Theres a bar near my house, that specializes in Jazz, uh, Ellington Jazz Club, and whoever designed the sound proofing on that places is a god. The front of the place has these big windows, but if you walk by at night, you hear NOTHING. The second the bouncer opens the door your blasted with noise, but s soon as the door closes, nothing.Oh and inside the sound is immaculate. You can have a whole room of people talking, but somehow the band on stage will be playing and you'll hear it perfectly , but its not super loud, jazz people don't roll that way. Its just... perfect. What I can tell is that the whole place seems to be a room within a room. The front doors almost like an air-lock. Two doors a foot apart. The windows have a second window, and the walls seem to be super wide. I think they literally built the whole bar (Two stories!) as a suspended studio type thing. Its wild.
Extra info about phantom power: never use it for dynamic microphones (unless you have an active pre that requires it) and turn it off before unplugging the mic! I did kill my lovely Alesis io2 with the latter.
@15:06 my TL;DR here is put a HPF at 120Hz on literally every channel EXCEPT your sub & kick channels... Ez. Perfectly clean sub every time. As far as mixing it, I'd never mix sub-levels based on listening anyway (I always use a frequency analyzer & references). Note: I only mix electronic music, so the violin example is probably valid, although tbh, if you're not HFP'ing a violin anyway, wtf are you doing? xD
Pulled the ground peg out of a Fender Twin power plug once. Touched a mike while holding my guitar and ended up not being able to let go of either while 120 volts coursed through my body. if we had been in Europe I would be dead. Don't do it kids.
Guitar Moderne, you are correct. Years ago, Keith Relf, the lead singer for the original Yardbirds, was practicing in his basement studio, and did exactly what you described. he had an ungrounded guitar, grabbed the mic, and it killed him. . .the UK has 220V AC.
You mention making your own samples in this, I would love to see a video of you showing how you personally go about that. I love your tube resonance video so much! I'd love to see more!
@@a_8764 Essentially just making a few bars of the style you want to sample. Say you want to make a Justice style electro house song. First, you start off by making a couple bars of just straight disco, sticking as close to possible to that 70s disco sound. And then you sample and mangle the shit out of it. No doubt this takes way more talent than sampling an existing record, because you have to know how to produce the style that you want to sample.
DUDE!! I listened to "Arrival to an Empty Rooms" since it came out, i mustve been around 15 years old at that point. I have been revisiting "The Flashbulb" on Spotify every so often, not realising it was you lol. Only now i saw your face on Spotify and needless to say, my mind was blown haha
One thing that might get lost in this "sound proofing" discussion is: a) do you want to have the room to be for monitoring or b) do you not want the sound to get out. Some of tte answers overlap, but there's 2 different problems with 2 different solutions. Some of the solutions of making a good mixing room work for also insulatiing the room from the outside world but they are not the same thing.
RE: "How do I sample" - the answers in this video were comprehensive and helpful, but they made one major assumption (it was a fine assumption) that people will be creating their sampled music in a for-profit framework. Of course this is the dominant framework for music. But isn't there more to the world of sampling? I guess I'm opening a "Fair Use" can of worms for remix and plunderphonics culture. These sample based art-forms live in a gray area out on the fringes of art. It's a worthy topic, but perhaps a ridiculous distraction from the primary question, but it's my favorite topic.
I sample and share everything that reaches me. I feel entitled and I don't care about shit. Fuck copyright law!! Because of it, regular people lost more liberties than most can imagine. In the world we live in, education is a choice. Those that stand behing copyrights are the gatekeepers, that try tо control things that are out of their control, punishing regular people only because they can. And yes, I do understand the importance of licenses, and that shit is complicated, but still...
@@legitt6093 This is bonkers. The answer is not "fuck copyright," it's "fix copyright." Do you want major record labels to be able to indiscriminately steal music from small independent artists? No? Well copyright is the only thing keeping them from doing that. Imagine if ad agencies were able to use your music in TV ads without paying you a dime. The problem is that whatever protections we give to small artists, we also have to give to major rights holders, who tend to have more money to fight lawsuits. But the answer isn't "get rid of all copyright," it should be to figure out how we prevent money from determining winners in our court systems.
I would like to add that if you build a new studio you should stay away from light dimmers! Better to set up several circuits with different light sources to get that cosy feeling. Light dimmers can creata a hum extravaganza especially with electric guitars!
I was expecting a click baity video with shallow information and I got a wealth of knowledge that was actually entertaining too! I'd love to see a similar video about the top music business questions and issues, as you clearly have the right experience as a self released artist with your own label.
Worth adding about soundproofing: consider if you really need it beyond solving a rooms reflective problems. You don’t actually want a dead room even if you could achieve it, music isn’t made in a dead room and even with sound treatment in a sound proof room your room is going to have its own sound so mixing its best just to ‘know’ the sound of your room and get it so it works for you. Making you a better mixer will be knowing your monitors and room setup intuitively that comes from a lot of listening in that room to many recordings and also listening to those recordings in many different situations. It’s worth listening to your own mixes done in your room on many different situations, in a car, on a phone, in earbuds ( shudder ). This will make you a better mixer than ugly ing up your room with a lot of mostly pointless foam* you want enough panels or sound absorbers in the room so that reflective areas are taken care of. Having soft furniture is good, rugs or thick carpet, a sofa, Ideally you don’t want your desk up against a wall you want some room behind your monitors and you want to be sitting in prime position between them. The former isn’t always possible. Unless you’re building a professional studio building for recording bands etc or mastering. Don’t sweat it to much. The skill is in the artist and your ears, not the room.
Analogue gear - Its a big subject but one thing none ever talks about is capacitors reaching electron saturation. They then sound their best and this takes a long time. Black Gate capacitors we used in hifi valve amps quote 3,000 hours use before they sound their best and certainly the system, even when run in, will sound better and better over the first few hours. Many valve hifi owners switch their gear on Friday morning for the weekend, switching it off before going to work on Monday. Analogue synths really should be left on to stabilise tuning. Lastly, ANYTHING with a switch mode (computer style) power supply shoudl be left off when not in use. The PSU is switching the mains 50,000 times a second and if that switching chip doesn't die then the dumping capacitors will. Here endeth the sermon.
DUDE. WTF. I knew this too. In the first 20 seconds my jaw dropped. Freaking love your music dude. Now I'm finding out you're cool as heck too, super aware of music/music production tips tricks and techniques (that I've been watching for time now too) and it didn't even click! Ahhh.
One other thing with insurance ( if you're touring and flying with your gear/instruments in the hold of the plane ) make sure to find an insurance company that insures your gear/instruments flightside i.e. when it's actually in the hold of a plane. With a lot of the cheaper insurance companies there is a clause that says your gear is not actually insured once you drop it off at security to right up until you pick it back up from the airport luggage belt on the other side. Therefore If it gets stolen, dropped, smashed up, lost by luggage handlers for example it will not be insured and you will get nothing. So double check the contract. As a touring sound engineer for many years I've seen people caught out by this so be aware.
it absolutely kills me how many people conflate the concept of "fair use" in regards to transformative video content on youtube with sampling rights in music production. Music copyrights are their own beast. Thanks a lot for opening the video with some quick and dirty discussion in that area. The more people that know this stuff the better.
The fair use doctrine applies in music production just as it does in any other area of copyright law. Saying that sampling of any amount of a music recording is always a violation of copyright is simply false, fair use doctrine will allow some of this copying and disallow others. The problem is that the license holder can always choose to sue for infringement, even if it's likely to be a losing case under the law. So it's always safer to get permission to use a sample of a recording, but it's not always illegal to use a sample without permission. Benn's advice is the safest advice to follow, though not necessarily legally correct. For a quick overview of the actual law, you could look here: www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/permission-sampled-music-sample-clearance-30165.html
@@hsitz A good example of Fair Use. As bragged in my video, the Dove Evolution ad campaign used a remix of one of my already released songs, so they had to license the song and then hire me as a composer to customize it. The Ellen DeGeneres Show and many other media ews outlets referenced the ad as it had a strong social statement. They played my music without licensing it when showing a small clip, this is fair use because copyright law preventing journalism is a potential First Amendment issue. However, Alyssa Milano decided to make a parody of the ad to make a message about how Italian Americans are poorly portrayed on television. MTV loved the idea of this and put it on their website and aired it. I guess she figured it'd be fair use since it was a parody, and I guess MTV figured that she had already gotten permission to use my song, which she did not. Welp, they settled with my agency out of court for that misconception.
@@BennJordan I'm not sure what your point is exactly. The fact is that fair use doctrine applies to music sampling. The problem is that people don't always agree on what "fair use" is, and a litigious copyright-holder can sue or threaten to sue even in a situation where a court would, in the end, likely find it be a fair use. This leaves the little guy who wants to use a sample in a bad situation, in a world with litigious copyright holders. So like I said, the advice you gave is the safest advice, always get permission. Technically, however, permission is not always legally required, if it is a true fair use. It's just that even if your use is "fair use" you can still get sued. Yes, I'm a random guy on the internet, also a lawyer FWIW.
@@hsitz Yeah, I'm not arguing. I just figured that would be a good example in addition to what you said since it had 3 different types of usage of the exact same song. 🙂
@@BennJordan Interesting. I thought parodies were fair use...is that only for music? I'm watching a possible lawsuit unfold against Thunderf00t from Trevor Mahlmann...Thunderf00t's putting up videos on some of the email's of Trevor saying how he's going to get "litigious" on him. I think I'd rather steer clear of sampling anybody saying or doing anything...
I haven't spent a ton of time (or money) there but I like the tracklib model - not splice sample packs, just buy a song with a streamlined clearance process.
Dude, thorough AF, wasn't expecting an avalanche of actual info, you're making other yt'rs look bad, good job! Loved the bit on my arch enemy & nemesis, copyright. Seriously, I hate it but I fear it's too late, so if I want to hear 'sorry inigo, I din't mean to jog him so hard' I'll do my own impression, out of meter and probably play that backwards for safety, ugh, I hate it I hate it I hate it!
Installing a new grounding rod won’t help if the wall receptacles aren’t grounded. These days, the main usage of ground is tripping the breaker in case of a fault, i.e. when there is an exposed hot wire electrifying the metal components of an appliance. This is why appliances have a green ground screw that is in direct contact with the chassis, so that the current from an exposed hot wire immediately flows into the ground wire, to the panel, and trips the breaker.
03:50 What if the album is copyleft? Like Creative Commons Non commercial, attribution, share alike license. Is that a workaround having issues with IDs?
DIMMER SWITCHES! Those switches, on floor/table lamps or wall switches and ceiling fans can cause maddening noise issues. If your outlet is on the same circuit as one of these you will get noise. My downstairs neighbor had a dimmer switch and would drive me crazy because i had no idea it was there. It was intermittent because when the switch is off the noise went away!!! Took me months before I asked him about it! I finally found a different outlet but needed a 25' extension cable lol!
"How to soundproof" missed something important: direct air paths are the most problematic. Which means, it has to be airtight. Ventilation is a major issue and it requires baffles and dust filters (in this case, there is one room between the recording space and rest of the building, which could serve as a "reservoir" for air, making the direct route more complicated). Doors are the first thing to attack when doing just light soundproofing. Direct coupling has MUCH less energy that comes from air, so if you keep all vibrating things decoupled from the floor and walls (not directly connecting to them but have something soft between), that will do a lot. But, without room-in-a-room and very good air tightness where it counts, well designed ventilation... it is never going to be sound proofed, just less leakage.
16:15 I think even if you connect every thing to one power strip you can still get ground loops because the other connections like USB, Audio, etc between your gear will enable/close the loop.
Star grounds (one strip) shorten the loop, shorter paths also help, and I use a good USB hub for all my gear near the gear, run to my PC. The noise is introduced on the differential between multiple grounds, so you can also run heavier ground wires with a better guage than your USB cables have. And like Ben said, move cables away from AC (and cross signal and power paths at right angles)
re: insurance, you can individually schedule gear on an "inland marine" policy as an adjunct to your renter's/homeowner's insurance. That type of policy is designed for "I have this expensive thing that doesn't fit the regular policy," and musical instruments even have an extra form you can buy that insures it if you use it for gigs.
You can "emulate" a ground by using a GFCI extension. They are about $30 but they'll keep your gear safe. Fun fact, up until 2022 japan ONLY relied on GFCI at the breaker and are only recently requiring a proper three prong outlet as opposed to a ground screw lug.
Brilliant summary of the "piggy bank" questions**. Of course, I had to delete my favorite (10 Euro) "Can't you filter out the vocals anyhow" sometime 10 years ago when AI-driven Stem and Track Isolation finally happened. So sad. Did mostly finance my vacation on its own.... I like you a lot, Sir! ;-)
**there's a piggy bank since my first studio in 2001 and next to it a list of stupid questions and how much they cost.
How weird is it that the existence of Patreon is what gets really high quality content produced more often on UA-cam though? More seriously, thanks for this video. This is totally the kind of thing I would "smash that bell" for.
Hey great vid man, I just wanted to say about phantom power that it can fry a ribbon microphone. Granted they're not very common, you're much more likely to find a condenser and dynamic mics but hey, there are some pretty legendary ribbon mics out there, beware ;)
Ground loops are not necessary an issue with the 120v side of power distribution. Loops can also come from the low voltage side of a power supplys that's built into hardware. Basically two power supplies are not playing nice with one another and power is trying to move from one source to another.... They make ground lift boxes and transformer isolation boxes to prevent this type of interference.
Before sampling was a thing the rule used to be 10s or 4 bars max whichever of those comes first (In the Netherlands at least)... In the '80 they changed it.. That's where the misconception comes from... Ground loop -> DI box with ground lift. Also helps with getting shocks from your mic while holding a guitar...
Dude, 3 mins in now.. already worth my Patreon fee. You a/the man. 7:15 in JohnCenaCantDeal.gif 8:00 No!!!! ok, what about Isolation Transformers.. that's gotta help when you leave stuff on?
That section on grounding issues would have saved me so much time 12 years ago. I used to live in an old apartment that wasn't grounded at all. It made all my gear buzz like crazy and some electronics act strangely.
I wanted to know the name of the one at 16:45, i believe they're unreleased and made only to use in these yt videos? Because i listened to several Fashbulb albums and never found it, was i just unlucky? lol
Question about sampling music. What if you just do it for fun and experiment with your own creativity and practice. However, you are not making money out of it? What about these cases?
3:55 kek. i will immediately be sampling your music (i've never even heard it) and releasing it (nor do i release music on spotify) simply for the law suit. letsgo.
alternative sound panels for dampening: I recommend getting panels made out of Basotect ... There should be some honest vendors out there who do not mark up and scalp these products to crazy prices... It is melamine-formaldehyde condensation resin foam and in ways designed by the company BASF to have sound-dampening characteristics and it does NOT cost an arm and a leg, despite many vendors telling you otherwise. A panel of this size ~39"x20"x2,8" (1000mmx500mmx30mm) is around 25euro and you should be able to get corner parts as bass traps as well for maybe 40-50... of course it is dampening and not soundproofing.
First answer seems to forget a major caveat: it is legal to sample someone else’s music without a license, and copyright infringement cannot technically even happen, *if the work is in public domain*. Which even copyrighted music automatically becomes, though many years later. Be careful though, laws can be obscure and vary by country.
Important thing here is that, even if a *song* (like Beethoven's Fifth) is in public domain, *recordings* of that song can still be under copyright., and most of the recordings you can buy on CD or find on UA-cam *are* under copyright. Under US law, copyright takes significantly over 50 years to expire, so the things you *can* legally sample will probably mostly be stuff that was originally recorded on shellac records or very early vinyls, with all the quality issues that period had.
I was always wondering if that guy was actually for hire hahaha Also thank you for the free audible month trial. As a person who is broke at the moment (lol) I often use the Libby app that ties into my library card for audio books how ever audible has a few things I have been wanting to listen to. Thanks again Also it ain’t much but im in the $1 tier of your Patreon which makes it really easy however I appreciate that your videos are available on oootube
HI Benn, I actually made a remix of your song 'I think in a minute or so I'll explode' the one that has been re-uploaded a few times... It was over ten years ago now..... I never thought to ask for a license as I didn't expect anybody to listen to it. I love your music so much. Did you ever hear it? If so did you like it?
I used to leave my studio monitors on all the time but then had a day long brown out. Lights were just barely visible. I was not home at the time so the monitors were on like this for a few hours. Within a week both of them stopped working. (capacitors)
The ground loop problem has driven me absolutely to distraction over the years. The annoying thing is that usually the solution is a simple one. It’s just such a time sucker though!
I do remember a song with a sample of « I got a feeling » that some young talented musician created but removed from his album Such a shame for such a beautiful song
1:55 - Don’t forget that, in the US at least, there is that bizarre loophole that means you can seemingly ride roughshod over copyright IF it’s seen to be satirical to a judge…🤷♂️
To comment about Expensive Digital Cables Being Worth It, I've had USB, Firewire, and Thunderbolt cables be the culprit for malfunctions. Some of them are so coy, that they'd only produce the problem about once in a 30 minute span. Only by switching out every component could I blame it on the cable. They DO go bad sometimes. I've had some experience to know that brand name cables of at least medium build tend to fail less. Trust me, change out your digital cable before you send your interface for repair.
I just got an ad with the title "Small Chested Women Deserve Better" from the brasserie brand "Pepper" while playing this video. At least UA-cam's ad algo didn't show that ad on your video "Why Aren't There More Female Producers?"! 😅
I remember reading many times that the Saturn V rocket was the loudest noise ever produced by man, but the levels were only estimates at 190 - 210 decibels.
I would like to mention usb cables can make noise when it is near an amp (interference I guess). So when I changed my usb cables for better ones, I had better sound with my keyboard amp.
@13:41 that's actually not entirely true. Sure, a good digital signal will be indistinguishable, yes. But bad cables can cause lots of issue, hdmi is a good example, some cables don't have the right pins connected properly and signal quality is important especially for bandwidth needs, that's why expensive cable testers can give you an eye graph, LTT has a good video about this.
As for noise, as a beginner it's surprising how many (cheaper and intermidediate) tools have surprising amount of self-noise and it can throw people off who don't have a readily available reference to use. I was surprised with my Kali LP6-s (that sound very nice) are actually quite noisy just by themselves.
