Cables, connectors, patch-bays, pedals, and the disappearance of tone.

By Tim Dolbear - www.timdolbear.com

A few "a-ha!" moments that shaped how I handle my signal flow.

In the late 1980's while playing in many different rock bands, I built a huge guitar rig; 2 Seymour Duncan 100 watt tube heads that powered 2 Marshall fullstacks, 2 Midiverb II, 1 Midiverb 3, a Digitech ISP33 harmonizer, BBE, a Rane sub mixer and all controlled with a midi switching system. It was held in a 24 space shockmount rack the size of a refrigerator... and weight in at about 250lb. As I slowly built it up over the years, with every new addition to make it better I had not realized that my tone was getting squeezed out ... 

I went to a rehearsal with a new band and was so bummed that my tone seemed to just have disappeared. At the 2nd rehearsal I simply place one of my Seymour Duncan heads in a small rack, and plugged my guitar straight into the head, and the head straight into a Marshall cabinet and nothing in the FX loop. It sounded Amazing! My tone was back!

In 2000, I played electric guitar in a band and was using just a combo amp. One time I took a 12ft Monster cable to a show instead of my normal Belden 30ft guitar cable since this was in a small stage setup and I would be a few feet from my amp.   

All seemed well till I got to the solo of the first song and all of gain was gone! It felt and sounded like all the mid had disappeared and my gain knob had been turned down... I figured something on the amp had died or was dying. When I got home I plugged it in and had the same issue, so I unplugged the 12ft Monster cable and plugged in my normal 30ft cable and all my mid was back and the gain felt and sounded as it should. What did I learned?  Different lengths cause different resistances, leading to different frequency response and output levels.

(Edit) The lack of highs and lows on the Belden cable gave it a mid heavy response, the Monster had the opposite, more highs and lows, so my amp being dialed in for the mid heavy Belden sounded weak without the mid-heavy sounding input.

Of course there is lots of talk about pedals nowadays since huge collections of pedals are now placed inline before the amps of some players. Some pedals use it's circuit while bypassed, meaning the signal is still going through the pedal's electronics even when bypassed, which of course changes the way the amp and guitar react to each other. A cable straight to an amp's input, allows the guitar/amp relationship to work smoothly, but adding a pedal cuts that relationship and the guitar's pickups are now reaction and relating to the buffer/circuit/pedal. 

So in comes the "true-bypass" pedals solution. A pedal that when bypassed simply sends the input signal straight out the output to the amp or next pedal(s). The only thing that is now being added to the signal chain or path is the connectors, small internal wires of the pedals bypass circuit and a switch. Of course an extra guitar cable is also inline; guitar to pedal, pedal to amp. That's still a lot added to the signal.

In about 2005 at Eclectica Studios the last of the 3 "A-Ha!" moment happened. I have always used a patchbay for patching preamps to compressors and EQs and to the AD converters. It made it so I can patch and make multiple combinations. 

I decided to connect my Manley Preamp directly to the Ashly Compressor without the patchbay just to see if there was a difference. There was a definite improvement to the sound, better resolution and all-around tone. The Patchbay and extra cable patching had been steeling tone all these years. 

Now the patchbays are long gone and all my frontend pieces are directly connected. The patchbay, the extra patching cables, all playing a part in the degrading the sound. There are many considerations of course; connectors dying, oxygenation, type of connectors, +4 or -10 operation, type of cables, low-z or high-z impedance... you get the picture. Eliminating extra links improves the signal's integrity. And remember to clean your connectors often, they can become oxidized quickly and a weak electrical connection can creep in. 

So, how about an audio example I hear you ask... 

The signal coming out of a guitar is such a low voltage, its easily affected by various elements injected into the equation. Thus... the easiest to show in my example. But please test these theories on your own systems and studio setups. Bypass anything and everything that can be taken out of your signal chain; pedals, patchbays, extra cables, swap out longer cables with shorter ones...and replace any cheap or "so-so" cables with good quality ones. 

Our test setup; 

Les Paul (Gibson 57 pickups), into a Republic Amp (My Custom 50watt) into a 1976 Marshall 4x12 with the original Greenback Celestion 25watt speakers.  

Audix D1 mic into a Great River MP-2NV preamp with the EQ-2NV EQ (All bands off, HP set to 33Hz) into a 1981 Ashly SC55 into a Apogee AD16 A/D converter.  

