Perhaps nothing makes a mix more interesting than a wide stereo field.However, having instruments panned to the left or right not only makes a mix more aesthetically appealing, but it also helps to create a more stable, balanced mix.
Before I start preaching the benefits of extreme panning, let me first provide a disclaimer.Mono does have its place, particularly when mixing for telephone (such as on hold messaging and music), checking mixes intended for television (many older sets are mono), and checking for phase problems.Therefore, never discount checking your mixes in mono before you print a final mix.
Separation
In a previous post, I discussed eliminating competition between instruments in a live mix by using EQ. Since many live mixes are mono, I didn’t mention panning.If your mix is stereo, though, the first step to creating separation and eliminating competition between instruments is to reach for the pan knob.When two instruments are similar in range or timbre, it’s usually a good idea to pan them opposite from one other. This technique works particularly well if you’re having difficulty distinguishing between two instruments or between what each instrument is playing.The results are instantly noticeable.
Width
Many engineers neglect extreme panning, opting for a more narrow sounding mix.However, panning some instruments “hard left” and others “hard right” and others in between can really open up a mix, creating a fuller sound.While it creates a greater sense of balance within a mix, it also creates a greater sense of width.Extreme panning can also create a “larger-than-life” type of sound.
Aesthetics
To take the concept one step further, if you have an instrument or part that is doubled, try panning one hard left and the other hard right.This technique is often used with doubled rock guitars to create a massively wide guitar sound.
Example
Here’s an example of a typical rock band:acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboard, bass, and drums.Try a wide mix with these.Typically, we would keep the bass in the center.Our drums would be panned to either audience perspective or drummer perspective.With a typical right-handed drummer in drummer perspective would be Kick in center, Snare in center (or slightly to the left), Rack Tom at 9 o’clock, Mid Tom at center, Floor tom at 3 o’clock, and stereo overheads.To create even wider drums, pan the toms even wider than 3 o’clock an 9 o’clock, bordering on hard left and right.Now place the electric guitar and keyboard opposite from each other at hard left and right.This leaves room for the acoustic in the center.Another trick is to pan the reverb of a panned instrument to the opposite side of the stereo field.For instance, if you pan the guitar to the left, pan its reverb to the right.
These are just a few examples of the benefits and uses of extreme panning.Try it out on your mixes and see how it expands your mixing horizons.Next time we’ll talk about treating the studio mix as a live stage.
Since audio is an often overlooked business tool, Butler Productions’ Audio Marketing Solutions department exists to help small businesses implement audio in ways that can benefit both sales and awareness.There are a number of ways that audio can be used to the benefit of your business. Here are the three most common:
Jingles
When creating a marketing campaign, awareness is the first hurdle to overcome.Obviously, potential customers must know about you before they come to you.Using a jingle is an excellent way to help achieve awareness.A jingle is simply a short, catchy song which provides information about your business or product.However, it doesn’t stop there.A jingle, in whole or in part, can be included into radio, television, and internet advertising (YouTube videos, your company website, etc.), so it’s a very versatile tool.Some jingles can stand alone as a commercial, while others are great openers or closers.Jingles are relatively inexpensive to create and can serve your company for years to come.Learn more about getting started with jingles here.
On-Hold Messages
Converting potential customers into paying customers is the next hurdle.You’ve created a jingle that creates awareness for your company, and now phone calls are pouring in.On-Hold Messaging is the next tool, which helps keep customers on the telephone line and provide valuable information while they wait for to speak to someone.The music and messages that callers hear helps to reduce caller anxiety, reduce the number of hang-ups, and create further awareness of your products and services.All of these results help to foster more sales for your business.These can be coupled with your jingle to help reinforce your brand and image in the mind of your callers.These are also easy and inexpensive to start and maintain, and most telecom services have the ability to incorporate music/messages on hold.Learn more about getting started with on-hold messages here.
Point-of-Purchase Audio Advertising
Ok, now you’ve caught a potential customer’s attention with your jingle, and you’ve kept them interested in your business when they called with your on-hold message. Now they’ve come to your business or store location.The next hurdle is to convert browsers to buyers.Point-of-Purchase Audio Advertising is a great tool for this task.These brief messages, often interspersed within background music, can inform shoppers of new products or services, sales and specials, or any other useful information.While some contain background music, many consist of just a voiceover or announcer, so they’re quick, easy, and inexpensive to produce. Again, you can use your jingles here as well, adding even more value to your initial investment.
These are just three examples.Feel free to drop us a comment of your ideas or useful ways you’ve used audio for your business.If you’re interested in implementing audio for your business, contact Butler Productions, and we’ll be glad to help!
In a previous post, I discussed using recorded “read alouds” in the classroom to improve students’ reading comprehension. In today’s post, I’d like to share another use for audio in the classroom. This method will make your life MUCH easier and save your energy also! Think of all of the transitions that you use in your classroom on a daily basis. Your students come in the room and start working on seat work quietly. You then give instructions and they move to a different activity, maybe centers or group work. Then you need to get their attention to come back to their seats. This sounds good on paper, but it requires a lot of attention-getting by way of the teacher talking, clapping, hollerin’, etc. Imagine having students work through transitions with only the push of a button.