Hey Benn! I just wondered if there's any reason as to why "Programmable Love Songs" isn't on Spotity? I absolutely love that album, as it is very nostalgic to me. Much love
So you know that synth you pulled out to make music like you did 20 years ago with? Reverb has a fairly nice looking one up right now. Just thought I'd let you know.
Get 2 subs! And ones that are designed to cut somewhere above 100hz for more musical integration. It solves a lot of the problems people have (usually smoother room mode distribution) and it'll blend in with your speakers much easier, ime. Get 2 smaller/cheaper ones if you have to or better yet build your own with serious scaffolding inside.
Comments from an Electronics Engineer- Leaving electronics on causes earlier death of electrolytic capacitors in power supplies - since they are converting AC to DC they charge during the AC peak and discharge the other time - that ages them. If it is designed well (which is not necessarily anything to do with price) they could live longer than you or I. In PC power supplies though they skimp like crazy which is why you need to buy a new PC PSU every few years but not with audio gear. Earth loops - ethernet is transformer isolated and will not contribute to earth loops. The shielding on RCA cables does. The loops are made from a continous earth connection between devices via main power earth and signal RCA cable earths. Note you only need to connect two mains powered devices via 1 RCA cable and you have an earth loop. Any wire carrying AC current that passes through this loop forms a transformer and transforms it's voltage into the RCA cables shield and power cable earth which then is effectively added to the signal in the RCA cable. So do that powerboard trick, but also watch the path each cable takes to avoid loops. NOTE this is entirely separate to the no-earth problem which is where you need to fix your houses earth connection, both yield the hum.
I remember once at guitar center, the guy behind the desk in pro-audio asked if I wanted to purchase a Mogami MIDI cable ... told him my midi was clean enough.
I agree with all of it but cables. Good cables matter. I switched from cheap cables to using Mogami and I can see the difference in noise when editing in RX7.
What if I made a wavetable out of a sample or song on Audacity, plugged that wavetable into a wavetable synth and made a patch out of it? Would using that patch in a commercial recording be violating copyright law since the wavetable was sourced from copyrighted material? Is there even a way to prove that the wavetable's source is a copyrighted recording?
Hey, the insurance question is actually something I've been wondering about as a (and let me emphasize this here) HOBBYIST musician who's not making money of his/her/their music. As in my taxable income from music is zero, I do not get paid to do this, I do it because I love it and money is no object, etc, etc. But it is getting to the point where I have several thousand dollars worth of music hardware laying around and I want that insured so that I can be made whole in the event something terrible does happen. Is adding it to my homeowner's policy good enough then? Like, let's say we're talking about $10,000 worth of hardware, a dedicated PC, and software tied to that PC - Does any of that need to be insured separately? CAN I even insure software/Iloks? What if I own a synth that has gone out of production and market value is starting to increase over what I paid for it? Or what if I bought something vintage and the market value increased over what I paid? All of these and more are questions I have when it comes to insuring my studio. FWIW, I personally keep an emergency fund that could get me up and running with a new PC and my essential music software if I needed to start from scratch, but I doubt many musicians are similarly fortunate. I appreciate that you may not have gone in depth into all these situations because you're covering a lot in this video and trying to dispel confusion rather than cause any, but I work in accounting and I can't keep track of all this. I can only imagine how confused the average musician might be by the subject. I would love to know all the answers to these questions and all the other ones I'm not thinking to ask in a video if you are so inclined.
You'll need to check in your insurance policy. I'm not exactly familiar with the situation in the US, but broadly speaking, if you have a lot of expensive stuff at home, it *might* exceed the amount insured in your contract, in which case you'd need to check in with your insurer if it is possible to increase the amount insured (which would make your premiums go up, of course). And your policy might list certain kinds of things that are not covered. Your best course of action would be to a) check the terms of your policy directly and b) ask your insurance company or insurance broker for clarification. (This is not legal advice.)
I'd like to see some info on the most affordable way to stack you gear. Different stands and methods you can use for organizing a studio in a small space. There's not a lot of helpful videos that I am able to find that explain that
gotta admit when i clicked on this video i didn't expect the fiverr doctor to play a major part in it. life is full of wonderful surprises
he's one of the most prolific people on youtube and doesn't even have a channel
Theres a bar near my house, that specializes in Jazz, uh, Ellington Jazz Club, and whoever designed the sound proofing on that places is a god. The front of the place has these big windows, but if you walk by at night, you hear NOTHING. The second the bouncer opens the door your blasted with noise, but s soon as the door closes, nothing.Oh and inside the sound is immaculate. You can have a whole room of people talking, but somehow the band on stage will be playing and you'll hear it perfectly , but its not super loud, jazz people don't roll that way. Its just... perfect. What I can tell is that the whole place seems to be a room within a room. The front doors almost like an air-lock. Two doors a foot apart. The windows have a second window, and the walls seem to be super wide. I think they literally built the whole bar (Two stories!) as a suspended studio type thing. Its wild.
I have a friend who died on stage (he had to be brought back to life) due to a bad ground loop. DO NOT take the ground loop plug off of your stuff.
Extra info about phantom power: never use it for dynamic microphones (unless you have an active pre that requires it) and turn it off before unplugging the mic! I did kill my lovely Alesis io2 with the latter.
@15:06 my TL;DR here is put a HPF at 120Hz on literally every channel EXCEPT your sub & kick channels... Ez. Perfectly clean sub every time. As far as mixing it, I'd never mix sub-levels based on listening anyway (I always use a frequency analyzer & references). Note: I only mix electronic music, so the violin example is probably valid, although tbh, if you're not HFP'ing a violin anyway, wtf are you doing? xD
Pulled the ground peg out of a Fender Twin power plug once. Touched a mike while holding my guitar and ended up not being able to let go of either while 120 volts coursed through my body. if we had been in Europe I would be dead. Don't do it kids.
Electrocuted myself because someone did this to the twin at my high-school... smh
Must be something that has been recommended after many complaining of ground hum problems with the twin. Interesting🤔
Guitar Moderne, you are correct. Years ago, Keith Relf, the lead singer for the original Yardbirds, was practicing in his basement studio, and did exactly what you described. he had an ungrounded guitar, grabbed the mic, and it killed him. . .the UK has 220V AC.
