Hey everyone, Mr. Rude here. Due to the subject of my last post I thought it would be fitting to post a couple of songs (that most of us know)from Metallica that is a prime example of what too loud can do to your mix. The Album Death Magnetic is the bands latest album which was produced by Rick Rubin. If you compare this album to the Black album which was produced by Bob Rock you can clearly hear the difference between the 2. I have included songs from Death Magnetic and the Black album to let you be the judge of which sounds better. The beauty of audio is that it's subjective. Listen, make your choice, and send me some feedback about what you think. It would be intersting to find out what other people think, since we all hear things differently. Thanks again to everybody for you comments. PEACE!
                                                             -MR. RUDE-

The Loudness War

Hello everyone, welcome back to The Life and Times of Mr. Rude. To day I want talk about audio compression and what some in the audio industry are calling "The Loudness War". Today compression of an audio signal is now the norm for almost every track in a recording/mixing session.  The novice and beginner are under the assumption that their tracks must be as loud as possible but what they fail to realize is that louder does not always equal better. They do not understand that when you compress a track your messing with that single track (or the mixed 2 tracks) dynamic range. The dynamic range of an instrument is what gives the instrument its sonic and tonal characteristic. When you mess with that via compression/limiting you are essentially taking away the instrument is supposed to sound like naturally. As recording/mixing/mastering engineer it is out goal to capture the natural tone and sonic characteristic of any thing we record whether it be a guitar, bass, or vocal. Although compression is an essential tool for us it is imperative that we don't over do it. Don't fall into the trap of over compression it will just make your tracks sound amateur and to "Loud". I have included a short video that will let you hear what I'm talking about. Thanks again to everyone that views my blog and thanks to all those that post comments, I appreciate it! Until next time, PEACE.

                                   - MR. RUDE-

How music and sound affects the brain Part II

Hello again everyone, Mr. Rude is back with part 2 of "How music and sound affects the brain". I hope that you found the first part informative. If you didn't then maybe this isn't the blog for you. Anyway, part 2 of this post is a continuence of an article that I found by Ben Geenfield that continues to explain about the chemicals in the brain that are affected by sound and different music for that matter on a daily basis. If you found the first part educational, then this part will also hit home pretty well. I want to remind all the viewers of this blog that this blog is for persons with interests in all things audio. If there is at anytimt you don't understand somthing that I post please feel free ask questions. That's what the comments section is for. I will always be glad to answer your questions with as much detail as possible and if there is something that I don't know I'll be glad to do the research for you and get the correct answer to you as soon as I can. Thanks again to all that view and comment on my blog. I really appreciate it. Thanks Again! PEACE

                                                             -MR. RUDE-


Article Starts Here:

Most of us live the majority of our lives in a state of primarily beta brain waves – aroused, alert, concentrated, but also somewhat stressed.
When we lower the brain wave frequency to alpha, we can put ourselves in an ideal condition to learn new information, perform more elaborate tasks, learn languages, analyze complex situations and even be in what sports psychologists call “The Zone”, which is a state of improved focus and performance in athletic competitions or exercise. Part of this is because being the slightly decreased electrical activity in the brain can lead to significant increases in feel-good brain chemicals like endorphins, noroepinephrine and dopamine.
So, for example, when you meditate, you are focusing on something, whether it’s a candle flame or your breath going in or out, or a mantra or a prayer. When you focus like that, the electrical patterns in your brain slow down and relax, and the amplitude of your brain-waves generally stabilizes in the alpha wave range.
But it turns out that you don’t need to be a trained monk or meditate for weeks on end to be able to achieve this state of alpha brain wave relaxation.
Instead, you can use a concept called “brainwave entrainment” to get the same effect.
Brainwave entrainment is any method that causes your brainwave frequencies to fall into step with a specific frequency. It’s based on the concept that the human brain has a tendency to change its dominant EEG frequency towards the frequency of a dominant external stimulus (such as music, or sound).
The type of sound frequencies that are typically used in brainwave entrainment are called “binaural” beats. The way that these work is that two tones close in frequency generate a beat frequency at the difference of the frequencies.
I know this sounds complicated, but it’s pretty simple to understand when you think about it. For example, a 495 Hz audio tone and 505 Hz audio tone (whether overlaid in music or in a sound frequency) will produce a 10 Hz beat, roughly in the middle of the alpha brain wave range, like this:


OK, so now we get to the cool, practical application of using sound and music to enhance your brain and change your brain wave frequences.
I hunted down an expert, Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, from NeuroAcoustic.com, which produces and educates on using sound for stress reduction, relaxation, sleep enhancement, mega-learning, creativity, peak performance, meditation and higher states of consciousness.

 

How music and sound affects the Brain Part I

Hello Everyone, Mr. Rude is back with some good information about how frequencies effect the brain and how they motivate us in different ways throughout our daily lives. In this two part post I'm posting an article by Ben Greenfield that expalins how important these elements are to our lives that no one really thinks about. Ben greefield is a fitness guy and I myself was pretty suprised about what this guy had to say. I hope you find this information useful and educational. Thanks again to everyone who views my blog and comments. PEACE!!

                                                                      -MR. RUDE-









Most of us know that work out songs and music can help you to exercise harder
But if you understand how sound and music actually change your brain waves, you can use this knowledge to alter your mental and physical performance states with laser accuracy.
It sounds geeky, but I’m going to explain how…

At first glance, brain waves seem a bit like “woo-woo” science, and it can be a bit intimidating and confusing to understand how they work.
But here’s the basics, which will really help you when you’re listening to today’s interview with Dr. Jeffrey Thompson about how sound affects your brain.
Your brain is made up of billions of brain cells called neurons, and your neurons (just like the rest of your body) use electricity to communicate with each other. As you can probably imagine, these millions of neurons sending signals all at once produces an enormous amount of electrical activity in your brain, and this can actually be detected using medical equipment like an electroencephalography (EEG), which measuring electricity levels over areas of your scalp.
When you graph the electrical activity of your brain using EEG, you generate what is called a brainwave pattern, which is called a “wave” pattern because of its cyclic, wave-like nature.
And the brainwave patterns are generally categorized like this: