into the world.  To do that, it’s computer time.  I’m sure there’s somebody out there with no computer and just an iPhone (which would be odd, since you need the computer with iTunes to even activate the thing, but I digress).  For the 99.9% of the rest of us, there’s 2 ways to get the music out of the phone and into the real world.  First is through RiffWorks, either one of the paid versions or T4.  I’m a longtime user of RiffWorks Standard, so I fired it up, hit import, and it gave me the opportunity to import from the iPhone right into RiffWorks.  I picked the song file I wanted, and poof there were 4 tracks now in my SongLayer, still with their panning info.  Cool!

Now that each track was a RiffWorks layer, I could have added compression, eq or whatever to each one.  I chose not to, so I could show what the raw FourTrack song sounded like.  I did add one thing, which was drums.  The metronome drummer is very cool, but doesn’t come along for the ride.  If you have Instant Drummers in RiffWorks, you’re gonna get much better tracks anyway with the variation and intensity.  ”Uh Gator, there’s no drummers for the SongLayer.”  Yeah I know, but if you recorded to a metronome or metronome drummer, you know the BPM.  Simply make some new Riffs at that BPM, pick the drummer settings you want, and throw them up in the song bar for as long as the song is.  Think of the regular riffs now as your drum track.  Mix and match however you want.  Done.

Here’s the raw output of the recordings from the iPhone, on the iPhone’s mic, with Drummerheads “Four On The Floor” direct from RiffWorks.

http://iKeelin.com/music/FourTrack-test-mix.mp3

Abbey Road quality?  Nah.  Does it get the point across?  Sure does!  I’m a big proponent of writing first, then recording.  In other words, get the song worked out first, then focus hard on recording each track.  When they are the best they can be, then set about to working on the mix, the effects etc.  When that’s the best it can be, then worry about mastering.  FourTrack fits right in for me in that respect.

But, not being exactly content, the next night I went back at it.  When syncing to the computer, it gives you an http address for the phone with a specific port, or tells you you can import directly into RiffWorks.  The first time I went right into RiffWorks, so this time I thought I’d check out what happens when I point a web browser at it.  A nice interface came up, complete with both the original and the copied/bounced versions of the songs, and the ability to download each wav file individually.  Nice!  I grabbed the 4 original tracks I had bounced, plus the 2 new ones.  Now I had all 6 tracks!  That got me thinking, if I kept bouncing to a copy, whatever I recorded I could still get at all the original tracks when I got to the computer.  I could bounce 3 times and get 10 tracks.  Or keep going and get more.  This FourTrack is not really a 4 track, it just looks like one!

With all 6 tracks downloaded to the PC, I decided to import them into a traditional DAW program, Mackie Tracktion.  They popped in with no issue, and I grabbed some quick grooves from Toontrack’s EZ Drummer for the drum part.  Since I had all the original tracks, I did some quick work to them.  The bass was problematic, since not only was that little mic not ideal for the task, it also was affected by my room and placement.  Bass and small rooms don’t mix very well, and a mic will pick up the big differences in frequencies.  I threw some heavy compression and EQ at it, and it came in line better.  The vocals got a little eq and some compression to even them out too.  The guitars just got a little reverb thrown at one of them to make it sound a bit bigger.  A little limiting at the end, and a quick effort results in a new track.

http://iKeelin.com/music/whoisgator.mp3

Studio quality?  Maybe not quite my studio quality, but it’s better than some things I’ve worked on in the past.  Not bad though, it stands up fine.  Given no opportunity to work out mic placement, or use of our beloved direct-in boxes like a GuitarPort/TonePort/PodXT etc. here, I’d say this little experiment worked out quite well.

What can be done if you really really really want studio quality out of FourTrack?

From the input side, it appears you can use an iPOD video cable (with the other end being the red, white and yellow composite output).  On the iPhone, the yellow would tie into the mic input (instead of video output of the iPOD).  This would give you some capability for input, though whether it’s normal line level I don’t know.  With that input, you could plug in a mixer, GuitarPort, etc. to get direct and controlled access for the recording input.  A mixer would also give you some ability to monitor directly what you are recording, be they vocals in a mic or a live guitar/bass.  From the output side, you could take the red and white and plug them to a mixer or monitors, giving you a better shot at a good mix than using earbuds or headphones.  It still won’t be Abbey Road, but it should be on par with any other 16bit 44.1KHz mono recording you could do in a computer.  And that’s something Sir George Martin probably would not have been able to conceive of back then!

Overall, FourTrack is really cool.  It’s $10 which is a lot in AppStore terms, but let’s think real world.  $10 for this?  Are you freakin’ kidding me?  Everybody should have a copy.

More info at http://www.sonomawireworks.com/iphone/fourtrack/

These days I see way more advertising, way more special deals (and so-called special deals) flooding my inbox than ever before.  Businesses that have been around for a very long time going out of existence in a very short time.  Lots of “friends” always looking for a job, then disappearing when I don’t have anything to offer them.  Sad times indeed!