Room mics are a stereo pair of sE5 mics into my old 8ch Altec mic pre into a Ashly CL-50 compressor, into the Apogee AD-16 A/D converter. 

All recordings were done at 96k, Sample rate conversion to the final 16bit 44.1k test files used Saracon SRC. 

(click "Example" to hear or Download all )

Example 1;  12ft Monster instrument cable

Example 2;  30ft Belden instrument cable

Example 3;  21ft Monster instrument cable

Example 4;  21ft Monster cable into a Boss SD-1 pedal, bypassed (Buffered) into a 12ft Monster cable to the amp. 

DOWNLOAD all 4 so you can listen on good speakers...

As well as the sound changing when swapping the cables out, the feel when playing changed. The touch of the guitar and how the amp reacted to my playing changed even more drastically. 

I hope you found this interesting, I live by this stuff!  What you should take away from this... Its a signal chain and every single link makes a difference. Every element, especially anything that happens before a Preamp or Guitar amp... meaning anything before the signal is changed from mic or instrument level into line level is the most susceptible to degradation. But line level signal changes and morphs too. So run some listening test, and let your ears guide you. 

Tim's Worship Leader's guide to Leading Worship

By Tim Dolbear - www.timdolbear.com

My Background…

I started playing on worship teams in about 2000 at a small church in So Cal.  I really had no idea what I was doing in the beginning other than just playing music as I always have. Leading worship/playing on a worship team was a completely new thing for me as I had grown up performing is clubs and bigger venues in hard rock bands, even backing up famous performers such as Sammy Hagar. Now suddenly I found myself surrounded by volunteers and most musicians were beginners.  Looking back, I approached everything wrong. After a while my wife Angela and I started leading worship or performing original Christian music at various churches as special guest. Over the next 6 years we played all over the place.

When we moved to Austin we started leading worship at Northwest Fellowship, our home church ever since, even when we were out serving at other churches and church plants. For 8 years, Angela and I lead worship on Sundays and Wednesday nights at just about every denomination of Christian church.  Every church we served at seemed to always have drama surrounding the worship team and crazy issues going on. These served as wonderful learning experiences for me. Through much prayer, attending worship leader conferences and of course following the Holy Spirit, I have learned so, so much about leading worship.

While teaching at RBC Ministries a few years ago, they asked me to share my experiences. After which they encourage me to share it with any and all who would listen and my blog seems as good a place to share as any. 

So brace yourself and take a deep breath, as I am sure some of this cause you to want to curse my name. But pray through it and really remember that it’s all about worshiping Him, not feeding our own egos and flesh.

Enjoy!

Leading worship: (After point 1, there is no particular order of importance)

1.       If you are on a Worship team or are a Worship leader, you must be in God’s Word.

2.       You are leading worship, leading God’s people into Worship of Him, you are not performing, you are leading God’s people into a time of Worship of the living God!  If you want to perform, that’s perfectly fine, just not at church. It’s not about you. If you want to perform, go book a gig and play a show.  Do not play on a worship team because it’s your only avenue to get to play in front of people.

3.       A worship leaders worships, and is in a state of worship. When you are worshiping God, then those attending will see you worshiping God and hopefully will start to worship Him too. If you are not engaged, they will not be either.

4.       If you do not know the music, and are staring at a music stand, you are not worshiping, so learn and memorize your parts. This will free you to worship and be ready to follow the Spirit when He makes a move.

5.       Worship is the only part of a Sunday service that is for God, and God Alone.  He does not need the announcements, tithes, teaching…

6.       Someone must be in charge and lead. Our God is not a God of chaos. We must be rehearsed and be ready. The worship community needs checks and balances riddled with mentoring and exchanging of Prayers for one another.

7.       Congregational singing is where everyone sings the melody, no harmonies. I truly believe that is how worship should be lead. When you bring in harmonies, one of two things happens, they are done well and the congregation starts to listen to the performance and stops worshiping, or they are done badly and are a distraction.  …And together they sang with one voice “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty”.

8.       Everything you do leading worship, you will stand accountable for before Jesus.

Distractions

Make sure you do not do anything that distracts worshipers from their time with God. This includes ANYTHING that attracts their attention away from their time with Him.  Everything has the potential to be distracting, so be on guard, the Devil loves to draw worshiper’s attention away from worshiping.

