Modern production has evolved over the last 50 years by an enormous degree. The environment, techniques, tools, and sounds have all advanced to a point where it is hard to imagine how this trajectory can continue. What will the future sound like? While it may not be immediately obvious, every artist working on music, whether it’s in a giant multi-million dollar studio or in a tiny bedroom or dingy basement, is actively contributing to that future; undefined and ambiguous as it may be.

There are some obvious themes that leap out of the speakers when one analyzes the changes in the collective sonic palette over the years. Many of these changes have been the result of advancements in recording technology and workflows. From recording straight to a lacquer record to the advent of multitrack tape recorders, the move from tube amps to solid state, and perhaps the biggest of all; the shift from the analog domain to the digital. The analog vs digital debate will have to wait for a later post, but it is impossible to digest the sonic evolution that has taken place without taking into account certain technological advancements and pausing to consider the physical pieces of equipment in which those advancements were embodied.

Among those legendary pieces of equipment that have irreversibly changed the landscape of music is the Roland TR-808. Originally released in 1980, the TR-808 was a drum machine which allowed drum patterns to be programmed and played back with various parameters to modify the sounds. It had a unique and artificial sound that could be described as springy and metallic. By 1983, manufacturing issues made it impossible to continue production and the TR-808 was quickly replaced by the TR-909.

Electronic music as we know it was still in its embryonic stage at the time the TR-808 was released and the unit wasn’t appreciated and widely utilized until almost 10 years later. Perhaps it was just ahead of its time. Unperturbed by its lack of early success, the TR-808 would grow in popularity and see prominent use on more and more records across multiple genres throughout the late eighties into the nineties until it’s signature kick drum sound would come to be known simply as the 808.

As digital recording technology became the norm the restrictions that were apparent when working with tape were lifted. However producers and musicians quickly learned that while the digital format came with the potential for more expressive freedom, it also brought with it newfound technological limitations. With tape, the levels could be pushed hard and the medium of the tape itself could be utilized to create pleasing sonic qualities. Drums, bass, and low frequency information would gently saturate and naturally compress as the tape was hit harder and the mix as a whole would stay cohesive. Engineers could use these qualities as an expression of the emotion and vibe present in the recordings. Whereas in the digital domain, there is a cap on level, an absolute ceiling that cannot be breached. As you push harder into digital equipment, you do not get the same forgiving gentle compression and saturation as you do with tape. Instead you get horrible clipping and distortion as the peaks of the signal get destroyed and squashed up against the immovable ceiling.

In the era of vinyl, the major limitation of the medium was runtime. The louder you cut a vinyl, the wider the groove which meant a shorter runtime. So if you wanted to fit an entire albums worth of songs onto a record, you could only go so loud. With tape the main limitation was the sonic quality of the tape itself and the noise floor. You had to record as loud as possible onto tape without destroying the balance and dynamics of the mix to keep the noise floor far away. That input level had to be balanced with the response of the tape so the naturally occurring compression and saturation would work together to enhance the mix, not detract from it. In the digital realm, the concerns about runtime and noise floor are effectively nonexistent. So the main limitation becomes working within the fixed ceiling as described above. How does one maximize the impact of each instrument or element of a mix without destroying the mix as a whole? Very carefully.

We come back to the humble beginnings of the 808. When the 808 was first being used on records, drum patterns were programmed on the device or MIDI was used to trigger the sounds externally. The variation in the sonic qualities or timbre of the sounds themselves were achieved by manipulating the various parameters on the device along with the standard processing techniques; equalization, compression, and saturation. As time went on and recording techniques transitioned more into the digital realm, digital audio workstations such as Pro Tools became the medium onto which audio was recorded replacing multitrack tape recorders. While this evolution was taking place inside the studio, there were parallel developments in playback systems that were changing the way music was listened to and enjoyed. Speaker technology steadily advanced to such a point where low end information could be more faithfully and powerfully reproduced, which led producers and engineers to leverage these advancements and bake more low end information into their productions. This parallel development of recording and playback technologies was perfectly suited for the 808 as a production tool as digital recording allowed the giant low end kicks to be captured and reproduced effectively. Some tricks were developed to suit the bass heavy punch of the 808 kick to smaller speaker systems that may not have the physical ability to reproduce the entire frequency spectrum. The primary weapon for mix engineers looking to suit the 808 for both powerful club systems and shrimpy headphones was saturation. Effective saturation techniques would introduce harmonics on top of fundamental bass signals which allowed smaller and less capable systems to reproduce the impact of the bass even though they were unable to play back the fundamental sub frequencies.

