#polycentric

[idolsapphire-stars]

Spent my whole lunch break and then some sneaky work breaks on this. Im quite contented with them 💙💜🩵❤️💖

[worldurbanplanning]

Location | Nenjiang County, Heilongjiang, China The county used to be called the green land, as you can see why. Largely the economy is driven by agricultural activity. It has a fertile soil and is one of the chinese counties which are producing among the most grain. Moreover, the county has been recognised as China’s Soybean county. Here an image showing the ‘polycentric’ villages where agricultural activity occurs. #china #nenjiang #heilongjiang #worldurbanplanning #urbanplanning #cityplanning #agriculture #village #polycentric #aerial #aerialview #dronestagram #도시계획 #중국 #rural #landscapearchitecture #architecture (at Nunchien, Heilongjiang, China) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxwKWSRhw_-/?igshid=60k0bnac3jy6

[brandondonnelly]

The city as an egg

This week I have been thinking and reading about monocentric and polycentric cities. In urban real estate economics, the monocentric city model has historically been an important economic model. Developed in the 1960s, it attempts to explain land use in cities with one core, or central business district (CBD).

In its most simplest terms, the model states that as you move further away from that core, land prices will fall. But since retail and employment need to be at the center of large catchment areas, they will remain in the middle, while the residential will naturally spread out.

When you begin to factor in transportation costs, there is an argument to be made for why inner cities neighborhoods were often poorer in North American cities (no car; higher transportation costs) and why the suburbs were often wealthier. In this latter case, the rich wanted to consume more home/real estate and their transportation costs weren’t as significant. They had cars and subsidized highways in which to drive them on.

Of course, there are many ways in which you could argue against the above. Today, urban neighborhoods are some of the most desirable areas in many cities. 

But perhaps the most obvious thing to question is the idea that cities only have one central business district. I mean, just look at all the employment nodes in Toronto. Yes, downtown Toronto is still the dominant zone, but could we really be considered monocentric?

From what I remember, the model had mechanisms for dealing with polycentricity. But at the same time, so much has changed since the 1960s. The central business district with its big department store was only just getting introduced to the likes of fully enclosed, climate-controlled suburban malls. And of course today, we are now living in a world of Amazon Prime and independent workers.

So what does this mean for cities?

Well, as I was reading up on this topic I stumbled upon this diagram by architect Cedric Price (1934-2003):

I wish I knew exactly when this diagram was created, but I wasn’t able to find that online. In any event, the diagram uses different kinds of eggs -- boiled, fried, and then scrambled -- to explain the urban morphology of cities over time.

In the ancient world, cities had a clearly defined core and a clearly defined perimeter -- often a wall for defence (boiled egg). In the 17-19th centuries, cities started to expand outwards through the advent of technologies like rail. This gave them a more irregular shape (fried egg). And then finally, Cedric argues that the modern city had, or would, become all mixed together like scrambled eggs.

I wouldn’t say that our cities have become completely scrambled. But I would agree that we are moving away from the simple fried egg of a city (or monocentric city model). So I guess the big question is really: How scrambled do you think we’ll get?

[polycentricinc]

Making guitars sound good.

There’s a few things that aren’t easy to notice, but are done on all recorded songs. 

Here’s the three most important rules of making guitars sound good:

1. Hard Panning - This means that you need two distinct guitar recordings to make a good rhythm track. (or lead, it sounds great too.)  What I do, since I don’t have a real amp, is record the guitar part two times, played separately to a click track.  If you have an amp and two microphones (matching or not), you put them both on the speaker in slightly different places, and record two mono tracks from that.  Then take these two guitars tracks and pan one completely left, and one completely right.  This is how ALL rock guitars are done, ALL OF THEM.  NO EXCEPTION.

2. Click track - I already showed you how to make one.  The reason is essential.  This is one of the biggest differences between professional sounding music and bad recordings.  Timing is the basis of all music.  If you can’t play in time, you must learn how to fake it.  If you send your music to anyone, even friends, they will probably not want to listen to it if it isn’t in time.  It’s tedious, but absolutely essential.

3. Volume! - I can tell you this AND I can provide examples and proof and everything, but you’ll ignore me.  The fact is, guitars don’t have to be very loud.  Especially distorted guitars.  But you’re going to do it anyway, just like the Foo Fighters.