(in random order)

1.       No guitar solos or vocal runs to show off your “abilities”. I am not talking about nice melody parts, I am talking full blown "look at me" Eddie Van Halen guitar solo time. You know when the congregation stop worship and turns and watches the guitar player. We have all seen this happen.  Do you really want to stand in front of Jesus and answer His question “Why where you trying to steal my spotlight and the attention of those worshiping me?”

2.       Talking and preaching. I have seen the Spirit just leave the room because the leader wants to give a mini-sermon. Even a short few words can completely stop the flow. And on that subject, do not start the reflective song after the sermon by re-preaching, or worse, go another direction and disrupt what the pastor has left the body to pray and reflect on. 

3.       Make sure the lyrics are correct on the screen, and available. Even some missing lyrics not showing up is a big distracting.

4.       Do not introduce 4 new songs in a service. Unknown songs are distracting.

5.       Do not endlessly vamp. There seems to be a trend right now to ad lib and vamp lyrics over and over again. This is lost on the congregation and really is just a narcissistic and chaotic style of worship.  Watch the congregation, they all stop worshiping and the only person into it is the person doing it…

6.       Bad sound is a distraction.  Have your sound system dialed in and your staff trained.  Do not use a rotation of 4 inexperienced people to run the sound as they never have enough time behind the board to become fluent and stay fluent as they only serve once a month.  Find one or two people that can take “ownership” of this area.

Musicians and songs

1.       I say no harmonies at all, but if you insist for your own ego to do them… then do not sing harmonies if you have no idea about music theory. Example; the lead vocal sings the melody, a 2^nd vocalist singing a 3^rd above; normal church harmony. But then I have heard a 3^rd vocalist putting a 3^rd on top of the 3^rd harmony, making is an Aug 5^th above the root. Not good. If you do not understand what I just said, you should not be singing harmonies.

2.       Be conscious of the key of the song, make it so both men and women can sing along in an easy range.

3.       If you are the lead vocalist, sing the melody and do not stray.  It’s amazing how many lead vocalist worship leaders will jump up and sing the harmony part. When the lead vocalist switches to the harmony, the music is no longer in key. The congregation will also chase the vocals up to the harmony part too, but since they are used to the way the song goes normally they will gets stuck, and they stop singing and are distracted.

4.       Strive for excellence. so you are ready for a move of the Spirit.

5.       “iSongs” That is what we call a song that has the wrong perspective for Worship.  Example; “I will worship. I will do this, I will do that…” how is talking about how awesome we are for worshiping God, worshiping God?  …And together they sang with one voice “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty”.   Praise Him, not boost about what we are doing for Him.  Think of the song “Grace Like Rain”.  Run through the lyrics of the chorus in your head. Great song, but now a worship song.  How is singing those lyrics to God, worshiping Him?

6.       If you are an electric guitar player, stop messing with your pedal board. You are supposed to be worshiping, not playing with your toys.  

7.       You can’t worship if you are trying to find your way, starring at a music stand. The songs have 4 chords, just learn the songs.  And if you have to read the lyrics, you did not practice the songs enough. Worship, don’t read.

I hope this helps you and motivates you and that you seriously consider all of this and pray on it. 

Tim's Studio Terminology

By Tim Dolbear www.timdolbear.com

Tim Dolbear's Eclectica Studio's terminology:

1. "Polishing a turd" - The acted of mixing a less than good song, doing extra special production tricks to shine it up. Its shiny and pretty, but its still a turd.

2. "Adding some cheese to the taco"   - When mixing an 80's hairband, and you realized you have mixed it too modern and have to go back and add dated production ideas to make it acceptable to the client.  While adding this cheese, you say to yourself,  "eewww, gawd, this is terrible, they are going to love this!!"

3. "LSD"  - This one came from Keith Olsen's meaning "Lead singer's disease"  When a singer is acting like a lead singer...

4. "VD"  - "Vocal destruction" You know when you are mixing a track that was recorded elsewhere and you start by mixing the drums, then bring in the bass, and  the guitars and get the music just sounding great, big smile on your face... then you bring up the lead vocal fader and the track just goes into the toilet.  Here was this great track you were nail'n and the vocals just ruin it. Doesn't mater how much polishing of the turd you do, the vocals are still crap and are destroying  the track...