Harmonics and saturation remain the primary technique used by engineers today to suit the big bottom end of the 808 to a wide range of applications. It is helpful to dissect the treatment of an 808 bass into two discrete elements; the fundamental low bass, say under 250 - 300 Hz, and the upper register harmonic information from 400 Hz up to 2 - 3 kHz. The way these two elements of the sound are treated and combined contribute to the overall impact, punch, and bite of the mix. It is rare that the 808 will be the only element occupying these regions so care must be taken to carve out space allowing the different elements in these frequency ranges to breathe. The most obvious conflicts occur in the low bass region between the 808 and the kick, if a separate kick is used as is common for punch and variety in arrangement. When the kick and 808 hit at the same time there is a huge amount of low frequency information being produced all at once, if they overlap in the wrong way or if the level is too high, the result will be a flabby muddy mess that can destroy or at the very least distract from the mix as a whole. One of the first and most important decisions that must be made is the selection of the kick sound itself. If you have a huge 808 with a ton of sub, then it would be wise to select a high punchy kick with minimal sub information. Alternatively, if you are after a big throbbing kick sound, then the 808 must be sculpted in such a way that there isn't an overload of low frequency energy when they hit together. There are a wide variety of ways to achieve this result; static eq can be effective but can leave holes in the mix when the kick and 808 are not overlapping. Among the most transparent and effective methods of achieving the goal of clean consistent punch are dynamic eq and side chained multi band compression. The differences between a dynamic eq and a multi-band compressor are exceedingly subtle so for the purposes of this exploration of technique, they will be treated as one and the same.

Let us construct for an example a mix with a consistent 808 rhythm and and a kick pattern that overlaps with the 808 at various points but not with every hit. When played in solo both the 808 and the kick sound great, the 808 has a full and impressive low end and a subtle harmonic that lends a pleasing crunch; the kick is short, punchy, and sounds perfect with the rest of the drum sounds, but it has just enough low end throb that when played together with the 808 the tightness and definition of the sub is thrown off. One way this could be remedied is by filtering out the low end of the kick so the overlap is less pronounced. This method may work very well for those sections of the arrangement where the kick and 808 are playing together but for the sake of this example let's say that the next section of the arrangement has the 808 drop out. In this section the mix feels weak and gutless as the kick has lost its low end to the filtering and the sub is barely being touched. You could rely on automation to engage and disengage the filtering on the kick with corresponding sections of the arrangement, but let's assume this approach still leaves us feeling dissatisfied, the filtering throws off the phase of the kick and just changes the overall feel of the drums. A more surgical and transparent approach is to reach for a multi-band compressor on the kick. We set up the compressor to act only on the frequencies which overlap when the kick and 808 hit simultaneously, for the sake of the example lets say this region sits between 60 and 150 Hz. There is one additional step to take to ensure that the compressor doesn't clamp down on these frequencies when the 808 is not playing. That can be achieved with an external side chain keyed to the 808, this leads the compressor which is acting on the low frequencies of the kick to be activated only when the signal of 808 exceeds the set threshold. The opposite setup is equally valid, where the compression is applied to the 808 and the side chain fed from the kick, it depends on the qualities of the sounds themselves and the desired outcome. A good way to think about this technique and an important image to keep in mind when tuning the parameters of the compressor and side chain, is to imagine that you are allowing the 808 to replace or substitute the low frequencies present in the kick when they are playing together.

Let us consider a different example where an alternative technique may be more suitable. In this example, the kick and 808 patterns are exactly duplicated so the kick and 808 play at the same time throughout the entire pattern. This type of arrangement is common in certain flavors of Hip Hop and is one which mix engineers encounter frequently. The technique described above could be applied to equal effectiveness in this case but it is unnecessary as the patterns never diverge to the point where the kick and 808 patterns are playing at the same time but experienced separately. A simple but effective remedy in this case is to delay the 808 by a short amount to allow the attack of the kick to play out before the full level of the 808 comes in. One could nudge the 808 later by a few milliseconds, tune in a short sample offset, or reach for the attack knob in the sampler which is playing back the 808. Any of these methods can yield the intended result with equal effectiveness depending on how the session is laid out and if you find yourself working with MIDI or with raw audio.

