The great thing about Winter (at least in England) is that it's so miserable outside that creating music is a great reason to stay inside where it's nice and warm. It's either that or the pub...
This week I want to talk about the idea of adding colour to your productions.
Colour is one of those ambiguous terms that gets chucked around constantly by producers. But what does it mean?
When a process adds colour to an instrument or piece of audio. It normally means that either 2 new things have been added:
1. Harmonics - New frequencies that are harmonically related to the fundamental frequency (the lowest pitched frequency) - usually either creating odd or even overtones.
Even Harmonics - If you have a frequency of 100Hz and you use a process like saturation you might create new harmonics at 200Hz, 400Hz, 600Hz, etc.
Odd Harmonics - If you have a frequency of 100Hz and you use solid state amplification you might create new harmonics at 300Hz, 500Hz, 700Hz, etc.
2. Noise - New frequencies that are not related to the fundamental harmonically. Essentially additional random frequencies - EG: White Noise.
Pretty much every audio process can colour the sound in some way. Compression, Saturation, Distortion, Amplification, Tape Simulation, Preamps, EQ and Microphones all do.
Over time you will discover which processes you prefer the sound of. For instance, I love the sound of even harmonics, tube amp saturation is a good example of this.
If you want a simple way to explore this in Logic Pro, open up the effect 'Chromaglow' and play around with the different presets.
Okay, I'm done geeking out about frequencies...
Adam
P.S: If you want to master Logic Pro this year - I specifically made this course to help you do that.
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