Unit 4

Unit 4 was essentially the same stuff as Unit 3 -- Flex Time and Flex Pitch being the big concepts for mixing in LPX -- and I didn't have a lot of fun with this.

To learn about Flex Time and Flex Pitch, I watched the respective videos by MusicTechHelpGuy. I quantized Flex Pitch for the vocal part in The Police's "Synchronicity II" and beat mapped the Cymbals track to align with the Snare track, fixing the song. I also slightly changed the panning - I put the drums and bass to the right and the melodic parts -- backing vocals and guitar -- to the left. "Synchronicity II" in this mix has seven audio tracks - kick, snare, cymbals, bass, guitar, extras, and vocals in the order that I put them. In reading the "A Word on Audio Clutter" section on Freebernmusic.com, which says "the ear can only really process three things at once", I was surprised because there's many more elements in this piece. However, all these elements still fit together because elements work with each other, for example, all the three drums and the bass work together as the rhythm section. This song also has an unorthodox synth intro effect as an "extra", but it does not continue throughout the song, keeping the mind from being cluttered; after this effect, "extras" becomes backing vocals, but when in sync with the main vocals they only enhance the main vocals and aren't a new idea. As for the main vocals, the professional mixer put heavy effects on the voice, presumably to make it fit in with the style of the rest of the instruments. The rest of the instruments probably also have effects, but they aren't overdone. After listening for panning once through, soloing every track, I found that all tracks were almost equally audible through both ears, so I adjusted the panning (as mentioned before) to make the song more interesting. A simple fade out at the end and my work on this song was done!

- Don't sterilize a performance through excessive editing-out of imperfections

- Three sections: rhythm, lead, and melody

- Vary octave and frequency range between instruments for interest

- Three times rule: don't repeat the same idea more than three times in a row

- Five second rule: add something unique every five seconds for interest

- Snap edits to zero crossings unless the sound is thick, and crossfade between same-track regions

- Flex Pitch: generally quantize for perfect pitch is fine

- Time Monophonic: for voice, single-note instruments

- Time Polyphonic: for multi-note chord instruments

- Time Rhythm and Slicing: for drums

- Time Speed and Tempophone: creates effects when notes are stretched or compressed

- A sound engineer needs to be able to identify frequencies so he can enhance or cut down noise at exactly the right frequencies quickly