The (mandatory ?) residual-current device (RCD) is normally there to help, certainly by now where most stuff hasn't a ground plug.
some famous musicians died on stage because of that
You just solved like 3 problems for me that have been driving me crazy for the last week.
good for you :}
You mention making your own samples in this, I would love to see a video of you showing how you personally go about that. I love your tube resonance video so much! I'd love to see more!
Doesn't "making your own samples" just mean actually composing original music?
@@a_8764 im p sure he means recording random stuff etc but yh
@@a_8764 Essentially just making a few bars of the style you want to sample.
Say you want to make a Justice style electro house song.
First, you start off by making a couple bars of just straight disco, sticking as close to possible to that 70s disco sound.
And then you sample and mangle the shit out of it. No doubt this takes way more talent than sampling an existing record, because you have to know how to produce the style that you want to sample.
Been listen since Acidwolf days, you are becoming the Bill Nye of music and I love it! You are my hero Benn.
DUDE!! I listened to "Arrival to an Empty Rooms" since it came out, i mustve been around 15 years old at that point. I have been revisiting "The Flashbulb" on Spotify every so often, not realising it was you lol. Only now i saw your face on Spotify and needless to say, my mind was blown haha
One thing that might get lost in this "sound proofing" discussion is: a) do you want to have the room to be for monitoring or b) do you not want the sound to get out. Some of tte answers overlap, but there's 2 different problems with 2 different solutions. Some of the solutions of making a good mixing room work for also insulatiing the room from the outside world but they are not the same thing.
I like how the “doctor” struggles with words. That. Are. Short. In. Length.
Anyway, bless him, he did a nice job. And great video, Benn.
Might be caught up trying to read normal handwriting instead of his own.
@@fhfoodproduct 😂
RE: "How do I sample" - the answers in this video were comprehensive and helpful, but they made one major assumption (it was a fine assumption) that people will be creating their sampled music in a for-profit framework. Of course this is the dominant framework for music. But isn't there more to the world of sampling? I guess I'm opening a "Fair Use" can of worms for remix and plunderphonics culture. These sample based art-forms live in a gray area out on the fringes of art. It's a worthy topic, but perhaps a ridiculous distraction from the primary question, but it's my favorite topic.
I sample and share everything that reaches me. I feel entitled and I don't care about shit. Fuck copyright law!! Because of it, regular people lost more liberties than most can imagine. In the world we live in, education is a choice. Those that stand behing copyrights are the gatekeepers, that try tо control things that are out of their control, punishing regular people only because they can.
And yes, I do understand the importance of licenses, and that shit is complicated, but still...
@@legitt6093 This is bonkers. The answer is not "fuck copyright," it's "fix copyright."
Do you want major record labels to be able to indiscriminately steal music from small independent artists? No? Well copyright is the only thing keeping them from doing that. Imagine if ad agencies were able to use your music in TV ads without paying you a dime.
The problem is that whatever protections we give to small artists, we also have to give to major rights holders, who tend to have more money to fight lawsuits. But the answer isn't "get rid of all copyright," it should be to figure out how we prevent money from determining winners in our court systems.
The doctor was excellent. Also, the ground loop explanation very helpful. Cheers
I would like to add that if you build a new studio you should stay away from light dimmers! Better to set up several circuits with different light sources to get that cosy feeling. Light dimmers can creata a hum extravaganza especially with electric guitars!
facts. I built my studio with dimmers and I had to remove them because they were incredibly noisy.
Anything I learn about dimmers is just straight up f you to anything in that electrical system its put in.
I was expecting a click baity video with shallow information and I got a wealth of knowledge that was actually entertaining too!
I'd love to see a similar video about the top music business questions and issues, as you clearly have the right experience as a self released artist with your own label.
Out of curiosity, if you thought the video was going to be subpar, why click on it?
Worth adding about soundproofing: consider if you really need it beyond solving a rooms reflective problems. You don’t actually want a dead room even if you could achieve it, music isn’t made in a dead room and even with sound treatment in a sound proof room your room is going to have its own sound so mixing its best just to ‘know’ the sound of your room and get it so it works for you. Making you a better mixer will be knowing your monitors and room setup intuitively that comes from a lot of listening in that room to many recordings and also listening to those recordings in many different situations. It’s worth listening to your own mixes done in your room on many different situations, in a car, on a phone, in earbuds ( shudder ). This will make you a better mixer than ugly ing up your room with a lot of mostly pointless foam* you want enough panels or sound absorbers in the room so that reflective areas are taken care of. Having soft furniture is good, rugs or thick carpet, a sofa, Ideally you don’t want your desk up against a wall you want some room behind your monitors and you want to be sitting in prime position between them. The former isn’t always possible. Unless you’re building a professional studio building for recording bands etc or mastering. Don’t sweat it to much. The skill is in the artist and your ears, not the room.
Analogue gear - Its a big subject but one thing none ever talks about is capacitors reaching electron saturation. They then sound their best and this takes a long time. Black Gate capacitors we used in hifi valve amps quote 3,000 hours use before they sound their best and certainly the system, even when run in, will sound better and better over the first few hours. Many valve hifi owners switch their gear on Friday morning for the weekend, switching it off before going to work on Monday.
Analogue synths really should be left on to stabilise tuning.
Lastly, ANYTHING with a switch mode (computer style) power supply shoudl be left off when not in use. The PSU is switching the mains 50,000 times a second and if that switching chip doesn't die then the dumping capacitors will. Here endeth the sermon.
DUDE. WTF. I knew this too. In the first 20 seconds my jaw dropped. Freaking love your music dude. Now I'm finding out you're cool as heck too, super aware of music/music production tips tricks and techniques (that I've been watching for time now too) and it didn't even click! Ahhh.
One other thing with insurance ( if you're touring and flying with your gear/instruments in the hold of the plane ) make sure to find an insurance company that insures your gear/instruments flightside i.e. when it's actually in the hold of a plane. With a lot of the cheaper insurance companies there is a clause that says your gear is not actually insured once you drop it off at security to right up until you pick it back up from the airport luggage belt on the other side. Therefore If it gets stolen, dropped, smashed up, lost by luggage handlers for example it will not be insured and you will get nothing. So double check the contract.