Fear not, the great companies will survive because they will continue to market, sell, and find creative ways to hang in there.  This commitment and creativity will set them apart when things pick up and really launch them.  The old dogs tend to get complacent and then uncertain, and the leading companies of the last boom are usually not the great ones of the next boom.  Times like these are opportunities for those who are prepared to weather them, and have the conviction to plow ahead!  Oh by the way…we plan to be one of these

Of course, it never hurts to have good friends to help.  Not the ones that call looking for something, then disappear as they try the next “friend” on their list.  I’m talking about real friends, the ones that think about you when somebody asks where to go for some help, or when there’s an opportunity…just like you would think of them in the same situation.  I consider everyone who has entrusted their art to Gator-Studios.com a friend, and the many that have referred folks to me as well.  Same goes for the good folks that pop by the forum or email me looking for guidance, those that are really looking to learn something and get better.  You put your trust in me, and I don’t intend to let you down!

And then there are those that stand out even more.  I won’t mention names but their hearts are as big as they come!  I’ve had folks drop gifts on the studio in the past, and very recently as well.  These folks thought of us and our mission to help the Riff world to be the best it can be whether just mucking around or trying to make a few bucks off CD’s or film/TV.  They understand that part of our plan is to “pay it forward” with the best tools and environment we can provide for our friends.  The quality of music coming out of Riff land is astounding these days, and we’re proud to be a part of it in whatever way we can.

In short, thanks dudes!  We have big plans for the future and fully intend to come out the other side in great shape.  This spring a bigger studio is being built, giving us an even better mixing and mastering environment plus some great options around tracking.  We plan to expand into some other studio opportunities as well.  Here at Gator-Studios.com we’re not hanging on for dear life, we’re plowing ahead into the future.  Come join us!

Hey all, I had shut off anonymous comments because the spambots had found me.  I opened it back up a couple weeks ago and it appears they’ve moved on (whew!).  I’ll try to keep it open, if they come back maybe I can find a CAPTCHA or something to keep things clean.  Also, if you’re into RSS Feeds, you can subscribe to the GatorBlog as well, just grab the feed down on the left where it says “Feeds RSS” or from this link.  I try to address mainly recording topics, though I do get distracted by life on occasion!

Speaking of recording topics, I have a couple RiffWorks tutorials on the website that have been viewed thousands of times (I hope by real people instead of spambots lol).  You can check them out at http://audio.gator-studios.com/ if you’re interested.

If you’ve used these, I’d like to know if you’ve found them useful for getting better results from RiffWorks?

Cheers, J.J.

Welcome to the official Gator-Studios.com Riffworks 32-bit blog!

Okay here’s the breakdown on the new release!  2 big big improvements to Riffworks with this one:

- 32 bit option for both recording and exporting

- a way better master limiter compressor

32 bit on input - I explained a lot of of this on the GatorForum here, but a quick summary is in order.  Capturing your input up to 32 bit (most interfaces will do 24) will capture your input audio more faithfully to the analog source.  On it’s own, it’s a subtle difference, though many people can tell.  When it’s all added up in a mix, that extra resolution keeps things clean instead of things starting to get muddy.

32 bit on export – Riffworks has always used a 32 bit mix engine, but previously exported at 16 bit only for wav files.  That’s great if you go straight to a CD with the WAV, but most folks want to master it first.  Ever notice that things sounded better in RiffWorks than with the exported WAV?  That was the difference between 16 and 32 bit.  You want all that resolution until you’re forced to drop it to 16 bit, after mastering.  That gives the best result, and is how everybody else does it.   FYI 32 bit export won’t make any difference on mix-to-ogg or uploading to RiffWorld, but recording in 32 bit should give a little improvement to the overall mixdown.  If your computer can swing it, do it!

Guess what…those old songs you did back when we only had 16 bit on input?  They’ll sound better with 32 bit export too, and are worth remastering.  Again I explained this in the GatorForum post above, it’s all about the math.  A bunch of 16 bit files sound better when there’s 32 bits of math in which to mix them together, the errors are less and the sound is better.  And for you mathematically challenged, it’s not double the resolution, it’s the difference between 65K and 4.2B slots for the sound to be represented.  HUGE!

Exporting at 16 bit before mastering took a little off of things, though I would say we’ve gotten great quality results even with that limitation.  Check out the studio MySpace page, see what you think…it’s not the medium so much as the dude working the medium!  Think back to stuff you hear from the 60′s…the recording medium was a definite limitation on the sound, but the performances, signal chain etc. were carefully done.  Those people would have gone nuts for 24 tracks of 16 bit digital.  I say it too many times, but will keep saying it…it’s what goes in that counts the most!  For all the tutorials, overviews and guidance on engineering, I think pounding this point has been my biggest contribution to the RiffWorks community

New master limiter / compressor – Most of you guys will go bonkers over this one…Dug and crew have finally re-coded the master limiter / compressor so your tracks can top out at +0db (or real close) just like “real” music!  They also did a great job changing the algorithm, knocking out most of the pumping and breathing, especially compared to how it was in the Golden Age of Riffworks.  Soon over pumping songs will become a RiffWorld memory (we’ll associate it with RiffCaster…do they still use that term?).  The compressor algorithm has also been redone on the effect Compressor – hopefully people will learn to use the compressor as a compressor, instead of because when you turn it on it raised the volume!

