Blogs

Here is what to expect from the next major upgrade of Orinj – to version 10.

Below are several mistakes to avoid when arranging songs.

First, a back story: Years ago, I sat with a session drummer and went over one of my early songs. His first words were: "This riff is great, but I am already bored." I was a beginner and the whole exercise was an eye-opener. It was the first time I thought about arrangement seriously and understood that three chords and a riff do not make a song.

I am now working on one of my first songs – an even earlier one. It has issues.

In the first post, we used the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) to compute the magnitudes and phases in a signal. In the second post, we computed pitch shifted magnitudes and phases. In this last post, we will construct the new, pitch shifted signal.

In the previous post, we used the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) to compute the magnitudes and phases in a signal. In this post, we will pitch shift these magnitudes and phases. In the next post, we will construct a new, pitch shifted signal.

We will deconstruct a pitch shift, since it is one of the more complex processing of digital audio. We will use the Fourier transform to detect frequencies. We will then pitch shift these frequencies and construct the pitch shifted signal.

I am hosting VSTs. I built a DAW. I want that DAW to handle VST gracefully. And I am learning – a bunch…

I am a music lover who studied math and started coding by chance. My work gravitated naturally towards digital signals and then audio DSP. I consider myself well versed in DSP, as I have designed, used, and sold DSP audio effects and guitar amp models. But I am not an engineer. I meet with some engineers who design tube guitar amps and, honestly, I have no idea what they are talking about. We have no common language.

Orinj version 8.0.0 is a beta release with several important changes and numerous other improvements.

New auxiliary channels

Auxiliary channels in Orinj version 8 are session tracks. They are shown as tracks in the session and allow all the controls that other tracks use, including effects and envelopes (automation).

Here are my most important mixing rules.

Take mixing one step at a time

Understand what you want to do and why you are doing it. If you a solving a problem in the mix, understand what that problem is. Take care of one thing at a time.

I just spent a day with a guitar track that had too much sustain and was dry and muddy. I got rid of the sustain, checked the mid to low end, added sizable reverb, and tried different panning. None of that worked. I realized that the only thing bothering me was a sustained ringing around 3.5 kHz. I added a slight EQ (/wiki/equalizer) notch around that frequency. This allowed a more interesting reverb. The sustain no longer bothered me, so compressors were not necessary. With the new reverb, the low end was not as much of an issue. I tried many things, until I understood that I only needed a slight EQ.