As a touring sound engineer for many years I've seen people caught out by this so be aware.
it absolutely kills me how many people conflate the concept of "fair use" in regards to transformative video content on youtube with sampling rights in music production. Music copyrights are their own beast. Thanks a lot for opening the video with some quick and dirty discussion in that area. The more people that know this stuff the better.
The fair use doctrine applies in music production just as it does in any other area of copyright law. Saying that sampling of any amount of a music recording is always a violation of copyright is simply false, fair use doctrine will allow some of this copying and disallow others. The problem is that the license holder can always choose to sue for infringement, even if it's likely to be a losing case under the law. So it's always safer to get permission to use a sample of a recording, but it's not always illegal to use a sample without permission. Benn's advice is the safest advice to follow, though not necessarily legally correct. For a quick overview of the actual law, you could look here: www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/permission-sampled-music-sample-clearance-30165.html
@@hsitz A good example of Fair Use. As bragged in my video, the Dove Evolution ad campaign used a remix of one of my already released songs, so they had to license the song and then hire me as a composer to customize it. The Ellen DeGeneres Show and many other media
ews outlets referenced the ad as it had a strong social statement. They played my music without licensing it when showing a small clip, this is fair use because copyright law preventing journalism is a potential First Amendment issue.
However, Alyssa Milano decided to make a parody of the ad to make a message about how Italian Americans are poorly portrayed on television. MTV loved the idea of this and put it on their website and aired it. I guess she figured it'd be fair use since it was a parody, and I guess MTV figured that she had already gotten permission to use my song, which she did not. Welp, they settled with my agency out of court for that misconception.
@@BennJordan I'm not sure what your point is exactly. The fact is that fair use doctrine applies to music sampling. The problem is that people don't always agree on what "fair use" is, and a litigious copyright-holder can sue or threaten to sue even in a situation where a court would, in the end, likely find it be a fair use. This leaves the little guy who wants to use a sample in a bad situation, in a world with litigious copyright holders. So like I said, the advice you gave is the safest advice, always get permission. Technically, however, permission is not always legally required, if it is a true fair use. It's just that even if your use is "fair use" you can still get sued. Yes, I'm a random guy on the internet, also a lawyer FWIW.
@@hsitz Yeah, I'm not arguing. I just figured that would be a good example in addition to what you said since it had 3 different types of usage of the exact same song. 🙂
@@BennJordan Interesting. I thought parodies were fair use...is that only for music? I'm watching a possible lawsuit unfold against Thunderf00t from Trevor Mahlmann...Thunderf00t's putting up videos on some of the email's of Trevor saying how he's going to get "litigious" on him. I think I'd rather steer clear of sampling anybody saying or doing anything...
Breh you're admirable asf for ur humor and knowledge thx
You have come a very very long way and i hope nothing but the best for you. Always giving answers to the questions I didn't know i needed.
I haven't spent a ton of time (or money) there but I like the tracklib model - not splice sample packs, just buy a song with a streamlined clearance process.
Dude, thorough AF, wasn't expecting an avalanche of actual info, you're making other yt'rs look bad, good job!
Loved the bit on my arch enemy & nemesis, copyright. Seriously, I hate it but I fear it's too late, so if I want to hear 'sorry inigo, I din't mean to jog him so hard' I'll do my own impression, out of meter and probably play that backwards for safety, ugh, I hate it I hate it I hate it!
Speaking of needlessly expensive digital cables, I once found a gold plated optical cable on amazon...
Installing a new grounding rod won’t help if the wall receptacles aren’t grounded. These days, the main usage of ground is tripping the breaker in case of a fault, i.e. when there is an exposed hot wire electrifying the metal components of an appliance. This is why appliances have a green ground screw that is in direct contact with the chassis, so that the current from an exposed hot wire immediately flows into the ground wire, to the panel, and trips the breaker.
03:50 What if the album is copyleft? Like Creative Commons Non commercial, attribution, share alike license. Is that a workaround having issues with IDs?
Re ground loops, when connecting active equipment to a mixer, run them through a passive DI box with a ground lift switch.
DIMMER SWITCHES! Those switches, on floor/table lamps or wall switches and ceiling fans can cause maddening noise issues. If your outlet is on the same circuit as one of these you will get noise. My downstairs neighbor had a dimmer switch and would drive me crazy because i had no idea it was there. It was intermittent because when the switch is off the noise went away!!! Took me months before I asked him about it! I finally found a different outlet but needed a 25' extension cable lol!
1:35 the benn jordan / internet comment etiquette shared universe, i did not expect this
"How to soundproof" missed something important: direct air paths are the most problematic. Which means, it has to be airtight. Ventilation is a major issue and it requires baffles and dust filters (in this case, there is one room between the recording space and rest of the building, which could serve as a "reservoir" for air, making the direct route more complicated). Doors are the first thing to attack when doing just light soundproofing. Direct coupling has MUCH less energy that comes from air, so if you keep all vibrating things decoupled from the floor and walls (not directly connecting to them but have something soft between), that will do a lot.
But, without room-in-a-room and very good air tightness where it counts, well designed ventilation... it is never going to be sound proofed, just less leakage.
16:37 Ethernet is electrically isolating using transformers. So unlike USB and many other computer interfaces, it does not cause ground loop problems
16:15 I think even if you connect every thing to one power strip you can still get ground loops because the other connections like USB, Audio, etc between your gear will enable/close the loop.
Star grounds (one strip) shorten the loop, shorter paths also help, and I use a good USB hub for all my gear near the gear, run to my PC. The noise is introduced on the differential between multiple grounds, so you can also run heavier ground wires with a better guage than your USB cables have. And like Ben said, move cables away from AC (and cross signal and power paths at right angles)
ever since your behind the scenes video, i've really grown to appreciate the lighting on the curtain behind you
An amazing breakdown on the studio. Wow!
re: insurance, you can individually schedule gear on an "inland marine" policy as an adjunct to your renter's/homeowner's insurance. That type of policy is designed for "I have this expensive thing that doesn't fit the regular policy," and musical instruments even have an extra form you can buy that insures it if you use it for gigs.
You can "emulate" a ground by using a GFCI extension. They are about $30 but they'll keep your gear safe.