Musical cues are truly the way to go in a classroom. Students enter the room to a song that promotes working and calmness. As you introduce the lesson and give instructions, students hear upbeat music as they travel to their destination. As students hear another cue, upbeat but different than the first, they know to travel to the next center. Anytime they hear this cue, they travel to the next center. When students hear the next cue of a quieter song, they return to their seats. Each cue can be a different track on a CD. Most CD players now come with remote controls, so you can change to another song from anywhere in your classroom
Other than saving your voice and energy, the best part about musical cues is that you can be creative with your music choices. One of your cues could have tribal drum beats to get students eager for the upcoming unit on Africa. Your cues can sound like popular music that they are listening to currently. It only takes a few minutes to explain the cues to students and they will work for the whole year!
How do you go about making a cue CD? GarageBand is a popular music production software that comes pre-loaded on Apple computers. It is very easy to use and comes with lots of instrument loops and beats. For Windows users, Sony’s Acid Music Studio is a comparable program. Since there are legal issues with using commercial music, you can also contact local studios and have a custom CD made using royalty-free samplers. There are royalty-free music sites on the internet which offer free downloads that you can also try, but be careful as you want to be sure they are legit. Butler Productions offers a selection of royalty free music available for purchase and instant download. They also have produced a CD of transition music for the classroom.
I hope that you will try a musical cue CD in your classroom. After all, if it doesn’t work, you can go back to hollerin’!
Audio is an often overlooked tool for business, but it is also one of the most valuable. One of the easiest ways to put audio to work for your business is with an On-Hold Message Campaign. On-Hold Messaging is a way to keep customers on the telephone line while simultaneously sharing important information with them. While it’s both easy and inexpensive to set up and maintain, many businesses often don’t know where to begin. Being a producer of on-hold message programs, Butler Productions has created a podcast entitled 10 Tips to Creating a Winning On-Hold Message Campaign as a sort of beginner’s guide. You can also download the transcript to the podcast. As a teaser, here are the 10 Tips:
Know your target audience
Find the right voice
Reassure waiting callers
Avoid the “hard sell”
Provide useful information
Answer common questions
Generate interest in new or unadvertised products or services
Get creative
Vary your message
Update often
Download the podcast or transcript for the full explanation and details on each tip.
As a first-day exercise with my Introduction to Audio class, we have a brainstorming session to determine possible careers and jobs in the field of audio and music. Although the list is rather short on the first day, we continue the exercise throughout the quarter. By the end, we have a fairly exhaustive list of career and job opportunities, some that were completely foreign to the students at the start of the class. Below are the results of that activity. Hopefully it will help any of you that may be entertaining the idea of a career in audio or music but don’t know where to start.
I’m sure if you’re a musician reading this post, you have some idea of what sound is.Sound is stuff you hear, right?Well, yes.But there’s a lot more to sound.Knowing what sound is and how sound works is the key to getting a good recording.
WHAT IS SOUND?
Simply put, sound is Acoustical Energy, or vibration.More specifically, sound is vibration propagated through a medium, which is then received by our ears and interpreted by our brain as sound.The reason I say the vibrations are interpreted by our brain as sound is because acoustical energy still exists that we cannot perceive as sound (more on this later).For example, while a dog might go nuts from hearing a dog whistle, we as humans cannot interpret those vibrations as sound.Radio, cell phones, microwave ovens, and RADAR all use sound waves that we as humans just can’t hear.So, in essence, sound is really our perception of vibrations.
Sound vibrations that are propagated through the air (or any other medium for that matter) are in the form of transverse waves.Thus, you could also say that sound is really rapid fluctuations in air pressure.The vibrations from a vibrating body, such as a guitar string, push and pull on the surrounding air, creating positive and negative pressures.These waves occur as the molecules of air are slammed closely together as they are pushed by the vibrating body.The part of the wave consisting of positive pressure, where the air molecules are slammed together, is called a compression.Negatively pressured parts of the wave, where the air molecules are pulled apart from each other, are called rarefactions.
THE PROPERTIES OF SOUND
How loudly a sound is perceived is determined by how hard the air gets pushed by the vibrating body.The harder the air gets pushed, the louder the sound.Although this is typically referred to as volume, in reference to acoustical energy, it is called Sound Pressure Level (SPL).The scale used to measure Sound Pressure Level is the Decibel scale, or dB SPL (more on the other Decibel scales in a later article).
The pitch of a sound is a function of frequency.How frequently a vibrating body pushes the air determines how high or low the tone of the sound is perceived.The more frequently the air gets pushed, the higher the tone of the sound.As the air gets pushed less frequently, the tone sounds lower.Therefore frequency is expressed as the number of sound waves occurring over time.The scale used is known as Hertz (Hz), which signifies the number sound waves per second.For example, The note “A” below “Middle C” on a piano is 440Hz.The frequency spectrum is broken up into three parts.The Audible Range for humans is roughly 20Hz to 20,000Hz (or 20 Kilohertz, abbreviated as KHz).The frequencies below 20Hz are categorized as Infrasonic.All frequencies above 20KHz are referred to as Ultrasonic.
ACOUSTICS
Let’s look again at sound being all about our perception.Generally, we don’t hear the sound emanating directly from its source.The majority of the time, we hear sound after it bounces off the surrounding walls, along with any other nearby surfaces, and interacts with the room.We call this acoustics.Understanding how acoustics influence sound, especially those sounds you’re trying to record, better enables you to get the sound you want without any surprises.Each time a sound wave is reflected back into an acoustic space, our perception of that wave changes, especially when you hear sound coming directly from a sound source in addition to the reflected waves. (See Christina’s Post on Acoustic Treatment in the Classroom.)
Two really great references that I’ve found that deal with acoustics are Audio Engineer’s Reference Book, which deals more with recording and sound reinforcement, and Fundamentals of Physical Acoustics, which is considerably more in-depth and deals with acoustics for multiple applications.
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