5. "Really..."  Meaning you "seriously want to keep that take?"

6.  "Hmm, what do you think?" means "I don't like it, how about you?"

...the studio with the strangest history...Studio Victor in Montreal.

By Tim Dolbear - www.timdolbear.com

While in Montreal last week, I hung out with Gaetan Pilon, owner and operator of Studio Victor.  He invited me back to his studio for a tour and walk through the strangest history I have ever heard about for a studio.

So the story goes that they rented this top floor of a building in Montreal to build a studio, and in the big room, that was used for manufacturing, they started to tear out the drywall and realized there were beautiful wood sound baffles behind the wall. These beautiful walls had 2x4 studs and drywall just nail to them... As the building of their new studio continued they did a little research about the building and found out this room was the original Victorla factory for the original record players and then became the home of Victor/RCA and this was the studio!

But wait there is more...

Once the original studio was closed the room was sealed up and the Canadian space program moved in and the first Canadian Satellites were built in this room!

Crazy, so read all about it by following this link and tour this beautiful studio with an amazing sounding and looking liveroom... oh yeah they have a SSL6000.

http://studiovictor.ca/en/hystory/

The best sound system I have ever experienced!

By Tim Dolbear - www.timdolbear.com

I went to Montreal last week and one of the 2 studios I visited was Le Lab Mastering a mastering studio run by Marc Thériault.  He (a Samplitude user) attended one of my Samplitude tutorials I was doing the day before and we have met at various AES events prior to this and invited me out to his place.

http://www.lelabmastering.com/en/studio

On the way to his studio, my friend Phil Bouvrette told me about how he had an expensive monitoring system and the studio sounded good, but I have visited dozens of the top mastering studios rooms over the years and to be honest, I hear major issues in most and other just sound like a stereo system in a living room, kinda dull and no big deal, mediocre stereo image...

Upon entering Le Lab Mastering, you are greeted with a nice looking high end mastering studio. Marc asked if I bought anything to listen to and I hadn't so I suggested he simple play something that was mixed well he had finished mastering.

I then sat down in the sweet spot, the engineer's position and a open sounding jazz track was played.  I was FLOORED!

I am lucky to have a wonderful sound stage or stereo image at Eclectica studios, and the freq range is reproduced well, but this was a entirely different next level experience. The sound floated in mid air, the speakers seemed to not even be there... the frequency response was perfect top to bottom, the clarity was superb, this was the end all be all.

This was life changing. You know me, you know I have been around a long while. Never have I hear music, a recording, played back so perfectly, it was simply awesome!

Lets talk money...
The main speakers are the 'Focal Grande Utopia EM (EM for Electro Magnet Woofer) at $200K a pair, the sub's an extra $6500 each, and the amps and room design... Lets say $250k for the monitoring system, usually at this point I scoff and say "snake oil" but for the first time ever I say it would be worth it. If this was you main piece of gear, having a $2000/month payment would be worth it if you are a studio like Le Lab Mastering that is very busy. Of course they are very busy because they do wonderful work, they do wonderful work because they have a fantastic system, so I guess you would need to jump in head first...

Anyway, I was floored, my life is changed, my listening experience is never going to be the same, and I am thrilled I got to experience this undescribable sound.

New top-of-the-line EQ added to the Eclectica Studio arsenal.

By Tim Dolbear - www.timdolbear.com

Eclectica Studios: New Equipment added.

The Great River EQ-2NV

The Great River EQ-2NV is a Neve 1081/1083 style EQ with a few enhancements such as digitally controlled analog circuitry and selectable bell shapes. This amazingly flavored EQ can work stand alone or patch into my Great River MP-2NV 2 channel mic pre so the EQ section sits correctly in the signal chain creating a wonderful channel strip with flavor and mojo for days!.

Read more about this EQ considered one of the best EQs for music production available at
http://www.greweb.com/eq-2nv.html

Testing a new Headphone amp...

By Tim Dolbear - www.timdolbear.com

How do you know when a piece in your monitoring chain is good?  Not only does it sound awesome, but reveals flaws, errors, distortions, clicks, pops, bad edits (other people made) and so on....So many great sounding pieces sound good but don't reveal important stuff.  they have a nice sound but not the resolution and clarity.  Take that to the bank... now go make some music!

More about this nice little HP amp soon.