I’ve played with this in beta and it does a far better job than the old one.  You can crank it full to the end for ultimate RiffWorks loudness, and I know some of you will do just that!  Do me a favor…don’t do that.  I would recommend being reasonable with it.  Having it bounce in and out of the red usually gives a decent sound.  Having it pegged in the red just sounds like louder crap.  This is a great addition for posting direct to RiffWorld, though I haven’t tried it to see if the new tracks are louder than the old or if they do something to limit it on the server.

One big note:  You folks with older computers, 32-bit is going to chew up more processor, memory and hard drive.  Try it, but if you start having pops and crackles (okay for breakfast, not so good for mixing), you’ll have to hang with the 16 bit option.

 All these enhancements are great, but won’t change your ability to get a good mix or master though.  The toolbox got better but it won’t make you hear things more accurately or apply the effects at the right time.  For people that know what they are doing and equipped to do it, the results will be that much better.  For those that don’t, the results will hopefully be less painful.  There’s something for everyone this holiday season!

These new goodies really help bring RiffWorks along as a songwriting and recording tool.  I used to export tracks individually out of RiffWorks to take advantage of a higher bit-depth mix engine, and now that’s taken care of inside.  I finally took to doing all my recording in a DAW to take advantage of the higher bit-depth, because at the end of the mix that extra headroom really adds up and keeps the air in things and the mud out.  I will have to relook at my workflow to see if it makes more sense now to do some of the recording inside RiffWorks again, now that there’s no penalty.  It’s still the best songwriting software out there for me!

Well, I guess that puts me out of business, eh?  Sure.  For casual tracks, knock yourself out!  This is a great improvement that will make a lot of folks happy.  If you are mastering yourself, still run your 32 bit exported copy without hitting the red light at all, keep the limiter out of the equation until mastering.  You have lots of headroom now, take advantage of it!  FWIW I did take 5 minutes to run a couple exports out of RiffWorks, one without hitting the red light, and one cranked full.  Then I took a quick shot at mastering the low one, and it was pretty easy to make it both louder and better sounding by properly mastering it without much effort.  This new capability does not replace mastering, it gets you more of what you expect out of RiffWorks. 

So…for messing around, posting songs, getting feedback and having fun recording, this is all you need.  For those serious projects, “best song in the world” songs, “that CD I always wanted to record”, and those you plan to sell at your gigs and on iTunes/Amazon/(or even Gator’s General Store ) get it mixed and mastered properly…if not here than somewhere.  You owe it to yourself to have the proper expertise, environment, “fresh ears” and impartial perspective to add the needed touch in the engineering phase.  Look at what you’ve already spent to this point on guitars, interfaces, computers, software…and the time you’ve put into carefully writing and recording.  Consider the time you spent on your last track trying to get the mix right…you probably could have recorded another song or two with that time.  Is it really that much to get the final steps done properly?

We’ve worked hard over the last 3 years to banish the phrase “sounds pretty good considering it was done in RiffWorks” from the world.  It used to be a common theme, but I think we got past that some time ago.  We’ve been helping folks understand how to take great care on their end with recording, and showing that RiffWorks is plenty capable of producing great results.  For all the CD’s that have been printed and sold around the world, tunes on iTunes, songs that been forwarded at places like Taxi for commercial placement…they’ve all held their own with the “big” boys.  Heck, even the projects we’ve engineered that required major surgery came out sounding okay.

Some people think we’re crazy to primarily focus on RiffWorks users, but it’s a great ecosystem we are proud to be a part of.  It’s not just about crunching tracks and spitting out a mix, it’s about helping you get the best result you’re looking for and showing you how to do it.  It’s why we do all the mixing inside of RiffWorks and give the RWS file back, so you can see how it was done.  It’s why we take the time to try different things in the mix, to let you see if you might like something better you hadn’t thought of.  It’s why in the end you get back what you want to hear, not what some engineer tells you that you want to hear. 

It’s a lot harder to do things this way, but we’re on a bigger mission than just being another studio on the ‘net.  RiffWorks is a creative outlet for so many (including me!), and lets just about anyone write and record to their heart’s content.  That simplicity will enable the next generation of great music, which might otherwise never have happened.  To the world, it will come out of nowhere, just another “instant” success but we’ll all know better.  It doesn’t take a Todd Rundgren to validate what you are doing with RiffWorks, it takes you!  Will you write the next “best song in the world” with RiffWorks?  We’ll be looking forward to it.