Volume priority for rock music: (Loudest to quietest)

kick/snare drum vocals bass guitar guitar toms keyboards/others cymbals

That isn’t absolute, but it’s a good guideline.  Reason is, guitars and cymbals cut through, they always do, no need for crazy volume.  Bass drums get drowned out in mixes, so prioritize it.  It must have presence.  I prefer bass louder than guitar for the same reason, bass doesn’t always cut through.

[polycentricinc]

Garageband Lesson 4

So, you’ve got a master track all ready.  Let’s make some midi tracks and make some sound.

Switch back to the software instrument editor, or just press [command+option+N] to create a new track.  I know you already have a midi grand piano there, but make a new track anyway.  It will give you this pop-up: 

Choose software instrument for now.  We’ll cover real instruments in a bit.  So, it basically makes another grand piano track.  Make sure the second piano is selected, and click the browse tab, so you have the list highlighted here:

Choose drum kits and then choose either hip hop, pop, or techno kit.  Doesn’t matter yet.  We’re making a click track, because rhythm is usually the easiest part to make first.  Click the edit tab, and activate the compressor.  It needs a little adjustment:

Pretty much like it looks there.  The threshold needs to be fairly high, ratio all the way right, attack all the way left, and gain around +1.0.  This is just to boost the “click”.  You can turn it up or down as needed from here too.  (Use the Gain control.)

So, now that you have a drum kit selected and ready, [command+click] anywhere in this highlighted area:

It will create a region for placing midi events.  Double click this region to bring up the midi editor:

I have mine set to the score editor already.  In order to make a click track, you just have to place very low F#’s in this region and then loop it.  You can set the editor to use quarter notes, but it’s not necessary.  Mostly because drum events have their own duration and aren’t set by the midi note durations.  So, place 4 quarter notes at the low F#, like this:

Once that’s done, you want to loop that for a while.  So go to the region:

If you go to the top right of that region, the cursor turns to the looping tool.  Click and drag that right for as long as you want.  If you move down slightly, to the bottom right of that region, you can click and drag to make the region longer, without looping it.  If you click in the middle, where the cursor is normal, it will move the whole region.  Notice I moved the region before looping it to give some empty space in the beginning of the track, this is always useful.

Once the click track is setup, and looped, you will want to either play or hum along or something to get your tempo.  Adjust it here, make sure you’re in the master tab:

This doesn’t have the be done now, but if you’re recording real instruments, the tempo can’t be adjusted after you have recorded, so it’s important to get it right.

You can either program some midi for that grand piano or begin recording a real instrument at this point.  I will move to real instruments, so make a new track. [command+option+n]

Choose real instrument.  Never choose electric guitar, even if you use one.

Once the track is created, you need to connect something to it.  So plug in your USB audio interface if you haven’t already.  It will usually auto-detect and switch to your interface automatically, but if it doesn’t, or if you want to check, click Garageband from the menu bar and click preferences, the click the second tab, Audio/Midi:

Make sure the Audio Output and Audio Input both say whatever your interface’s name is.  System setting is default, and I don’t have my interface plugged in at the moment, but once that’s set, exit the menu.

Now, go up to Track on the menu bar:

Choose the one hightlighted there, “Enable Multitrack Recording”, this allows for arming more than one track at a time.  Also select “Show Monitoring for Real Instrument Tracks”.  This just makes life a little easier.

Next, you need to make sure your interface is ready to go.  It has it’s own controls and volumes, all of which is analog, so adjust it actively and make sure you read your manual to know what it can do.  Then make sure you are on the right interface track here:

Change the input source if it’s not correct, depending on how many channels your interface has, and which one you’re using, this takes a second.  You can also control the monitor signal here, if you want.  This simply allows you to hear or not hear what you are doing through your headphones or speakers.  It can cause feedback, so I prefer to leave them off unless I’m using headphones and actively recording.

Next take a look at the track:

Along the bottom of that, from left to right, we have the arm track control, the track mute control, the track solo control, and the monitor control toggle. 

Arm track - this “arms” the track, it’s usually toggled automatically as you switch tracks, but if you are multi-track recording, then you must setup your inputs and arm tracks manually.  I will go into detail on that in the drum recording lesson.

Track mute - this mutes the track.  All other tracks will play.

Track Solo - this mutes all other tracks.  only the Solo’d track will play.

Monitor control - this is a shortcut, simply turns the monitor on or off.

So, plug in your instrument into your interface, check the GB input, turn the monitor on and you should be getting sound through GB.  The track meters should be working, make sure they don’t peak constantly.