Fun fact, up until 2022 japan ONLY relied on GFCI at the breaker and are only recently requiring a proper three prong outlet as opposed to a ground screw lug.
I actually really like the ghetto as hell soundproofing tip lmao! Thanks for the awesome vid as always!
Brilliant summary of the "piggy bank" questions**.
Of course, I had to delete my favorite (10 Euro) "Can't you filter out the vocals anyhow" sometime 10 years ago when AI-driven Stem and Track Isolation finally happened. So sad. Did mostly finance my vacation on its own....
I like you a lot, Sir! ;-)
**there's a piggy bank since my first studio in 2001 and next to it a list of stupid questions and how much they cost.
How weird is it that the existence of Patreon is what gets really high quality content produced more often on UA-cam though?
More seriously, thanks for this video. This is totally the kind of thing I would "smash that bell" for.
15:13 this could be perfect material for some kind of "out of context" compilation
Hey great vid man, I just wanted to say about phantom power that it can fry a ribbon microphone. Granted they're not very common, you're much more likely to find a condenser and dynamic mics but hey, there are some pretty legendary ribbon mics out there, beware ;)
Ground loops are not necessary an issue with the 120v side of power distribution. Loops can also come from the low voltage side of a power supplys that's built into hardware. Basically two power supplies are not playing nice with one another and power is trying to move from one source to another.... They make ground lift boxes and transformer isolation boxes to prevent this type of interference.
Before sampling was a thing the rule used to be 10s or 4 bars max whichever of those comes first (In the Netherlands at least)... In the '80 they changed it.. That's where the misconception comes from...
Ground loop -> DI box with ground lift. Also helps with getting shocks from your mic while holding a guitar...
Dude, 3 mins in now.. already worth my Patreon fee. You a/the man.
7:15 in JohnCenaCantDeal.gif
8:00 No!!!! ok, what about Isolation Transformers.. that's gotta help when you leave stuff on?
That section on grounding issues would have saved me so much time 12 years ago. I used to live in an old apartment that wasn't grounded at all. It made all my gear buzz like crazy and some electronics act strangely.
Thank you for making such informative and entertaining videos. I will subscribe to your Patreon.
Does anyone know the name of the track at around 4:25? Thanks!
I wanted to know the name of the one at 16:45, i believe they're unreleased and made only to use in these yt videos? Because i listened to several Fashbulb albums and never found it, was i just unlucky? lol
It's from his Flexe alias ua-cam.com/video/laF51OBIBTk/v-deo.html
Question about sampling music. What if you just do it for fun and experiment with your own creativity and practice. However, you are not making money out of it? What about these cases?
This is probably the most helpful and informative video I’ve ever seen
3:55 kek. i will immediately be sampling your music (i've never even heard it) and releasing it (nor do i release music on spotify) simply for the law suit. letsgo.
and i actually like you and respect your knowledge... but... boomer much? fuck that.
also, we're the same age.
alternative sound panels for dampening: I recommend getting panels made out of Basotect ... There should be some honest vendors out there who do not mark up and scalp these products to crazy prices... It is melamine-formaldehyde condensation resin foam and in ways designed by the company BASF to have sound-dampening characteristics and it does NOT cost an arm and a leg, despite many vendors telling you otherwise. A panel of this size ~39"x20"x2,8" (1000mmx500mmx30mm) is around 25euro and you should be able to get corner parts as bass traps as well for maybe 40-50... of course it is dampening and not soundproofing.
First answer seems to forget a major caveat: it is legal to sample someone else’s music without a license, and copyright infringement cannot technically even happen, *if the work is in public domain*. Which even copyrighted music automatically becomes, though many years later. Be careful though, laws can be obscure and vary by country.
Important thing here is that, even if a *song* (like Beethoven's Fifth) is in public domain, *recordings* of that song can still be under copyright., and most of the recordings you can buy on CD or find on UA-cam *are* under copyright. Under US law, copyright takes significantly over 50 years to expire, so the things you *can* legally sample will probably mostly be stuff that was originally recorded on shellac records or very early vinyls, with all the quality issues that period had.
Your content is great man, some helpful stuff for any producer here
I was always wondering if that guy was actually for hire hahaha
Also thank you for the free audible month trial. As a person who is broke at the moment (lol) I often use the Libby app that ties into my library card for audio books how ever audible has a few things I have been wanting to listen to. Thanks again
Also it ain’t much but im in the $1 tier of your Patreon which makes it really easy however I appreciate that your videos are available on oootube
HI Benn, I actually made a remix of your song 'I think in a minute or so I'll explode' the one that has been re-uploaded a few times... It was over ten years ago now..... I never thought to ask for a license as I didn't expect anybody to listen to it. I love your music so much. Did you ever hear it? If so did you like it?
link?
I totally feel that my Patreon money is well-spent with that doctor.
as if i didnt find you to be the most superb person ANYWAY... hiring the actor to play a doctor to ask all this is just..... arghhhh.... amazing
Again a winner! Thanks Benn.
Superb video as always, Benn. Excellent info.
Just pure nuggets of wisdom, thnx Ben!
what an amazing video thanks
I used to leave my studio monitors on all the time but then had a day long brown out. Lights were just barely visible. I was not home at the time so the monitors were on like this for a few hours. Within a week both of them stopped working. (capacitors)
The ground loop problem has driven me absolutely to distraction over the years. The annoying thing is that usually the solution is a simple one. It’s just such a time sucker though!
I do remember a song with a sample of « I got a feeling » that some young talented musician created but removed from his album
Such a shame for such a beautiful song
Gotta admit, that whole doctor thing was hilarious.
1:55 - Don’t forget that, in the US at least, there is that bizarre loophole that means you can seemingly ride roughshod over copyright IF it’s seen to be satirical to a judge…🤷♂️
being anti-subwoofer is being anti-fun
Having the doctor ask the questions makes it 10x better😂
To comment about Expensive Digital Cables Being Worth It, I've had USB, Firewire, and Thunderbolt cables be the culprit for malfunctions. Some of them are so coy, that they'd only produce the problem about once in a 30 minute span. Only by switching out every component could I blame it on the cable. They DO go bad sometimes. I've had some experience to know that brand name cables of at least medium build tend to fail less.
