B+ (Be Positive): Novice in Audio Wonderland

This is the third post in this series about my experiences with music. In earlier posts, I talked about my experiences with music before it became digital, and on the advent of digital era. In this post I take it further to the time when computer recordings at home became possible for me, with smaller MP3 files and my new computer with a 120 GB disk. This unleashed an unending chain of fun and discoveries. Here is a summary of the exciting journey.

Initially, I connected my all purpose Onstage AS400 microphone to the computer and used an audio editor called Audacity for recording and mixing. Audacity let me listen to the music track on headphone while recording the song on a separate track. Later on I would mix the two tracks to produce a final recording. Soon I learned that a good recording needs to have proper balance of the volume of each track, and I have to avoid clipping of sound by excessive levels. I also found out how to spruce up the vocals by adding an echo effect, or how to clean up the background noise using DSP techniques in Audacity. The results at this stage were better than anything that I had done so far.

Around the same time, I started using AVS Video Editor for video tasks like video editing, creation, and DVD burning. I decided to buy it as it is a complete suite of media tools that help you handle audio, video, pictures and all kind of media files. This video software came in handy when I wanted to share my recording on Facebook, as it does not allow to upload audio files; so I converted my recording to a video file with a static picture and shared my first song on FB on April 17, 2011. Bol Radha Bol was my first track on FB, and I am glad that I published it. The likes and encouragement I got from the friends acted as the fuel that gave invaluable support to my passion, and kept me trying to do better. You can listen to the track below.

At that time, I was also looking for a way to add the lyrics display to a Karaoke music track, so that it can be used for fun in a party. I found a great tool Karafun Studio that does exactly that. However, you have to teach the timing of the song to the tool painstakingly. I started creating one karaoke song at a time using it. Over time, I have prepared more that 100 hindi songs, that are a great source of fun in music parties.

In an attempt to discover new audio techniques, I researched the Internet for tutorials and articles. I came upon a good article on how to mix a song using Audacity. From this article, I learned several aspects. One was about perfect timing. I found out that the computer recording adds about 200 ms delay in the track, so my vocals so far were slightly out of timing with the music. Once you know it, it can be easily fixed in Audacity. In fact I measured the exact delay with an experiment and learned to compensate for it. Another key aspect was about vocal compression. Most modern songs use compression extensively to create a wholesome sound. When I added compression to my vocals, the results were amazing. Third learning was about creating space in the background music for vocals. I learned to use techniques like eq and ducking to make room for vocals. The results were clearly much better.

My disk was getting full again with all these audio, video, pictures and other media files. It was not long before I had to add a 250G, 500G, and finally 1TB external USB disk to my computer to cope with this demand for space. I am currently using a 1TB disk to store media and another USB disk to back it up.

Next I found out that to get the next improvement in my mix, a technique called mastering is must. Audacity does not do mastering, so I found out another tool Kristal, which is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). In October 2011, I tried mixing and mastering with Kristal on the Mukesh number - "Main to ek khwab hun", and I was thrilled with the outcome. Listen to this number to get a feel of it.

Next couple of months I played with Kristal, discovering its features, and various sound effects possible to be done with it. I came to a point where the clarity of my recording was limited only by the quality of the mic and its connection. I measured in an experiment that the in-built audio card in PC add about -45db noise to the captured signal even when there was no input. Nothing could be done to remove this noise once it gets in your track. Thanks to eBay that allowed me to get an item from Amazon.com to India, I bought an external audio interface - Blue Icicle to tackle the issue. In January 2012, I did "Mana Janab Ne Pukara Nahin" with this, and got a huge improvement in the quality. Listen to this song to make out the difference yourself.

As a result of compression and reverb, the quiet parts of a vocal track are also heard very loud and clear. That became a problem for breathing sounds and plosive sounds - sound of "p", "s", etc that cause an air shock on the mic. I bought a pop filter and in June 2012, recorded "Yeh Jeevan Hai" with it. It was very effective in eliminating the plosives. For the breathe noises, there was no option but to edit the track in Audacity, find the point of breating noise and suppress it manually. This was a painful process, but it had to be done. I was sure that there must be a plugin that can automate it, and I started looking for it.

That's when I hit upon Reaper, a new Digital Audio Workstation that is much more capable. I recorded "Aap ke pahalu me" on it in July 2012. I found out about the use of dynamic splitting to remove breath noise, using stereo width and spatial mixing, and I am still discovering more new ways to improve my mixes.

Along with this, I also took the plunge and got myself a studio quality condensor mic to improve my recordings further. On July 28, 2012, I recorded my favorite number "Pukarata Chala Hun Main" on my new Behringer C1U microphone, and mixed it with Reaper.

So, this is the story of my exploration so far. But picture abhi baki hai mere dost! I feel like a small kid in the candy shop, who has goodies scattered all around him. There is so much to enjoy, learn, and discover. The journey goes on..

Read next post in the series - Enchanting Engineers - A Musical Journey