This is a guitar recording track I made:

The track “no effects” (default name) is setup to record guitar.  Multi-track recording is not enabled here, ignore that.  But notice the plug-ins.  If you set the compressor up like the click track, it will be fine for recording.  The next plugin you want is Amp Simulation, this is a digital guitar amp processor:

There’s a lot of options here, for models, I find they all have their uses, and all can sound pretty good.  I like the American Bright Gain model for one guitar, while I use the British High Gain model for my other guitar.

Once the volumes are decent, you can play with these settings until it sounds good to your ears.  The final fine tuning will come later, when you’re mixing the song, so just make it sound good for now.

Then, add reverb:

Here’s a subjective statement:  everything sounds better with reverb.  Even reverb sounds better with more reverb.  But don’t get carried away, it’s too easy to just make everything sound spacey.  So setup the reverb similar to the setup above, don’t go over 25% on the time, and don’t go above 35% on the reverb volume, and basically always turn the original volume up all the way.  The color control is a nice feature here, it allows you to control the frequencies of the reverb signal.  Leave it neutral for now, but don’t forget to check back later and have fun with this.

Finally, EQ.  Just use a preset patch called “Improve Guitars”.  It’s a decent baseline.

Your guitar (or other instrument) should sound pretty good now, your tempo should be set, and you should be ready to record something.  Pressing the ‘R’ key starts recording.  

Here’s a few nice keyboard shortcuts for recording:

R                      - starts recording Spacebar        - stops recording, pauses playback, resumes playback Command+D  - duplicates a track Command+C  - copy a region or track Command+V   - paste Command+Z   - undo Command+U   - turns GB’s built in metronome on or off Command+G   - turns automatic grid-alignment on and off

Next lesson will be making some drums.  But I’m going to write a brief thing on arranging recording rock guitars.

[polycentricinc]

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[polycentricinc]

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[polycentricinc]

Garageband Lesson 3

The Short One.

We need to talk about peripherals real quick.  If you’re serious about making music, then you need to have an accurate way to listen to it.  This means a good set of headphones or speakers.  The idea is to have no amps or eq in this signal, just honest sound.

I use Sony MDR-7506 Dynamic Studio Headphones.  They were about $100 but I’ve had them for almost 8 years and never had a problem...except when I lost them, bought a new pair and then found my old ones...haha.  I also have a small Sony stereo surround amp powering a set of Magnapan speakers.  I use both about equally when mixing.  Headphones are almost essential to record instruments.

Which means, if you don’t intend to use anything but midi, you have it easy.  You don’t need headphones, microphones, instruments, or any of that. 

But if you want to use real instruments, you need a way to do that.  The best way is your instrument into a nice preamp, into an audio interface of some kind, into your computer.  But most people can’t pull that off immediately.  So, solution 1:

This thing is reasonably cheap, and converts an XLR (microphone cable) into a headphone jack.  These are designed to plug microphones into video cameras, but will work to plug a mic into most computers. (not mine though).  This relies on your sound card to convert the signal to digital, which isn’t ideal.

Solution 2:

This is how I get my signals.  It’s an Akai EIE pro.  It’s 24 bit, has 4 channels and can accept other audio interfaces to have even more channels.  But my first interface was a 16 bit single channel one from M-Audio, and it was perfect for a long time.  There’s tons of options for these things, so shop around.

Recording drums will be it’s own lesson.  So here’s the rundown for the rest of the band:

1. Electric guitars - can be done direct into GB, by simulating amplifiers to great effect.  That’s in fact how I record guitar. 

2. Acoustic guitars - can be done direct into GB as well, but don’t do it.  Acoustic guitars sound terrible unless Mic’d.  or if you spent $1500+ on certain Taylor guitars.

3. Bass guitars - Great when done direct into GB.  The very low frequencies are hard to catch with a mic, so it’s better to put bass direct into GB and use virtual amps. 

4. Microphones - one microphone, the Shure SM57, can do a great job recording all the above instruments.  Which is my next point:

Buy an SM57.  This is one of the most durable practical mics you can own.  They do vocals well (males especially), they do electric guitar amps well (arguably the best), they do acoustic guitars well (mic the sound hole, near the neck), and when combined with a direct signal, they do bass guitars well too (especially slap bass).   They also do brass and woodwind instruments well, and hi hats and ride cymbals, and toms and snare drums, etc.

I think that covers it.  Next lesson will be going from silence to noise in GB.