Trust me, change out your digital cable before you send your interface for repair.
I'm so glad that I found this channel, all the content I've seen til now has been top notch.
Rock on bro! I’m loving these videos
I just got an ad with the title "Small Chested Women Deserve Better" from the brasserie brand "Pepper" while playing this video.
At least UA-cam's ad algo didn't show that ad on your video "Why Aren't There More Female Producers?"! 😅
Thanks for the mention!
love you man, you're the best.
That blanket advice reminds me of putting mc's under a blanket with a torch, their rhymes and a mic 😆👍
I remember reading many times that the Saturn V rocket was the loudest noise ever produced by man, but the levels were only estimates at 190 - 210 decibels.
I would like to mention usb cables can make noise when it is near an amp (interference I guess). So when I changed my usb cables for better ones, I had better sound with my keyboard amp.
@13:41 that's actually not entirely true. Sure, a good digital signal will be indistinguishable, yes. But bad cables can cause lots of issue, hdmi is a good example, some cables don't have the right pins connected properly and signal quality is important especially for bandwidth needs, that's why expensive cable testers can give you an eye graph, LTT has a good video about this.
As for noise, as a beginner it's surprising how many (cheaper and intermidediate) tools have surprising amount of self-noise and it can throw people off who don't have a readily available reference to use. I was surprised with my Kali LP6-s (that sound very nice) are actually quite noisy just by themselves.
Great video. Mostly the sampling info but i eas curious about song covers if that works the same way?
I can honestly say I knew the answers to all 8 questions shown at 1:04 before I knew what Google was.
Hey Benn! I just wondered if there's any reason as to why "Programmable Love Songs" isn't on Spotity? I absolutely love that album, as it is very nostalgic to me.
Much love
So you know that synth you pulled out to make music like you did 20 years ago with? Reverb has a fairly nice looking one up right now.
Just thought I'd let you know.
Please keep in mind that phantom power can damage (especially older) ribbon mics!
Everyone make sure to take care of your thirty thousand dollar ribbon mics
Get 2 subs! And ones that are designed to cut somewhere above 100hz for more musical integration. It solves a lot of the problems people have (usually smoother room mode distribution) and it'll blend in with your speakers much easier, ime. Get 2 smaller/cheaper ones if you have to or better yet build your own with serious scaffolding inside.
Thanks Ben, I love you
Any chance you could do some production tutorials? I'm a especially a big fan of porchfire and undiscovered colors
Comments from an Electronics Engineer-
Leaving electronics on causes earlier death of electrolytic capacitors in power supplies - since they are converting AC to DC they charge during the AC peak and discharge the other time - that ages them. If it is designed well (which is not necessarily anything to do with price) they could live longer than you or I. In PC power supplies though they skimp like crazy which is why you need to buy a new PC PSU every few years but not with audio gear.
Earth loops - ethernet is transformer isolated and will not contribute to earth loops. The shielding on RCA cables does. The loops are made from a continous earth connection between devices via main power earth and signal RCA cable earths. Note you only need to connect two mains powered devices via 1 RCA cable and you have an earth loop. Any wire carrying AC current that passes through this loop forms a transformer and transforms it's voltage into the RCA cables shield and power cable earth which then is effectively added to the signal in the RCA cable. So do that powerboard trick, but also watch the path each cable takes to avoid loops. NOTE this is entirely separate to the no-earth problem which is where you need to fix your houses earth connection, both yield the hum.
I remember once at guitar center, the guy behind the desk in pro-audio asked if I wanted to purchase a Mogami MIDI cable ... told him my midi was clean enough.
Great video, much appreciated!
weirdly interactive, subbed!
Thank you for all your high quality content and thank you for selling me a Polyend Perc =)
I agree with all of it but cables. Good cables matter. I switched from cheap cables to using Mogami and I can see the difference in noise when editing in RX7.
Have you tried any double blind studies with just your ears?
What if I made a wavetable out of a sample or song on Audacity, plugged that wavetable into a wavetable synth and made a patch out of it? Would using that patch in a commercial recording be violating copyright law since the wavetable was sourced from copyrighted material? Is there even a way to prove that the wavetable's source is a copyrighted recording?
Hey, the insurance question is actually something I've been wondering about as a (and let me emphasize this here) HOBBYIST musician who's not making money of his/her/their music. As in my taxable income from music is zero, I do not get paid to do this, I do it because I love it and money is no object, etc, etc. But it is getting to the point where I have several thousand dollars worth of music hardware laying around and I want that insured so that I can be made whole in the event something terrible does happen. Is adding it to my homeowner's policy good enough then? Like, let's say we're talking about $10,000 worth of hardware, a dedicated PC, and software tied to that PC - Does any of that need to be insured separately? CAN I even insure software/Iloks? What if I own a synth that has gone out of production and market value is starting to increase over what I paid for it? Or what if I bought something vintage and the market value increased over what I paid? All of these and more are questions I have when it comes to insuring my studio.
FWIW, I personally keep an emergency fund that could get me up and running with a new PC and my essential music software if I needed to start from scratch, but I doubt many musicians are similarly fortunate.
I appreciate that you may not have gone in depth into all these situations because you're covering a lot in this video and trying to dispel confusion rather than cause any, but I work in accounting and I can't keep track of all this. I can only imagine how confused the average musician might be by the subject. I would love to know all the answers to these questions and all the other ones I'm not thinking to ask in a video if you are so inclined.
You'll need to check in your insurance policy. I'm not exactly familiar with the situation in the US, but broadly speaking, if you have a lot of expensive stuff at home, it *might* exceed the amount insured in your contract, in which case you'd need to check in with your insurer if it is possible to increase the amount insured (which would make your premiums go up, of course). And your policy might list certain kinds of things that are not covered. Your best course of action would be to a) check the terms of your policy directly and b) ask your insurance company or insurance broker for clarification.
(This is not legal advice.)
So can you make your own samples that sound very similar ("just different enough") to a sample you want to use?
This is genius, thanks man!
I'd like to see some info on the most affordable way to stack you gear. Different stands and methods you can use for organizing a studio in a small space. There's not a lot of helpful videos that I am able to find that explain that
Cardboard is EXCELLENT.