Stage 3: Effects Plugins and Mixing

In the previous stage, I've established the sounds that would eventually become the melody. Yet it was unfinished as it sounds rather empty. Given this circumstance, I've added some elements/effects that would help solve this problem. However, before I did that, I had to assign each sound onto separate inserts in the mixer. This is so that I could apply plugins that would affect each sound individually. From there, an equalizer is first applied to each of the sounds I made through an equalizer plugin.

Equalizing (EQ) is a technique where you boost and/or cut certain frequencies of sounds so that they do not interfere with one another. Without any EQing, any minute and unwanted frequencies of one sound may conflict with another that depends on those frequencies. This obstruction leads to your composition sounding “muddy”, a term that describes something that's not articulate or clear when heard.

Using the square lead as an example, I will show how the EQ plugin looks like while the lead is playing. The stock plugin FL Studio provides gives a visual indicator showing the specific frequencies the sound takes place.

This is how the EQ plugin looks like while the lead is playing before any adjustments were made:

Before EQ

With the visual information given, I could see that the main frequencies the square lead takes up occur slightly after the 200 Hz range. However, if you look closely at the values before that, you could see that the square lead uses some if not an insignificant amount of the lower frequencies. Though it may not seem like a big deal at first, the small values of the lower frequencies would eventually interfere with sounds that do accompany them. Sounds like the sub-bass, whose body solely takes up the lower frequencies, need these values to be cleared up.

This is how the plugin looks like after the adjustments:

After EQ

By manipulating the circular dials and assigning specific functions to them, I can cut out those unnecessary frequencies while also boosting some mid and high frequencies values to make the overall sound of the lead brighter/clearer.

Here's the difference the process made on how the square lead sounds before and after EQing:

Before:



After:



Hear the difference? Don't worry if you didn't, I don't really hear much of a difference either. Certainly Soundcloud's streaming quality doesn't help represent the actual sound you would hear. At times, EQing a sound may not result in a noticeable change, but a little goes a long way in order to have your final product sounding good. There are moments, however, where you can totally abuse the plugin to create and distort sounds to your liking.

As a newcomer and someone who has just started out in the practice of making music, EQing is a concept that very hard to grasp. This technique is a process that may take years to fully master. You would have to develop an ear to help you understand which values specifically to manipulate.

I repeated the EQing process with all of the sounds used in the melody.

The next effect plugin I applied to help fill up the empty gaps of the melody creates the effect of reverb. Reverb is the element that describes the spatial environment of a sound. You probably have experienced this effect if you compare yourself talking in a small room with talking in an empty gymnasium. Your voice would sound more echoey in an empty gymnasium because of the size of the environment.

Many factors come into play when dealing with reverb. A good resource I've found lists some of the factors as "the dimensions of the actual space (length, width, and height), the construction of the space (such as whether the walls are hard or soft and whether the floor is carpeted), and diffusion (what the sound bounces off of)."

With that said, I've added varying amounts of reverb to each of my sounds (except sub-bass) using the stock reverb plugin FL Studio provides. This effect is applied in order to have the overall melody sound "full". The reason I didn't apply reverb onto the sub-bass is that I wanted it to remain "tight" and clear.

Here's how the reverb plugin interface used for the square lead looks like:

Reverb plugin and settings for the square lead

And here are the sounds before and after EQ and reverb are applied:

Buzz Lead:





Square Lead:





Saw Lead:





Distorted Lead:





Here's the comparison of the leads layered together before and after effects (Note that this is before anything is done to the layers' volume values):





Chords:





Bassline





Here's the comparison of the chords and bassline layers played together before and after effects (Note that this is before anything is done to the layers' volume values):





Now with the reverb added, there are a few things left to do to finalize the melody. I've added a stereo separation to the sounds to also add some spatial depth to it. The stereo separation spreads out a sound and distributes them between the left and right value according to the specific value you give it. You may notice this effect when listening to a song or movie that contains surround sound.

By applying this effect onto the sounds I've created, it helps give the illusion that the final melody accompanies a wide space. I didn't raise the separation values too much here as I wanted to only add a small and subtle effect.

Stereo separation knobs are shown here in the mixer

The stereo separation knobs here might seem misleading, as it appears to have turned only to the left. This doesn't mean that the sounds will only play on the left side of listener's speaker. By turning the knob to the left, it determines how much % separation you want. If you turn the knob to the right, it then applies an opposite effect called merging. This effect centralizes a sound, reproducing a mono sound.

After adding stereo separation, I created a melody bus on the 100th insert on the mixer. This is so that I can connect and route multiple inserts with it, allowing me to add a common effect to multiple sounds.

Creating the melody bus on insert 100 (highlighted as orange)

The green arrow and cable line is an indicator showing where the insert is routed to.

I've connected the four leads, as well as the chords and the bassline to the melody bus where I then add an additional EQ. However, the main reason I wanted to connect all theses sounds to the melody bus was so that I could apply a compressor to it. A compressor allows you to equalize the audio levels of a sound, compressing the highest and more prominent values in order to match the lower values at some level.

What's great about the stock compressor plugin from FL Studio is that it provides a visual indicator showing how prominent the audio levels of the sound connected is. I've drawn on the image above to show which part of the sound I needed to compress. Highlighted in red is when the notes of the melody are played, while highlighted in orange is the reverb that comes into effect afterward. What I wanted to do here was to compress the red area down to a level just above the orange area.

Here's how the audio levels look like before and after compression:

Before compression = Purple, After compression= White

Though after compression, you seemingly lower the overall audio level of your sound. This is because you are essentially lowering the audio levels of what was once your most prominent values. In order to return the sound back to its original volume, I've added some "make-up" gain to make up for the lowered audio levels.

Audio levels before compression and gain

Audio levels after compression and gain

Here's how the melody sounds like before and after compression (Again, note that this is before anything is done to the layers' volume values):





The difference that can be heard here with the addition of the compressor is that it makes the reverb of the melody more present in the mix. This also helps to make the melody "fuller".

(I'm not too sure if I've explained how the compressor works that well. If you are curious about the compressor and want a much better explanation, you should watch this video. An explanation that has a visual and audio example makes it a lot easier to understand)

So far, the melody is looking like it's almost complete. The only thing left to do with it is to adjust the volume levels of each sound layer. Generally speaking, you want your main melody to be the loudest, with the supporting sounds below it.

Here's how the final melody sounds after volume adjustments:



Overall I'm happy with the melody but still not quite satisfied with my final product. I would imagine if I were to research different techniques and add in more elements, I would then be satisfied. You can see that a lot of work can go onto a small part of an overall song. I'm sure there were shortcuts and other clever techniques that exist in helping me achieve what I want but in a shorter amount of time. After this project, I appreciate producers in the industry, especially those who spend a crazy amount of time on their work. Like visual creation, there are so many things you can create and experiment with in terms of sound design/engineering. I can definitely see myself spending countless hours experimenting with sounds.