Hi Adrian,

Many musicians, I know have very little understanding of acoustics and of what good sound is. A musician may get away with those shortcomings. A composer, an arranger or a conductor, needs to understand well the basis of sound. The composer Karl Heinz Stockhausen even studied acoustics to enhance his craft.

If you want to compose music for just a few musicians to play from a score, then Notation Composer is all you need. If you want to produce music as sound tracks, then you need to manage a production system and consider the basis of sounds. In particular, your hearing needs to be trained well, to be able to make judgments.

I have listened to the backing track of “Dark Distant Memories”. Firstly the sounds from EWO are very poor. Another sample library will fix this problem. The level of a .wav file, derived from the .mp3 file, frequently exceeds 0dB, resulting in distortion.

The volume level of the instruments need to be very carefully balanced against each other, but in total never add up or exceed 0dB. I am aiming at -1dB for the maximum peak of the track. Random waves of several instruments add up by the square root of the sum of the individual levels. Four violins will give you only twice the sound level. Reverb adds to the level. Do not use effects unless you have a good reason. Reverb is the only effect you might want to add and possibly only for the vocalist. If you produce a backing track for a life performance, do not add reverb, as you need to add it during the performance to suit the auditorium. Cubase should give you all you need as production software.

The most practical recording is simply a stereo recording. You need a pair of good studio speakers with a matching subwoofer, all suitably placed and driven by a linear amplifier. A four string double bass goes down to 41.2 Hz; a five string double bass to 32.7 Hz. Bass drums produce very low sounds. If you use a home hi-fi system, make sure that it is set to a linear frequency response (no bass or treble lift). You need to listen to the music at the level the listener will finally hear. Human hearing is not linear in respect to the sound level. Perception of high frequency notes with their harmonics and low frequency notes falls of at lower levels. If you work on a life production, the volume level at which you monitor the results, will be quite high. Not too good if you have neighbors living close by. I live in the Australian bush where I might only frighten of some kangaroos, when listening to some of the music, I am working on.

The fundamental aim of a sound system is to produce sounds as close as possible to the original or intended sound. Even the best systems are not fully satisfactory and in some ways unreal.

As you can see, it can all be relatively simple. How well you have trained your hearing will set the quality of the result.


Best wishes,

Herbert