The reason we need to be cognizant of these kinds of techniques and know when to employ them comes back to the underlying limitations of the format of digital audio. Recall how when working in the digital realm we are continually forced to contend with the ceiling which resides at 0 dbfs (decibels full-scale), a level which we are simply unable to exceed. When two signals combine and their level exceeds 0 dbfs the peaks are squashed and flattened out at this 0 dbfs level. The sonic implications of this are highly audible and uncontrollable artifacts and distortions arise that are fundamentally non-musical and incredibly difficult to control and incorporate into a composition in an aesthetic way. It's best to avoid this kind of uncontrolled clipping and distortion at all cost. While distortion and clipping may produce a certain type of energy or feeling which may be desirable in certain types of productions, these effects should be added with care and intent at points along the signal path where they can be controlled and tuned.

It should not be left up to the computer to create the distortion by red lining signals and just letting the preverbal chips fall where they may. The term that gets thrown around in relation to this concept is headroom. There are many different kinds of headroom but for the purposes of this discussion, we will refer to digital headroom which could be defined the amount of space that is left under the hard ceiling of 0 dbfs at various points throughout the mix. Often headroom is referred to as a peak value as in what is the highest level value reached throughout the duration of the mix and how far below 0 dbfs is that peak. You will find rules of thumb that state you should arrange and balance your mix in such a way that you peak somewhere between -12 and -6 dbfs, another way of saying the same thing is that you should leave 6 - 12 db of headroom. The foundation for this rule of thumb comes from a time when mixing and mastering were totally discrete processes. Mastering engineers needed that headroom to do their work and allow space for their processing to be effective without ramming their heads into the 0 dbfs ceiling. These days that line between mixing and mastering is far less defined and both processes are increasingly being performed simultaneously. Speaking from personal experience, the -6 to -12 db rule seems to be excessively conservative and essentially unnecessary; the far more important level to be conscious of is 0 dbfs. The only rule of thumb you need is... Don't clip.

Don't clip, much easier said than done especially in the modern climate where listeners seem to demand ever increasing amounts of bass, energy, and loudness. As you turn your kicks and 808s up, you are leaving less room under the ceiling for the other elements of the mix. There comes a point that any further increase in level will lead to clipping and inevitable degradation of quality, so the only thing left to do to amplify the perceived amplitude of a given element is to turn down everything else around it. This give and take is an inevitable side effect of the format of digital audio, it is important to always keep this theory of audio relativity in mind. All is relative so often times the right way to approach the balancing of a mix is to turn things down, not up. If you have a mix where the 808 is drowning out the kick and robbing the kick of its punch, turning the kick up will not always be the right answer as you will inevitably hit the ceiling and start clipping. Instead the only course of action would be to lower the level of the 808 or at the very least carve out some room either with eq or with the multi-band setup described above. This dynamic applies to all elements across the entire frequency spectrum. The right approach to take in response to this reality is to remain constantly aware of your headroom and control the dynamics of each element of the mix accordingly. Small steps of compression on the way up the mix chain are far more effective and controllable than relying on a single limiter at the end of the chain to rein in all the excess energy.

This concept of excess energy is an important one and leads us to consider another subject which is often discussed and debated along with modern production techniques. Often times limiters are abused as the last step in a mixing or mastering chain to maximize the volume while avoiding clipping. This method is certainly far easier than the painstaking process of combing through the mix sound by sound to control the dynamics and eliminating all excess and unnecessary energy, but it inevitably leads to inferior results. We as artists have access to incredible tools that make the creation of music mind-bendingly efficient and downright easy when compared to the tools available 40 years ago. However there are fundamental concepts and relationships that apply regardless of the tools and techniques that happen to be used at any given point in time. We cannot rely on modern tooling to do all of the heavy lifting for us, we must prepare the material appropriately and ensure that we are leaving as little as possible up to chance. Tough choices must be made and these choices are often painful and full of compromise.

A final high level perspective that can help with getting these balances right is to monitor your mixes quietly. It is very easy for details related to headroom and balance to be obscured by excessive volume. The louder you monitor, the more the room plays a role in the perception of those delicate balances and the more you run the risk of tuning the mix for the listening environment rather than effective translation of energy and emotion. Turn your monitors way down and perceive what sticks out. Often you will hear that your mix is dominated by hi hats and snares at low volume, you can pull those elements back and buy yourself valuable headroom that can be given back to other elements. You know you've nailed your low end when you can clearly hear the 808s, both low end and harmonics, and kicks at extremely low volumes. The final thing you should be striving for is to preserve the energy in your mix at exceedingly low volumes. Everything sounds good when things are cranked, pulling the volume way back forces you to rely on dynamics and movement to preserve the energy and the intended emotional impact. Get your mixes loud by mixing quietly.