Print This Out And Give It To Your Production Director

Heraclitus said, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

The same is true of audio. Everything about sound is dynamic. You never hear the same song twice. Differences in source media, speakers, and environment make every listening experience unique.

But you're a different listener, too. Your energy level, mood, sinus/ear congestion, even whatever you were last listening to all have an impact on your perception.

Understanding this concept will help you to hear your audio with more clarity, and will help you make it sound great in almost any environment (the most important one being wherever your listener happens to be). Today, we'll talk about becoming students of sound.

CALIBRATING YOUR EARS

This is so incredibly important.

You walk into your studio, turn on the lights, sit down and open your audio software. Before you dive into your first session, however, you need to calibrate your ears.

The first thing you should listen to is one of your favorite songs. I'm not talking about one of your new favorites. I'm talking about a song you've loved for years - you not only know all the words, you know every note, and most importantly, every sound. As you listen, be intentional in exploring the sonic landscape. Notice the energy in the low frequencies. If there are drums, pay attention to the punch, the tactical feeling of the sound waves coming at you. Listen to the warmth of the mid-range. Try to find a few words to describe the treble; is it clear and thin? Brassy? Airy? Open?

Resist the temptation to multi-task; just sit and focus on what you hear. The next thing you should listen to is the last production piece you created that you're proud of. Do the same thing. Be careful here not to listen for flaws - you are simply exploring with your ears.

Now, as you begin producing, you've calibrated your ears. They've adjusted to the room, the speakers, your mood and energy level, even to your production style, and they now know what 'excellence' sounds like in your present environment.

THE GREAT EQUALIZER

EQ is to an audio producer what a saw is to a carpenter. And just like carpentry, you can use EQ to slice the wrong stuff or the right stuff.

First off, use as few bands as necessary to get the job done. It's tempting to open 30 bands and pretend like you're mixing the next single from U2, but you're making the job needlessly complex. Start with a 10-band. Only go up if you really need to.

Next, most of your EQ changes should be lowering bands to remove what you don't want, rather than raising bands to increase what you do want.

(NEAT TRICK): As you listen to your audio, raise one band at a time. When you raise a band that makes it sound really awful, you've identified the band you need to drop to make it sound better.

Incidentally, the only reason you really know what sounds 'better' or 'worse' at all is because you calibrated your ears before you began.

I WANT MY VOICE TO SOUND LIKE THAT 'IN A WORLD' GUY

Thundering, floor-rumbling voices are the result of two things: hard work perfecting the craft of voiceover, and a voice that is a gift from God. You cannot EQ your way into a rumble. And no, just increasing the bass on your voice won't help. In fact, it'll make it worse.

I've never heard a voice that truly benefited from raising the bass and treble, while lowering the mids (the classic V EQ preset).

I have the privilege of working with VO artist David Christian, who has those rumbling pipes that we all wish we had (you too, ladies. Come on, be honest.) When I EQ his voice, I actually reduce the amount of bass in his un-processed audio. God gave him plenty of bass. My job is to reveal the growl, the mid-range and high-end stuff that helps the rumble pierce through the mix. Rumble without clarity is mud. You cannot create rumble, only reveal it.

FULL-TIME STUDENT OF SOUND

There are a number of cool tips and tricks that can ramp up your production game. But the biggest improvement in your abilities will come from strengthening your ear. No tip or trick can replace the ability to hear a piece of audio, and know exactly what needs to be done to make it sound amazing. Thankfully, this is a talent that you can learn.

Here are a few things that have helped me:

Remember how I told you to start your session by listening to one of your favorite songs? Throw it into your EQ and start playing around. Notice how the mix changes when you raise a certain frequency band. Try to find a word or two that describe what you're hearing. These words don't need to make sense to anyone else - they help you articulate your perception, which reinforces the pathways in your brain.

• Use the Spectral Frequency Display (in Audition) to see the frequencies you're looking at. Look at some of your favorite music. Then take a look at a brand new Top 40 hit. Now look at your production work. The SFD allows you to take a look behind the curtain, and when you're familiar enough with it, you can identify problems in the mix that your ears didn't catch this time.
• (NEAT TRICK): Once you've spent some time cruising through different source material with the SFD, try to create one in your head. At any point in your day-to-day life, pause for a moment and be aware of the sounds around you. Try to imagine what the SFD would look like if it analyzed what you're currently hearing.
• Apps can help you learn your craft! QuizTones is an EQ ear training app that uses tones, noise and frequency-altered music loops (including songs from your own music library) to help you train your ears and develop more acute listening and frequency recognition skills.

If you travel quite a bit, it may be worthwhile to pick up Final Touch for the iPad. It's a full mastering suite optimized for the iPad touch screen, and is surprisingly capable.

As you continue on your journey as a student of sound, you'll realize that you don't need the most expensive gear to create the best work. Nice gear certainly increases your odds of success, but the best studio in the world is worthless unless it is operated by an expert with a highly developed ability to listen. Gear doesn't make great audio. You do. Give your studio a major upgrade - become a student of sound, and let the whole world be your classroom.