FM Transmitter Tip: No More Static! - Tips for Getting Punch in a Mix

FM Transmitter Tip: No More Static!


Alright what's up? Today I'm just going to
show you guys just a little hack, I guess
you could say, that you can do with your FM
transmitters that you have in your car with
your for your iPod or whatever MP3 player
you have. If your car stereo can go down,
I'll show you, can go down past below 88.1.
Mine only goes to 87.7 and 87.9, that's two.
Well, these, anything below 88.1 is below
US frequencies, and nothing in the U.S. will
be on these frequencies so if your car can
go down to 87.7 or 87.9 for example. I leave
mine on 87.7 and your FM transmitter, if you
can set it to international mode. For example
on this Griffin iTrip I have right here I
can set it to international mode by going
to Function and going to Mode and holding
down the middle button for about ten seconds
and the Griffin, you'll see the Griffin logo
pop up or drop down depending on which mode
you just switched to. Now I set mine on international
mode right now and I can go down to however
far I want to, I think all the way down to
79 I think. So this is all below US frequencies
too. So I just set mine to 87.7 and now I'll
show you guys. I'll turn the volume all the
way up. If you can hear that's really loud.
The only reason youíre hearing that is because
I got the stereo turned up all the way. Now
I'll start playing some music on my iPod through
the, this is through the FM transmitter right
now on international mode. Ok so as you can
see there's no static or anything, and it'll
be like that wherever you go. It'll stay like
that. You wonít have to change stations or
your channels. You don't have to mess with
your fm transmitter anymore. So that's a cool
little thing if your car can do that and your
transmitter both have those capabilities.
I suggest you do that. You won't have to mess
with it anymore and you'll have crystal clear
audio wherever you are. If you guys enjoyed
that please subscribe and I'll see you guys
later.


Tips for Getting Punch in a Mix


Hey, folks. Matthew Weiss â€" weiss-sound.com,
theproaudiofiles.com, learncompression.com.
We are continuing in the five concepts series.
This little entry is going to be all about
punch. Yes, I am on the road. I am in a car,
but I want to keep up with you guys, so bear
with me. Punch. What is punch?Well, punch
is in essence, dynamics. It's the ability
for a sound to step out of the speaker and
physically impact the listener. So I'll often
talk about something like speaker excursion,
which is the actual movement of the cone outside
of it's bearing, and I'll talk about punch,
which is the simple vibrations in the air.
So, there's some key elements to consider
in punch. The first is your nominal listening
level, because your dynamic is going to be
your loudest moments and your quietest moments
compared to wherever the end listener sets
the record.
So, if you are familiar with the loudness
war concept, where everyone is trying to compress
the records more and more and more, what that's
essentially doing is it's taking the nominal
point and moving it louder, but that ceiling
stays in the same place, so the total amount
of excursion you can get, the louder you can
get that playback becomes less, which is one
of the reasons why everyone in the engineering
field is so against it, because you get less
punchy records.
But wherever that nominal field is, the total
punch is going to be the loudest point that
springs over a short period of time. Transient
energy. Things that are occurring maybe 20
milliseconds or less in duration, and the
speaker moves out and comes back, basically.
The same way a punch would hit you in the
face.
So, when you are shaping your sounds, you
want to consider the micro-timing â€" the
micro-dynamic of the sound shape, because
if you have a sound that is very, very short
up and down â€" something like a snare drum
is a natural occurrence or a cross-stick in
particular, you're going to have something
that sounds spiky, meaning the total duration
of that very loud sound shoots up very quickly.
It lasts maybe about a millisecond or less,
and then comes back down.
So you do get a total amount of volume change,
which is exciting for the listener, but it's
not extended enough to convey punch. Punch
comes from reshaping that so that the decay
of that signal takes longer. You want it to
take a little bit longer, because that allows
the speaker to push more weight at you.
When it does that, that becomes an impactful
sound. It physically hits you, and unfortunately,
if you do it for too long, if the decay becomes
too sustain-y and too long, then it just suddenly
becomes a sustaining sound. So it's about
finding a sweet spot where something is â€" you've
probably heard the phrase, “fat.”
That's referring to the time duration of the
upward thrust of a transient sound, whether
that be a kick, or a snare, or whatever else
it might be.
Now, in terms of the low end, the low end
is absolutely critical to punch because the
lowest frequencies are actually the ones that
will resonate in our body. We don't just simply
hear it in our head and our skull where the
higher frequencies will resonate, but we actually
can feel it in our physical body, so getting
the punch in the low end right is something
that takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of
crafting, and one thing that I think makes
the biggest difference right off the bat is
your phase correlation in your low end sound.
So, if you don't know what phase correlation
is, when you take a sound, say like a sine
wave, and it is in its compression stage,
meaning there is positive pressure being formed,
and you take the same sine wave, and you invert
it, meaning, you have the same signal, but
it is now in rarefaction, it's pulling back
and creating a vacuum. The signal cancels
out.
So, likewise, if you were to take two microphones
and put them in front of the kick drum and
face one with the diaphragm at the kick, and
the other one in omnidirectional mode with
the diaphragm facing away from the kick, but
in the same spot, when you sum those two signals
together, you are going to get a lot of cancellation
in the sound.
Now, the total level of the sound might actually
be fairly up, because not all parts of the
signal are going to cancel. You might have
enough amplitude in there where you're still
losing headroom, you're still taking up sonic
space, but you simply don't have those low
end frequencies, because they are out of phase.
So it is really important that when you are
working with low end signals to do things
like checking the phase correlation. Super
true in miking the kick drum, but also true
in blending multiple kick drums together,
and very true when you are triggering sine
waves, multiple basses, all of those things
are going to have phase interactions that
are going to become pronounced, because you
have simpler waveforms in the low end.
So punch has a lot to do with your phase correlation
in the low end as well. Ultimately, when it
comes to the overall loudness â€" this will
be the last thing that I have to say about
it â€" when it comes to the overall loudness
of a record, a lot of people say, “Okay,
how do I maximize the punch, and make the
record as loud as possible?”
I think that's a backwards way of thinking
about it. I think the real question is, how
quiet can I get away with printing the record
to maximize the punch with it still being
appropriate for whatever field the music is
going to exist in. So, if it's supposed to
be a commercial pop record, how can I make
the mix still seem like a commercial pop record,
but back the volume and total level off as
much as possible to get the punchiest record
possible?
You know, or if it's like a Club record, same
idea. I know this record is going to be played
back-to-back with some screamingly loud records.
What can I get away with in terms of not compressing
the record in order for those speakers to
really rattle as much as possible when it's
played in the Club?Alright, so consider those
ideas when you're thinking about the punch
of a record. You know, figure out where â€" start
by figuring out where your listener is going
to turn the volume knob when they start listening,
and start moving things around from there.
Outside of that, make sure everything is properly
in phase, and you will have a much easier
time getting a lot of punch out of your records.
Alright guys, until next time.